Category Archives: Conferences

CFP: Panel on ‘In Search of Faith: Itinerant Religiosities and Negotiated Moralities in Asia’

Posted on by

CFP: Panel on ‘In Search of Faith: Itinerant Religiosities and Negotiated Moralities in Asia’
Conference: Annual Conference of the Australian Anthropological Society, Melbourne, Australia, 1-4 December 2015
Conference Website: http://www.nomadit.co.uk/aas/aas2015/cfpan.shtml

Deadline for Abstracts: Friday, 12 June 2015

We would like to invite paper proposals to our AAS panel. Focusing on the ritual, missionary and pastoral dimensions of religion in the context of migration, this panel aims to explore how Asian migrant communities interpret religious commitments, grapple with alternative moralities and refashion narratives of displacement. A detailed panel abstract is appended below.

Please email your abstracts (max. 250 words) to the Co-Convenors of this panel by Friday, 12 June 2015. Our contact details are as follows:

We look forward to hearing from all interested parties.

Panel Abstract:

Religious observance in a foreign country is not merely an effort to uphold traditional values and to connect to the homeland, it is an important way of negotiating alternative moralities, generating new meanings, re-signifying the experience of migration, and increasingly, extending the global reach of formerly regionally bounded religious traditions. This panel aims to unpack the religious innovations of Asian migrant communities in order to explore the lines of connection that emerge between transnational flows and religious identities. We focus on understanding how migrant communities pursue their religiosity when unfastened from local settings, and explore what spatial displacements do to religious experiences, practices and duties, and how the affective dimensions of migration are addressed by old and new religious commitments. In doing so, this panel examines the multiple ways in which migrant communities negotiate new and old moralities and how these activities factor in the quality of the migratory experience.

The post CFP: Panel on ‘In Search of Faith: Itinerant Religiosities and Negotiated Moralities in Asia’ appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

Appel à communications: Religions et pouvoir

Posted on by

Religions et pouvoir: habiter le(les) judaïsme(s), le(les) catholicisme(s) et l’Islam(s) à partir des subalternités

Dans ce Groupe de Travail, nous proposons de décentrer l’orientation des regards qui pense le religieux comme un lieu de domination. Au contraire, nous valorisons les perspectives analytiques qui mettent l’accent sur les réflexions qui interrogent la manière qu’ont les sujets subalternes de construire leurs positions et d’habiter les normes et les espaces tout en donnant sens simultanément à leurs pratiques et à leurs croyances. À partir d’une perspective comparée pour le(les) judaïsme(s), le(les) catholicisme(s) et l’Islam(s) en Amérique Latine, nous mettons en valeur les formes de penser les normes (de genre, de la vie quotidienne, éthiques, sexuelles, reproductives, de la santé, de la famille, du parenté) et le religieux, ainsi que les situations de pouvoir et les formes d’habiter les positions des subalternités. Comme Saba Mahmood (2005) nous le suggère, ce n’est pas simplement de démontrer comment les normes religieuses agissent sur les sujets, mais plutôt et au même moment comment ces sujets habitent la norme. Nous nous sommes intéressés à l’ouverture d’un espace de réflexion que cherche l’analyse critique et décolonial sur les relations, les intersections et les confrontations du religieux et leurs normes à partir des différentes sphères de la vie quotidienne, en considérant les multiples et changeantes manifestations de la religion en contextes sociaux et culturels différents.

Pour info :
http://www.alternativasreligiosas.fcp.uncu.edu.ar/index.php/alternativasreligiosas2015/alternativasreligiosas2015

Appel à communications / Date limite de soumission jusqu’au 31 mai 2015GT13.

