Call for Papers
SCIENTOLOGY IN SCHOLARLY PERSPECTIVE
First International Conference on the Study of Scientology (and Antoinism)

24-25 January 2014

Venue: Faculty of Comparative Studies of Religions (FVG) – Wilrijk (Antwerpen) Belgium Sponsor: Observatoire Européen des religions et de la Laïcité (The European Observatory of Religion and Secularism)

Compared with other New Religious Movements, Scientology was largely ignored by religious studies scholars for decades. Following the groundbreaking work of Roy Wallis, The Road to Total Freedom (1976), and Harriet Whitehead, Renunciation and Reformulation (1987), one had to wait more than two decades for the next academic volumes on the Church to appear, Scientology (2009), edited by James R. Lewis, and The Church of Scientology (2011), by Hugh B. Urban. There are now positive signs that more and more researchers are involved in researching issues raised by various aspects of Scientology.

The Observatory thus feels it is time to hold a major international conference to bring this new scholarship to light. We seek to bring together researchers working on Scientology in the fields of theology, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, literature, film et cetera, whether established academicians, doctoral students or master’s students. This will be the first academic conference devoted exclusively to Scientology.

The topics listed below are meant to be suggestive rather than exhaustive:
– Doctrinal characteristics
– Healing and therapy
– Sociological status: where does Scientology fits into the typology of religious groups?
– Judicial issues addressing Scientology’s religious status and ex-member lawsuits
– Membership: numbers, growth, sociological profile
– Recruitment, missions
– Organization of the Church and its networks
– Social and political conflict and exposés
– Media coverage
– Human rights and humanitarian programs run by the Church, etc.

The language of the conference will be English.

Organizing Committee: Chris Vonck, Professor of Religious Studies and Dean of the faculty of Comparative Studies of Religion at the University of Antwerp (Belgium); Bernadette Rigal-Cellard, Professor of North American Studies and Director of the Master’s Program in Religious Studies at the Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux 3 (France); James R. Lewis, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Tromsø (Norway); Regis Dericquebourg, Université de Lille-France, Group on the Sociology of Religion and Secularism-CNRS-Paris (France).

The committee will select papers based on their scholarly quality and non-partisan approach. Papers will be considered for publication, with editorial details provided during the conference.Keynote Speakers will be announced at a later date. Additionally, Information on housing, transportation and tours will be provided later.

Deadline for proposal submissions: 30 September 2013.

Send a 10 line abstract, with a 5 line résumé of your previous work to:
regis.dericquebourg@univ-lille3.fr

[Antoinism – In order to benefit from the meeting of international scholars in Antwerp, the local organizers also plan a workshop on a major therapeutic new religion, Antoinism, which originated in Belgium at the beginning of the 20th century. To submit a proposal for the workshop, follow the same guidelines as set forth above.]

ISA World Congress – Yokohama 2014
Full RC22 Session List

Part 1: Special Sessions

1. Presidential Address: Facing an Unequal Adam Possamai, RC22 President
Post-Secular World

2. Presidential Invited Session: Religion, Organized by Adam Possamai
Nationalism, and Transnationalism

3. RC22 Business Meeting

Part 2: Open Sessions: please submit your paper proposals at the ISA website; links will be posted after 3 June at http://www.isa-sociology.org/congress2014 /rc/rc.php?n=RC22 Deadline: 30 September

TITLE ORGANIZER

Part 3: Invited Sessions: these sessions are not open for papers; their participants have already been invited.

TITLE ORGANIZER

NOTE ABOUT “ROUNDTABLES”: We are allowed just 22 sessions, including the Business Meeting. We have therefore combined five sessions into “roundtable” sessions, which allow more than one session to take place at one time. WE HAVE NOT YET CHOSEN WHICH SESSIONS WILL BE ROUNDTABLES AND WHICH WILL HAVE FULL SESSIONS!!

