Digital Media and Sacred Text: Call for Papers

Monday June 17th, Open University (Camden), London

Keynote Speaker: Professor Heidi A Campbell (Texas A&M University)

The first attempts to use computers to analyse sacred texts began in the 1950s. Over subsequent decades, religious believers have developed their own handheld e-readers, mobile apps, sophisticated software analysis tools, libraries of old and new commentary, and online discussion communities. Groups from many different religious traditions have been forced to consider new norms for the digital storage of sacred texts and for the appropriate use of e-readers in places of worship.

The academic study of digital religion has grown into a thriving field, but we still know very little about the impact of digital media on sacred text and audiences. This one-day conference will bring together academics interested in the study of digital sacred text from a wide range of religious traditions, including sociologists, ethnographers, media scholars, computer scientists, digital humanists and theologians.
We also welcome religious practitioners and publishers engaged in creating digital sacred texts.

Possible topics include:
– How can digital media affect the relationship between a religious reader and their sacred text?
– Does digitisation influence the interpretation of a text?
– What norms are emerging to guide the use of digital sacred texts, and how are those norms being negotiated?
– How can digital sacred texts be designed to meet the needs of religious readers?
– What challenges does the process of digitizing sacred text raise for religious communities?

If you would like to present a paper at this event, please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words by April 15th to Tim Hutchings (tim.hutchings@open.ac.uk).
Thanks to generous funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, we are able to offer a small number of bursaries to cover travel expenses for PhD students.
Contact Dr Hutchings for further details.

CALL FOR PAPERS
An International, Interdisciplinary Conference

POLITICS, PROBITY, POVERTY AND PRAYER: AFRICAN SPIRITUALITIES, ECONOMIC AND SOCIO-POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION

University of Ghana, Legon. October 21-23, 2013

This International Conference brings together scholars/researchers, practitioners of diverse religious traditions and spiritualities, FBOs/NGOs and policy makers to interrogate how and to what extent various religions and spiritualities in Africa and the African diaspora engage in processes of economic, social and political transformation.
Public commentators often criticize political entrepreneurs and African states of their failure to develop an ethic of public probity and accountability, partly exemplified by corruption. The enigmas of public transparency and probity can hardly be limited to public governance. We can also explore how religious institutions in Africa interrogate, critique, practice or fail to eschew transparency, accountability and probity in the quest for economic and social-political transformation.
Religious entrepreneurs grapple with similar issues of leadership, good governance, probity, integrity as a reflection of their wider societies. Ecclesiastical, Islamic, or Indigenous religious polities are situated within wider pluralistic (secular) polities in Africa and are thus mutually reinforcing each other. The significance of leadership and corporate governance (religious/secular) lies in its contribution to prosperity, peaceful coexistence, moral regeneration and accountability.
Accountability requires appropriate rules and regulations, doctrines, codes of conduct, values and behaviour to make for viable transformation. For instance, a historical perspective on leadership dynamics can be helpful in the present crisis in leadership in church and secular contexts. The churches and missionary societies played a crucial role in the shaping of South African cultures, as much in the colonial period as during the years of the formation of the Union and the apartheid era.

The conference provides a platform in which scholars/researchers, practitioners and policy makers will explore, through historical and contemporary perspectives, how authority structures, institutionalized myths, beliefs, and rituals of authority differently mobilize and influence members? behaviour and attitudes towards financial probity and organizational policies. How do various hierarchical/decentralized religious polities (i.e. structures of church government) in Africa deal with issues of probity (moral regeneration), equity and sustainable development? What values do African religions and spiritualities evince that represent a boon or bane for improving corporate governance and ensuring improved ethics and probity in African systems of governance?
How should religious polity structures respond, critique and identify with national/international policies that are aimed at a disciplined management and equitable distribution of public resources, and the establishment of a viable culture of financial probity? What various models condition religious polities and leadership in Africa, and how have these been influenced by modern political movements, such as Western democracy, as well as by modern economics and technology?
Are liberal or conservative forms of religiosity compatible with Western democracy?
How and to what extent should religious insights be present in the public sphere of the secular polity and vice versa? ?How do engage prayer ritual action impact on their religious and national polities to maximize probity at personal and institutional levels?

The conference will highlight and explore how and to what extent African and diaspora religious traditions and spiritualities may cohere on the critical issues, such as that of probity, equity and accountability, which confront the African continent, their ?faiths? in relation to the wider, global community. Interrelated issues on religion, spirituality, leadership, social capital, public role, poverty, corruption, transparency will be discussed. The conference is intended to build synergies and forge dialogue on how religious/spiritual communities in Africa and the African Diaspora can combat poverty and foster probity and sustainable development.