———————————————————-

GT13. Religiones y poder: habitar el(los) judaísmo(s), catolicismo(s) e Islam(s) desde las subalternidades

En este Grupo de Trabajo nos proponemos descentrar la mirada de las posiciones que piensan a lo religioso como un lugar de dominación, rescatando perspectivas analíticas que aborden un campo de discusión sobre cómo los/as sujetos/as subalternos/as construyen sus posiciones, habitan las normas y los espacios, dando significado a sus prácticas y creencias. Destacamos las formas de pensar las normas (de género, vida cotidiana, éticas, sexuales, reproductivas, salud, familia, parentesco) y lo religioso, las situaciones de poder y las formas de habitar esas posiciones desde la subalternidad en perspectiva comparada para el/los judaísmo(s), catolicismo(s) e Islam(s) en América Latina.Como Saba Mahmood (2005) nos sugiere no es simplemente demostrar cómo las normas religiosas actúan sobre los/as sujetos/as, sino más bien y al mismo tiempo cómo ellos/as habitan esas normas. Nos interesa abrir un espacio de reflexión que busque analizar de manera crítica y descolonial las relaciones, intersecciones y confrontaciones de lo religioso y sus normas con las distintas esferas de la vida cotidiana, considerando las múltiples y cambiantes manifestaciones de la religión en contextos sociales y culturales diferentes.

Convocatoria abierta / Envío de resúmenes hasta el 31 mayo 2015

Coordinatrices:

  • María Gabriela Irrazábal,
    Universidad Nacional Arturo Jauretche / Ceil-CONICET, Argentina
    gabrielairrazabal@gmail.com
  • Ana María Tapia Adler
    Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades, Universidad de Chile, Chile
  • Mari Sol García Somoza
    Universidad de Buenos Aires / Université Paris Descartes, Francia

The post Appel à communications: Religions et pouvoir appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

Call for Papers: Ten years after – The Muhammad Cartoons: Perspectives, Reflections, and Challenges

Posted on by

Ten years after – The Muhammad Cartoons: Perspectives, Reflections, and Challenges

Aalborg, Denmark, September 28-29, 2015

Ten years have gone since the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten decided to publish 12 Muhammad cartoons of the prophet Muhammad as cartoonists ‘imagined him’. The cartoons and the stories about them cost the lives of 150 people. Denmark’s reputation abroad and export to Arab speaking countries were severely impacted. In addition, it has affected the opportunities of immigrants, who experience they are being stigmatized and not fully allowed to be Danes. Many Danes have had their ideas of womanhood among Muslims re-enforced, ideas of incompatible values have been strengthened, and the debate about freedom of speech reified. For many non-Western Muslims, the cartoon story has become an icon of Western arrogance and hatred towards Islam. Their anger came from a deep sense that they are not respected, that they and their most cherished feelings are “fair game.”

New research suggest that increased racial discrimination and enforcement of racial-cultural logics of belonging facilitates mobilization of minority youth groups to crime, violence, political activism, carelessness and terrorism. This development exposes a “schismogenetic” process that merits academic attention analysis and solutions.

Some of the questions for the conference:

  • – How is the gap between “the academics” and “the politicals” being played out?
  • – Is there a gap between the understanding of the crisis in Denmark and abroad?
  • – What are the differences in the debates about Islam in contemporary Denmark and other non-Muslim countries?
  • – Ten years after – did the insult, the ridicule, and the mocking lead to a better society?
  • – How does the cartoon story relate to the moralization of Danish society and the emergence of online social media?
  • – How are democratic values and free speech affected ten years after by the spread of Islamophobia, policies, and confrontational news media coverage and debate?

Confirmed keynote speakers are Lene Hansen, Mark Allen Peterson, Faisal Devji, Deepa Kumar, and Peter Hervik. Chairs of workshops are Carsten Stage, Signe Kjær Jørgensen, Anja Kublitz, and Mikkel Rytter. Read more at this site which opens within very soon:

http://www.ten-years-after.aau.dk

Please send your title, abstract, affiliation and contact information before 28 August via

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mc2015

The post Call for Papers: Ten years after – The Muhammad Cartoons: Perspectives, Reflections, and Challenges appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

Workshop/CFP: “Religious and social dynamics amongst mercantile communities of the western Indian Ocean”

Posted on by

FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
WESTERN INDIAN OCEAN STUDIES WORKSHOP
Call for Papers

Conveners: Iqbal Akhtar and Steven Vose, School of International and Public Affairs at FIU
Venue: Florida International University, Miami, Florida (USA)
Date: 12-13 November 2015

Co-sponsors: Florida International University, Le Centre d’Études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud (CNRS), and the American Institute for Pakistan Studies.