The ISA required us to assign sessions to these slots, and we did so. THESE PRELIMINARY ASSIGNMENTS ARE NOT FINAL. We shall make the final assignments after all papers have been received. Our assignments will depend on several factors, none of which we can gauge now.

Dear All,
Call for Papers to be presented in the Regular Session: Religion, Reason and Science.

The 41st World Congress of the International Institute of Sociology (IIS) will take place in Uppsala, Sweden, on 9-10 June, 2013. The theme of the congress is Sociology in Its Global Contexts: International Institute of Sociology at 120. Both on Sunday, 9 June, and Monday, 10 June, there will be room for a large number of parallel regular sessions. Each session is 90 minutes long and consists of an oral presentation of 3 to 5 papers.

REGULAR SESSION INFORMATION
Title of Session: Religion, Reason and Science
Name of Session Convener(s): Irena C. Veljanova, University of Western Sydney, Sydney Email:
i.veljanova@uws.edu.au<mailto:i.veljanova@uws.edu.au>

Abstract: The understanding that intrinsic intellectual conflict exists between religion and science postulates that science holds the primacy over logic and rational thinking, whereas religious knowledge is unscientific, and by extension, irrational and illogical. Stephen Fuller’s (2007) argument for scientific creationism challenges this understanding stating that creationism has ‘multiple
meanings, … [some of which] have been historically instrumental (and perhaps even conceptually necessary) for the emergence and maintenance of rationality and science’ (Fuller 2007: 27-28). While not identical, science and religion are not mutually exclusive knowledge paradigms, nor are they irreconcilable cultural forces rather they are differently institutionalised (ibid.). Considering the above, the session convenor welcomes, but is not limited to, papers with theoretical and empirical focus that explore the notion of rational and logical thinking within the religious domain.

My best,
Dr. Irena C. Veljanova
Lecturer (Sociology)
Sociology and Criminology TAR Group
School of Social Sciences and Psychology University of Western Sydney

Chicago Catholic Immigrants Conference: The Italians November 8-9 Loyola University Chicago

*Call for Papers:*

The conference invites 20-30 minute papers that look at the late 19th and 20th century Italian immigration, with an emphasis on Chicago and the Midwest. Presentations may be given from the viewpoint of ethnic studies, urban and cultural history, literature and language, theology, and the sociology of religion. Italian-American artists are also welcomed to propose a topic or work of art for exhibition or performance.

Topics for presentation include:
– Italian American Migration
– Italian Nationalism and Americanism
– The demographics of Italian neighborhoods, then and now
– The role Italian-American personalities and religious orders in the development of Catholicism in Chicago of the 19th and 20th century
– Cult and Culture, Devotional practices of Italian-Americans
– The Catholic Imagination in Italian-Americans: Music, Literature, Film, Painting

*Please provide a title and a 200 word abstract for your paper by August 1, 2013.*
Email it to Dr. Dominic Candeloro (dominic.candeloro@gmail.com) and Dr. Mark Bosco, SJ (mbosco@luc.edu). <http://blogs.lib.luc.edu/ccic/call-for-papers/>

  1. The International Sociological Association (ISA) announces the organization of the Sixth ISA Worldwide Competition for Junior Sociologists. The winners will be invited to participate in the XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology which will take place in Yokohama, Japan in July 2014.

2. By Junior Scholars we mean people who obtained his/her first Master’s degree (or an equivalent graduate diploma) in sociology or in a related discipline, less than 10 years prior to May 1st, 2013. In case of joint or multiple authorship, this rule applies to all authors of the submitted paper.