The conference programme shall focus on the following and related sub-themes:
–    African politico-economies, religious polity and accountability
–    religious polity structures, corruption and transparency
–    religious polity, social and religious capital
–    religious values, behaviour, probity and financial accountability
–    ethics, socio-cultural values, and social action
–    democracy and ecclesiastical polity
–    traditional (indigenous) systems of governance and probity
–    religion/spiritualities, prayer and poverty
–    religion, politics and socioeconomic empowerment
–    church polity, apartheid and post-apartheid transformation
–    religion, spiritualities and sustainable development in Africa and the African Diaspora
–    Probity and African and African-derived religions/spiritualities in a new global order

Paper/presentation proposals based or related to one or more of the above themes are invited from the interested public: scholars, religious/spiritual communities and organizations, policy makers, and FBOs/NGOs. Interested panelists are invited to submit a paper/abstract proposal (max. 200 words), stating institutional affiliation, on or before 30 March 2013. The conference will be jointly hosted by the Faculty of Arts, University of Ghana-Legon; Center of African Christianity, Trinity Theological Seminary, Accra; The University of Edinburgh, and PANAFSTRAG.

Abstract proposals and all correspondences regarding the conference should be sent electronically (email) to the conference organizers:
Afe Adogame: a.adogame@ed.ac.uk
Rose Mary Amenga-Etego: rosem.etego@googlemail.com
Cephas Omenyo: comenyo@hotmail.com
Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu: kwabena.asamoahgyadu@gmail.com

Panel at the 12th EASR conference

September 3-6, Liverpool Hope
Indic traditions in the West: Seekership, Spirituality and Healing

Organised by Dr Maya Warrier (University of Wales, Trinity Saint David)

A wide variety of Indic traditions (traditions and practices of Indian origin including, most significantly, forms of postural and meditational yoga, tantra, chanting, and ayurvedic healing practices) circulate today within transnational networks of cosmopolitan spiritual seekership.
These traditions are promoted by entrepreneurs from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds and nationalities, many of them Anglophone, who range from high-profile gurus heading multi-national organisations, to relatively low-profile individuals running small-scale and localised centres, workshops and classes.

This panel aims to explore the ways in which recognisably Indic ideas and practices are transmitted by these individuals and institutions to audiences of spiritual seekers in the West. It aims, in particular, to explore how the concerns/ preoccupations of ‘spiritual seekers’ in the West shape these traditions. The panel organiser would thus welcome papers which explore the interface between the contemporary Western milieu of religiously unaffiliated ‘spiritual seekership’, and the traditions and practices of Indian origin circulating in the West today. Contributions exploring colonial precedents to the Indic traditions currently circulating in the Western mind-body-spirit milieu are also welcome.

Please send abstracts (approximately 150 words) to Maya Warrier at m.warrier@tsd.ac.uk by the 1st of May, 2013.

Upcoming conference for the Study of Religion call for papers

2 – 4 October, 2013
Venue: University of South Australia, City West Campus
Hawke Building, Bradley Forum, Level 5
50 – 55 North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia

The Australian Association for the Study of Religion and The International Centre for Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding invite you to the AASR Annual conference with the theme:

The Paradox of Liberation and Religion

The relationships between religion and society and religion and the individual are multivalent. Religion can be mobilised as a source of empowerment, whilst at the same time curtailing individual and social freedom. For example, Muslim dress is often typecast in the West as a symbol of oppression of individual freedoms, while the veil can be imbued with notions political, social and spiritual liberation. Religion can also be a source of power over individual and collective spheres. The institutionalisation of religion within state apparatus can result in the extension of religious freedoms to some, and the oppression of others. We invite speakers from a broad range of disciplines to engage with the paradoxes of liberation and religion in their various formations.

Contributors are invited to engage with, but are not confined to, the following themes:
– How religion is mobilised to justify forms of social, political and individual oppression and liberation
– The complexities and contradictions of secularism as sources of personal and social liberties
– Inter-religious dialogues between Islam and other critical traditions of thought
– Intersections between religion and power
– Relationships between gender, sexuality and religion
– Religion in the media and popular culture
– Struggles for the recognition of religious formations and expressions

Call for Individual or Panel Presentations
* Individual paper proposals (200-300 word abstracts)
* Panel proposals (200 word for the panel concept and 200-300 words on each panel paper).
* For each paper, please provide a bio (up to 50 words)of the presenter(s).