Title:  Rāhē najāt (The path of salvation): Religious and social dynamics amongst mercantile communities of the western Indian Ocean

Agenda: A two-day conference with a public keynote bringing together interdisciplinary scholars in the humanities, generally defined, in order to present and discuss the medieval and modern histories of merchant communities of the western Indian Ocean. The output of the conference will be an edited volume or a special issue of a journal and key lectures made publically available via the FIU web portal.

Theme: This gathering will explore religious and social transformations that occurred as a result of migration and cosmopolitanism, such as transformative cosmologies and transnational endowments. This conference attempts to transcend the transatlantic divide among scholars of medieval and modern trading communities of the west coast of the Subcontinent. For example, early modern Sindh and Baluchistan were home to a diverse array of religious communities from Ibāḍī Omanis to vāṇiyō Jain and Hindu merchants as well as numerous mercantile caste communities, such as the Khōjā and Bhāṭiyā. These South Asian communities were intimately linked to their settlements throughout the western Indian Ocean, particularly East Africa. This conference will explore how processes of migration transformed social dynamics and community identities.

Some of the questions posed by this conference include: What were the changing dynamics of port-hinterland relationships of caste communities? How were the religious identities of these merchant communities formed and influenced by communal interactions with each other in the precolonial period? How did the oceanic caste communities develop distinct forms of praxis? What of the kāḷā pāṇī (‘black water’) taboo, was it operative? If so, for whom? How has the modern loss of ancestral scripts and dialects transformed their communal identities today?  How and to what extent were literatures transported?

Deadline: Abstracts of 250 words including the name, affiliation, and contact information of proposed presenters are due by 15 June 2015 to be emailed to Iqbal Akhtar (iakhtar@fiu.edu)

The post Workshop/CFP: “Religious and social dynamics amongst mercantile communities of the western Indian Ocean” appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

RC-22 Call for Papers: 3rd Forum of Sociology, Vienna 10-14 July, 2016

Posted on by

RC–22 Call for Papers: “Religion, Secularity and Post-Secularity: Crafting Meaningful Futures”

The Third ISA Forum of Sociology “The Futures We Want: Global Sociology and the Struggles for a Better World’’ to be held in Vienna, 10-14 July, 2016.

Programme Co-ordinator: Vineeta Sinha (University of Singapore: socvs@nus.edu.sg) Assisted by Olga Breskaya (European Humanities University, Luthuania: olga.breskaya@ehu.lt)

PROGRAM THEME: The world’s current socio-economic and political turmoil has a profound impact on religious expressions, sensibilities and worldviews. Religious expressions and worldviews also affect the surrounding socio-economic and political spheres. Such dramatic changes produce disquiet, tumult and agitation but also open opportunities to question the status and create novel social possibilities.
Sociologists of religion face a number of challenges in understanding these interactions. Among these is the need to develop new theoretical and empirical approaches to our subject. Sociologists have long argued about the continuing place and value of religions in a secularizing and globalizing world . Although the notion of ‘post-secularity’ is hardly new, it has recently emerged forcefully (and somewhat fashionably) in attempts to theorise the visibility and relevance of religiosity in the world today.

CALL FOR PAPERS:  We are seeking papers for the following sessions (listed with the organizer’s name(s)):