1. Candidates must send
* An original paper that has not been previously published anywhere.
* The paper should be no more than 6,000 words typewritten double-spaced on one side of the paper with margins of 3 cm and the pages numbered.
* An abstract (maximum 500 words) with five key words must be included in the paper.
* Notes and the bibliography should appear at the end of the text. Papers which do not conform to these rules run the risk of being rejected. We prefer papers focusing on central sociological problems and/or socially relevant issues. The phenomena examined may be social, economic, political, cultural or of any other kind, but their interpretation or analysis must show a sociological orientation (for instance, through the identification of social processes underlying the phenomena under scrutiny, critique of commonsense interpretations or of well established theories, etc.).
Empirical research papers must go beyond descriptive reporting of results to broader, analytical interpretations. Papers will be judged according to perceptiveness with which issues are treated, the quality of empirical materials presented, the consistency with which an analytic framework is used, the originality of ideas, and the clarity of style. Extensiveness of referencing or the use of advanced statistical methods will be considered to be of only secondary importance, so as to provide participants throughout the world with as equal an opportunity as possible. We are particularly interested in receiving papers from scholars in Third World Countries.
The winners of the previous Competitions are not allowed to compete.

1. Papers may be written in one of the following languages: English, French, Spanish as well as Arabic, Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Russian. Assessors will be appointed for each of these languages. To give a fair chance for participants whose mother tongue is none of the above, there will be assessors in English, French and Spanish, respectively, for papers submitted by authors, who use any of these as a foreign language. All other scholars may also make use of this option if they prefer.
A revision has been made in the interest of inclusiveness as follows: Papers are expected to be written in one of the official languages of the ISA (English, Spanish and French). Papers written in other languages will be assessed by scholars competent in these languages. Where necessary the papers of finalists will be translated into one of the official languages of the ISA. [March 2012]

2. An electronic file of the paper and a cover letter (in .doc or .pdf) should be e-mailed as an attachment to Yoshimichi Sato at ysato@sal.tohoku.ac.jp by Wednesday, May 1st, 2013. The subject of the message should be “Junior Competition 2014.”
In order to protect anonymity during the selection process, authors should not put their name on the paper itself, but the cover letter should include their family name (capital letters), first name, sex, date of birth, mother tongue, degrees, e-mail address, mailing address where they can be reached and (optionally) their present occupation. All this information should be given in one of the official languages of the ISA (English, French, and Spanish). An electronic acknowledgement of the electronic submissions will be given.

3. Initially, a Jury will consider which papers reach a sufficiently high standard to be issued with a letter of official commendation and be listed on ISA website. Each language Jury will then preselect (by September 2013) a maximum of three papers. These finalists will receive Merit Award Certificates, a four-year membership in the ISA, and a registration to the XVIII World Congress of Sociology in Yokohama, Japan in July, 2014.
The ISA, however, cannot guarantee to cover costs for their travel and accommodations. All authors thus preselected will also be invited to participate in a five-day seminar prior to the Congress.

Out of the preselected finalists, the Grand Jury chaired by the ISA President Michael Burawoy will select up to five winning papers. Their authors will be immediately invited, all expenses paid, to participate in the World Congress. In case of multiple authorship, the subvention will have to be shared. Additional information may be obtained from Yoshimichi Sato, ysato@sal.tohoku.ac.jp, Coordinator of the Competition.
Committee of the Sixth ISA Worldwide Competition for Junior Sociologists:
* Yoshimichi Sato, Chair, Tohoku University, Japan
* Emma Porio, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines
* Habibul Khondker, Zayed University, United Arab Emirates
* Benjamin Tejerina, Universidad del País Vasco, Spain http://www.isa-sociology.org/wcys/index.htm

Call for Paper

International Conference
Everyday Life Practices of Muslims in Europe:Consumption and Aesthetics

Where: KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Date: 28-29 November 2013
Organiser: KU Leuven Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies (GCIS)

Keynote Speakers:
Emma Tarlo, Goldsmith, University of London
Ali Mangera, MYAA Mangera Yvars Architects (to be confirmed)

Key words: Muslims in Europe, Consumption, Everyday life practices, leisure time, Aesthetics, Muslims Artists, Architecture, Muslim Self, Body, Memory

Muslims have a longer and deeper socio-economic and cultural experience in Europe and this presence requires a deeper understanding of the ways Muslims have become a part of Europe. In this vein, everyday practices (reading, talking, walking, dwelling, cooking, eating, clothing, consuming, shopping) are considered significant because they are not the “obscure background of social activity”, rather, they are the “investigation of ways in which users operate” (de Certeau). The socio-religious practices are obscure and not familiar with a non-Muslim, and the everyday practices are necessary to discover and penetrate this deeper experience of Muslims. The practices concern a mode of operation, a logic of doing, a way of being and a meaning. They do not link only to the question of personal choice and liberties. The content of the practice is to “make explicit the system of operational combination… to bring to light the models of action characteristic of users…” (de Certeau). The everyday practices create free areas through hobbies, games, art, clothes to the users in which one can see an essential formation of the self. We would need to discuss the increased sense that Muslims have of their distinctive-similar spatial locations that serve a free area or refuge to realize him or herself.

This workshop sets out to understand the everyday practices of Muslims living in Europe. The diverse and various (non)-religious daily life practices indicate the non-defined boundaries of Muslims whose practices can be a part of the stigmatised-open spaces in public discourses.
Examining the relationship between Islam and liberal democratic values, it is important to note what kind of practices and daily life experiences are exercised in private-public areas, which also determine the views and public perception of Muslims. The identification of Muslims with one or another practice is not a simply neutral matter; this entails also an attachment to liberal, communitarian and civil meanings. Regardless of the daily life activities, these perceptions of Muslims face the challenge that Muslims are not a fixed group, but they share the same practices that others have and do. Food and eating practices, consumer way of life, marriage, salutations; these banal practices of everyday life are central to discover the subjectivity of Muslims, or in other terms, a sense of the self, a way of embodiment.
These daily practices are inextricably linked to the problematic of subjectivity. The meaning, discourses, argumentations and reasoning behind the daily life practices are detailed experiences of the self.
This workshop seeks to explain the daily life choices and preferences in the context of subjectivity and self, looking at the questions concerning the religious-cultural-ethnic constructions of practices in which different perceptions are mediated on Muslims. The daily life practices and habits are not simply a matter of realising the self, taking enjoyment. They are in articulation with manifold cultural-religious-social meanings and discourses which serve to mark boundaries, to share some common values, to distinguish rituals, to strengthen social ties, and to symbolize a distinctive group awareness.
Each of these functions and constructions concretise a kind of belief in everyday life, support a choice, and contribute to the construction of a self. However, the daily life practices and rituals have received little serious scholarly attention because of their “normal” nature and their link with ordinary subjects rather than with polemical and controversial issues such as integration, citizenship, security and sharia. Devoting attention to daily life practices needs to disrupt and disturb these debates about Muslims in Europe.

A particular focus will be on the impact of daily life on two areas and aspects: consumption and artistic performances.

Muslim consumerism and leisure time

Many such debates dealt with the integration and the compatibility of Muslims with western values indicating how Muslims should be. At the level of consumerism, there is little attention through the lens of religious rituals and everyday practices in Europe. Muslims’ relation with eating, leisure times, clothing, fashion, shopping etc. are interesting topics to look closely the transformative processes in public and private life. At these micro levels of analyses, the consumption practices offer a valuable route to understand relations between memory, body, space, culture, ethnicity, and gender among Muslims living in Europe. The on-going processes of transnationalism put in forward these daily practices as means of change and assume the creation of new religious combinations, hyphenated performances as seen in Muslim fashion. The daily life practices reveal the conceptualization of individuality, modernity and indicate how these (in)differences are produced between Muslims and non-Muslims. The complex socio-economic, religious and cultural elements that are involved in the construction of Muslim self through consumerism surface the question of modesty, secularism, and bodily prescriptions, public-private borders. Do the daily consumerist practices unsettle some of the established normativity in social codes in Europe or continuity with the local-existing culture? Around this question, this part of conference will look at a possible way of convergences between Muslims and non-Muslims to point the social-cultural mobility.