  1. The Categories of Religion and the Secular in the Post-Secular Discourse (Mitsutoshi Horii)
  2. Negotiating Religion and Citizenship in Global Context (Olga Breskaya)
  3. Religion in the Public Sphere (Enzo Pace and Orivaldo Lopes)
  4. Welfare and Civil Society: The Role of Religion (Per Pettersson)
  5. The Politics of Religious Heritage: Memory, Identity and Place (Mar Griera)
  6. From New Age and Spiritualities to Different World Views: Individualized Religious Beliefs, Autonomy Values and Individualized Morality (Tilo Beckers and Pascal Siegers)
  7. Religion, Gender, and the Internet (Anna Halafoff and Emma Tomalin)
  8. Topics and Forms of Religious Mobilization in Europe (Sinisa Zrinscak)
  9. Religious Trends Among Second Generations in Europe​ (Roberta Ricucci)
  10. Religious Radicalization (Inger Furseth)
  11. Religious Engagement and Spiritual Empowerment in Asian Countries: Quest for Human Security and Self-Fulfilment (Yoshihide Sakurai)
  12. Studying the African Diaspora Significance for Struggles Toward a Better World(Jualynne Dodson)
  13. World Religions and Axial Civilizations (Steven Kalberg & Said Arjomand)
  14. Religion, Plus and Minus: Human Rights; Inter-Religious Understanding; Peace and Violence.  (NOTE: this will be three sessions, but the CONFEX computer system forces us to treat them as one session for now.  Please specify the session in which you wish your paper to appear.)
    • ​Religion and Human Rights (no organizer as yet)
    • How to Build Better Understanding among Religions (Miroljub Jevtik)​
    • Religion, Peace, and Violence (Mohammad Ashphaq)
  15. Two sessions co-sponsored by with RC54: The Body in the Social Sciences (organized by Bianca Maria Pirani):
    • Rhythms and Ritual
    • Body and Synchrony in the Storytelling Era

HOW TO PROPOSE A PAPER: Starting 14 April, 2015, you can submit your proposals online at the International Sociological Association’s website.  Paper submissions close on 30 September.

  • A link will appear at http://www.isa-sociology.org/forum-2016/
  • Paper proposals must be in English, French, or Spanish.
  • Please also note that you must become an RC22 member to have your paper proposal accepted; you can join the Research Committee through the ISA website at http://www.isa-sociology.org/memb_i/index.htm
  • In order to be included in the programme, all participants (presenters, chairs, discussants, etc.) must join the ISA and register for the Forum by the early registration deadline of 1 April, 2016. Without early registration and membership, presenters, chairs, etc. will not appear in the Programme Book or in the Abstracts Book.

IN ADDITION we will have:

  • A Distinguished Lecture
  • A Presidential Session on the topic: “Where Do We Go from Here? an Agenda for the Sociology of Religion”
  • A Business Meeting / Reception / Party for RC-22 members and friends.
    (Who says sociologists can’t have fun?)

The post RC-22 Call for Papers: 3rd Forum of Sociology, Vienna 10-14 July, 2016 appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

Call for Papers: “Making Sense of Religious Texts”

Posted on by

KNAW Akademie Colloquium 2015
Making Sense of Religious Texts: Patterns of Agency, Synergy and Identity
27-29 October 2015

The Trippenhuis, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), Amsterdam

Call for Papers – deadline 15 April 2015
http://www.rug.nl/ggw/news/archive/2015/call-for-papers-for-knaw-colloquium-and-masterclass-deadline-15-april

The post Call for Papers: “Making Sense of Religious Texts” appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

Seminar: Islamic Modernities: Time and Space

Posted on by

University of Louisville
Louisville, KY
April 16-17, 2015

Presented by:
Midwest Association for Middle East and Islamic Studies (MAMEIS)
Middle East and Islamic Studies program, University of Louisville

Keynote Speaker: Asma Afsaruddin, Chair and Professor, NELC, Indiana University

Full Conference Schedule: http://www.indstate.edu/mameis/conference.htm

The Midwest Association for Middle East and Islamic Studies and University of Louisville’s Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies program are pleased to present this joint conference on Islamic Modernities: Time and Space at the University of Louisville, April 16-17, 2015.

Modernity serves as a dynamic lens for viewing a wide range of transformations in Middle Eastern and Islamic societies, even as no generally accepted definition of modernity has yet emerged. The scholarly discussion on modernity has broadened to view this as not only a global, structural transformation centered on Europe, but a process that has created “many modernities,” each with its own local vernacular form. Moreover, modernity has been recognized as not only a temporal period, but also a process manifested in spatial relationships that shape, and are shaped by, historical agents. This conference will highlight current research related to theorizing and applying the concept of “modernity” to Middle East and Islamic studies in a broad, interdisciplinary manner.