Artistic performances

Arts and religion are nowadays in controversial turns. Often debates about how art approaches a religious matter illustrate some social phenomena and crises linked with sacred-profane relations. Controversies between religion and art become a sort of parameter to re-think what contemporary Muslims in Europe do, know and believe. Examining artistic performances of Islamic patterns and visual expression of faith provides new elements on how Muslim cultures are translated and concretized in European public life. Certain kind of artistic creativities, including popular culture, traditional art, painting, cinema, theatre, hip-hop, new sufi groups, architecture; this theme of the conference would like to align the circulation of daily life practices with the artistic expressions of Muslims in Europe according to the title of this conference. How can an artistic expression of Islam be analysed in terms of everyday practices? In which way artistic productions transcend the existing boundaries creating new forms of practices and introducing these new daily practices in public spaces? What are the new socio-cultural and political contexts of artistic practices? How these contexts influence on Muslim aesthetics? Is there a kind of Muslim aesthetics? This theme of conference will not be only an analysis of the production of ‘Islamic art’, including the architectural side. The aim is to cover the performative and architectural expressions of Islam, the emerging of new styles, and of compositions from Muslims in Europe. The circulation of these new styles, expressions between performers and the public encompass new theoretical debates on boundaries, space, and body, transculturality.

Authors are invited to send abstracts (maximum 500 words) of their papers on themes of their own choice, which include at least one of these two aspects that the conference wants to treat.

Programme
A detailed schedule will follow in due course.

Tuition Fees and Scholarships
There is no tuition fee for participants in the conference programme.
However, presenters and participants are expected to pay the costs of their travel and accommodation. The organizers have a reduced prize from ‘Irish College’ in Leuven. The GCIS covers the meals and transportation in Belgium during the conference.
Outcome
Within six months of the event, a book will be produced and published by the GCIS with Leuven University Press, comprising some or all of the papers presented at the Workshop. The papers will be arranged and introduced, and to the extent appropriate, edited, by scholar(s) to be appointed by the Editorial Board. Copyright of the papers accepted to the Workshop will be vested in the GCIS, and printed in the conference proceedings book.

Selection Criteria
The workshop will accept up to 20 participants, each of whom must meet the following requirements:
– have a professional and/or research background in related topics of the conference;
– be able to attend the entire programme.

Since the Workshop expects to address a broad range of topics while the number of participants has to be limited, writers submitting abstracts are requested to bear in mind the need to ensure that their language is technical only where it is absolutely necessary and the language should be intelligible to non-specialists and specialists in disciplines other than their own; and present clear, coherent arguments in a rational way and in accordance with the usual standards and format for publishable work.

Timetable

1. Abstracts (300–500 words maximum) and CVs (maximum 1 page) to be received by 1stJune 2013.
2. Abstracts to be short-listed by the Editorial Board and papers invited by 7th June 2013.
3. Papers (3,000 words minimum – 5,500 words maximum, excluding bibliography) to be received by 1st September 2013.
4. Papers reviewed by the Editorial Board and classed as: Accepted – No Recommendations; Accepted – See Recommendations; Conditional Acceptance – See Recommendations; Not Accepted, by 30th September 2013.
5. Final papers to be received by 1st November 2013.

Conference Editorial Board
Johan Leman, KU Leuven
Erkan Toguslu, KU Leuven
Saliha Özdemir, KU Leuven
Conference Co-ordinator ErkanToguslu

VenueKU Leuven University

The international workshop will be entirely conducted in English and will be hosted by KU Leuven.
Papers and abstract should be sent to SalihaÖzdemir saliha.ozdemir@soc.kuleuven.be
For more information plz contact:
Erkan Toguslu and Saliha Özdemir KU Leuven Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies

Call for Papers

Global ReOrient: Chinese Pentecostal/Charismatic Movements in the Global East

An Interdisciplinary Conference at Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, 1-2 November, 2013

The importance of Pentecostal-charismatic movements in the “Global South” has been well established. We would like to call for a scholarly reorientation toward the “Global East” where economic miracles go hand in hand with rapid growths of Christianity. This symposium particularly focuses on Chinese Pentecostalism in Asian societies. With its innovative styles of experiential spirituality, female leadership, and powerful communication strategies, Chinese Pentecostalism is challenging the dominance of conventional Christianity. This symposium seeks to assess the status and characteristics of Chinese Pentecostal-charismatic movements worldwide, with a special focus on East and Southeast Asia but also including Chinese diasporic communities in other parts of the world. We hope to bring together scholars from Asia, Europe and North America for a comparative understanding of global Chinese Pentecostalism.

We are especially interested in papers reporting historical and empirical research on the following topics:
* Studies of a congregation, a sect, a network of such congregations, or a movement of Chinese Pentecostals or charismatics anywhere in the world
* Studies of Chinese Pentecostals or charismatics in their social and cultural contexts
* Transnational connections of Chinese Pentecostals and charismatics
* Experiential spirituality and female leadership of Chinese Pentecostal movements
* The development and distinctiveness of Chinese Pentecostalism
* The relationship of Chinese Pentecostals and charismatics with other Chinese Christians

The confirmed plenary speakers include:
Allan Anderson (Keynote), University of Birmingham, UK
Donald Miller (Keynote), University of Southern California, USA
Kim-Kwong Chan, Hong Kong Christian Council, Hong Kong
Hsing-Kuang Chao, Tung Hai University, Taiwan
Gordon Melton, Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University, USA
John Cheong, Sabah Theological Seminary, Malaysia

Deadline for the submission of abstracts (max 200 words, with a brief biographical note):
20th April, 2013. Submissions and questions send to Joy Tong at joy_tong@ymail.com.

We intend to edit a special issue of a journal out of the papers presented. We will also provide accommodations and meals for presenters. The conference is organized by The Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University, and co-sponsored by International Programs, Asian Studies Program, and Religious Studies Program at Purdue University.

CALL FOR PAPERS: EASR PANELS ON ORTHODOX CHURCHES
European Association for the Sociology of Religion (EASR) EASR Annual Conference
LIVERPOOL 3-6 SEPTEMBER 2012
http://easr.org/conferences/upcoming-conference.html?PHPSESSID=1effd4f4088c59cd7d55f2946539bd7e

1. Orthodoxy beyond the Orthodox World
Eastern Orthodoxy has only recently emerged as a discrete research area in the study of religions, anthropology and sociology of religion. The historical conditions that give rise to renewed interest in and access to Eastern European Orthodoxy, namely the fall of the communism and the break-up of the Soviet Union, have also facilitated, and necessitated, Orthodoxy’s renewed migration and dispersal around the globe, especially to Western Europe and America. In this context, the study of Eastern Orthodoxy in migration has become an important, if understudied, aspect of the anthropology and sociology of Orthodoxy. This panel invites papers based on empirical studies of Orthodox Churches and communities outside of majority Orthodox states.

2. Orthodoxy, Nationalism and De-territorialized Communities
Whilst there is a considerable body of literature on Orthodox Churches and their relationship to local nationalisms in Eastern Europe there has been little focus on what happens to the strong bond between ethnic/national identity and Orthodoxy once the national setting recedes or is no longer present. ‘Ethnic’ Orthodox parishes are commonly represented as being ‘nationally’ orientated towards co-ethnics and the national homeland. This panel invites papers that explore ideas of the ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’ as applied to Central and East European states and re-examines them in the light of the experience of de-territorialized Orthodox communities.

Deadline for paper proposals: May 15, 2013
Please send a short abstract (about 500 words) to Maria Hämmerli: maria.haemmerli@unine.ch