For more information, contact:

James.Gustafson@indstate.edu, or Julie.Peteet@louisville.edu
MAMEIS: http://www.mameis.org
Middle East and Islamic Studies – University of Louisville:
http://www.louisville.edu/meis

The post Seminar: Islamic Modernities: Time and Space appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

CFP: Workshop on Women Negotiating Secularism

Posted on by

Invitation and call for papers

Women negotiating secularism and multiculturalism through civil society organisations

Centre for Trust, Peace & Social Relations, Coventry University, UK, June 30 – July 1st 2015

This workshop is the second of a series of international workshops on the theme “Is secularism bad for women? Women, Religion and Multiculturalism in contemporary Europe” focusing on the relation between the role of religion in women’s lives and gender equality (https://womenreligionandsecularism.wordpress.com ). This is an important question to debate, given the increased visibility of religion in the globalized world of the 21st century. While some scholars and political actors argue that a form of political secularism is the best way to ensure gender equality, others consider secularism a bad political arrangement for religious people, because it excludes them from the political and public sphere. Taking forward discussions initiated by Susan Moller Okin’s controversial 1997 essay ‘Is multiculturalism bad for women?’ and continued recently in works of
scholars including Saba Mahmood, Joan Scott, Nilüfer Göle, Nadje Al-Ali, Linell Cady and Tracy Fessenden, these workshops address the following questions:

  • How can European societies secure religious women’s freedom and flourishing?
  • What political arrangements offer the most to those who are religious and female? Is religion – at least some forms of it – an impossible impediment, something that must be destroyed in order for women to be free?
  • Or can religion be a positive force in women’s lives, something that enhances their wellbeing and aids social justice?

This workshop will approach these issues by focusing on the organisational or group level; the first workshop at Uppsala University (May 2015) examines the individual or everyday level, and the third at University of Coimbra, Lisbon (November 2015), will address the public and political context. In the Coventry workshop we will investigate what women’s and religious organisations are doing to address issues of secularism and multiculturalism. How do these differ by geography or faith group? To what extent do faith-based organisations working for religious inclusion in civil society press for gender equality too? How do women’s organisations approach religion, and do they consider religion to be an equality issue alongside ethnicity, gender, sexuality or disability? How are women’s faith-based organisations’ working across secular/religious spheres and with other civil society organisations?
How do theological/hermeneutical approaches inform religious organisations’ work on gender and women’s issues?

Keynote speakers:  Dr Line Nyhagen (Loughborough University) and Dr Niamh Reilly (National University of Ireland, Galway)

We invite papers that discuss these questions. Abstracts should be sent by 10th April, written in English and not exceed 300 words. Notification of acceptance will be given by April 30th. Please send abstracts to: wrsworkshops2015@gmail.com

Practical information:

The workshop will run from 4 pm on 30th June to 5 pm on 1st July. Papers will be presented in thematic, parallel sessions. Participation fee is £15 per participant or £10 for PhD, post-doc or civil society organizations, which includes refreshments. The workshop is funded by the International Society for the Sociology of Religion and organized by Dr Kristin Aune (Coventry University), Prof Mia Lӧvheim (Uppsala University), Dr Terhi Utriainen (University of Helsinki), Dr Alberta Giorgi (Centre of Social Studies, University of Coimbra; GRASSROOTSMOBILISE, Eliamep) & Dr Teresa Toldy (Fernando Pessoa
University, Porto; Centre of Social Studies, University of Coimbra). A book publication featuring some of the papers is planned.

The post CFP: Workshop on Women Negotiating Secularism appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

CFP: Religion, Art, and Creativity in the Global City

Posted on by

114th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association
Denver  CO
November 18-22, 2015

PANEL: RELIGION, ART, AND CREATIVITY IN THE GLOBAL CITY

Contemporary cities pride themselves about being havens of cutting edge creativity. They celebrate art, culture, and innovation with highly publicized festivals, glossy brochures, and clever slogans. Religiously inspired creativity, lived religious arts, and their vernacular expressions play no role in such celebrations of urban originality. Secular fashionable definitions, dominant intellectual and artistic networks, and political and economic contingencies define some features of social and cultural innovation and artistic expression as relevant, and others, like religious ones, as insignificant.
This panel examines manifestations of social, cultural, artistic, and aesthetic innovation produced by pious individuals and their communities in global cities. Papers analyze the complex and largely neglected role of faith-based urban art and creativity. They explore exemplary contexts of pious creativity and cultural innovation. Analyzing contemporary artistic production (e.g. visual arts, music), aesthetic creativity (e.g. places of worship), social and spatial configurations (e.g. places of worship as innovative cultural centers), social innovations (e.g. faith-based associations/activities), and novel cultural formats (e.g. religious events), panelists illustrate that pious individuals are artistic and creative contributors to globalized cityscapes. Religious communities are rarely seen as havens of urban art and creativity. Instead, especially, minority communities (e.g. Muslims in Europe) are often viewed with suspicion, and their creative contributions remain contentious.

Theoretically the panel engages debates about urban art and creativity, and cultural production (engaging among others Richard Florida’s concept of the “Creative City”), which understand urban innovation as originating in small circles of creative actors and neglect religiously inspired vernacular contributions to urban creative transformations. Using examples of religiously inspired art and social and cultural creativity, panelists illustrate that only a more inclusive focus on all urban constituencies can produce a thorough understanding of urban creativity and creative processes. The challenge in trying to understand urban creativity is not to applaud the usual “creative suspects,” but to examine the creative contributions of all urbanites regardless of class, ethnicity, religion, and (desired) outcomes.

Panel Organizer: Petra Kuppinger
Discussant: James Bielo

For questions and inquiries send emails to petra@monm.edu<mailto:petra@monm.edu> .

Please submit abstracts (250 words) by April 4, 2015 to petra@monm.edu<mailto:petra@monm.edu>

Petra Kuppinger
Professor of Anthropology
Department of Sociology/Anthropology
Monmouth College
Monmouth IL 61462

The post CFP: Religion, Art, and Creativity in the Global City appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

Seminar on Religious Transnationalism, April 16-17, 2015

Posted on by

Dear colleagues,

We would like to invite you to join our 2-day seminar on religious transnationalism on Thursday 16 and Friday 17 April 2015 at VU University Amsterdam.  

Venue: VU University (Metropolitan building, room Z009 and Z007)

Time: 9.30 a.m. till 5.00 p.m. (the programme is attached)

Conveners:

Prof. Dr. Thijl Sunier, department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, VU University

Prof. Dr. Nina Glick Schiller, University of Manchester

General theme

The seminar deals with the contemporary dynamics of transnational religious fields across the world by addressing the shifting configurations between new modes of transnational religious practices on the one hand and evolving forms of nation-building and national domestication of religious communities in a time of growing nationalism en exclusion. Transnational activity of religious communities and social actors is certainly not new, nor is the paradox between people living religious lives, locally and transnationally and states domesticating religions (Glick Schiller et al. 1994). However, emerging new forms of regulatory regimes both at a national and a local level have engendered new forms of transnational activity. The ever changing character of the ‘cosmologistical problem’ (Vasquez et al. 2003) informs and shapes new modes of transnational religious activity.

Keynote address: Prof. Dr. Manuel Vasquez (University of Florida, USA), Thursday morning, 16 April, entitled “Seeng Transnationally:  Religion and the Emergence of New Regimes of Visibility and Discipline.”

Four panels

Transnational religious activism

Pilgrimage

Secular intolerance

Cosmopolitanism and religion

Entrance: free, and open to everyone! Registration: h.l.e.vander.linden@vu.nl

Please find the programme attached. We would appreciate it if you could distribute this invitation among your network and/or students.

We hope to welcome you on 16 and 17 April!

Best regards, on behalf of the conveners,

Heleen van der Linden

The post Seminar on Religious Transnationalism, April 16-17, 2015 appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.