Presentations of 20 minutes with 5 minutes for questions
Please submit your abstract by July 31st 2013 to
MnM-Centre@unisa.edu.au

Census and surveys: issues in religious self-identification

Panel at the 12th EASR conference at Liverpool Hope Organised by Dr Abby Day, Chair of SOCREL (Sociology of Religion study group, British Sociological Association) and Dr Bettina Schmidt, Honorary Secretary of the BASR (British Association for Study of Religions)

Self-identification on instruments such as surveys and censuses presents unique challenges and opportunities. The 2011 census for the UK revealed some interesting developments concerning the religious self-identification within the UK, particularly with the continuing increase of people who declare to have no religion. How does the utility of a census compare with, for example, larger surveys, from British Social Attitudes to the World Values Survey and how accurately can such data from any of those instruments represent changing religious landscapes? How does a faith in surveys and censuses manifest itself by discipline, and what impact does this have on our understanding of research methodology and outcomes? We invite to this panel papers discussing this and other issues concerning national census and survey design and data from the UK or any other country.

Please send abstracts (app. 150 words) to Dr Abby Day a.f.day@kent.ac.uk and Dr Bettina Schmidt b.schmidt@tsd.ac.uk by 1 May 2013.

*Call for Papers*
*AAA, Nov. 20-24 2013, Chicago*
*Vision, Visuality and Visual Culture: Islamic Contexts and Publics*
* *
This panel recuperates an understanding of visuality beyond Western histories by ethnographically exploring visual culture as a key site for thinking out the different trajectories of religion in contemporary Muslim societies. With Christianity usually posited as a* *”visual” religion and Islam as an “auditory”; one, most scholarly works looking at the intersections of visuality and religion have done so in a (Western) Christian context. In keeping with the AAA’s interdisciplinary emphasis this year, this panel puts into conversation anthropological studies of how the materiality of different media contributes to religious formations at particular historical moments with the interest of other scholars of visual culture in everyday, socially-grounded practices of seeing. We hope that attending more closely to visual fields in Muslim societies will contribute theoretically to long-standing disciplinary concerns with ritual, personhood, performance and the sacred.

What modes of (not) seeing are privileged or denounced within historically authoritative Islamic frames? How are different notions of visuality negotiated and/or contested in the age of rapid transnational television imports and exports? What do jurisprudential and popular debates over the production of dramatic serials visually depicting Qur’anic prophets tell us about the politics and ethics of sight? What visual analogies and metaphors do Islamic preachers and activists draw upon to connect with their imagined audiences? What new scopic regimes arise at the interface of new media technologies and Islamic exhortatory traditions? How is the faculty of seeing a site of ethical cultivation, affective pleasure or sensory excess? We invite papers addressing these questions through ethnographies and analyses of the production, circulation, consumption and framing of the
visual in Muslim societies.

Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words and CVs to Yasmin Moll (yasmin.moll@nyu.edu Yasmin.moll@nyu.edu>) and Wazhmah Osman (wazhmah@gmail.com) by March 12.

The International Conference on Education, Culture and Identity (ICECI 2013) is organised by the International University of Sarajevo in partnership with Deakin University, Australia and Erciyes University, Turkey. The conference will be held at the  International University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina on 6-8 July 2013. For more information please visit the conference website: www.ius.edu.ba/iceci

Abstracts must be submitted online via the conference website:
www.ius.edu.ba/iceci

Conference Deadlines:
Submission of Abstracts April 1, 2013
Notification of Abstract Acceptance April 19, 2013
Registration Ends May 17, 2013
Conference Date July 6-8, 2013

Contact information:
Gulsen Devre +387 33 957 116
iceci@ius.edu.ba

Panel at the 12th EASR conference, 3-6 September, Liverpool Hope University

Organised by Dr Abby Day, Chair of SOCREL (Sociology of Religion study group, British Sociological Association) and Dr Bettina Schmidt, Honorary Secretary of the BASR (British Association for Study of Religions)

Visit http://www.socrel.org.uk for more information on forthcoming Socrel events

Self-identification on instruments such as surveys and censuses presents unique challenges and opportunities. The 2011 census for the UK revealed some interesting developments concerning the religious self-identification within the UK, particularly with the continuing increase of people who declare to have no religion. How does the utility of a census compare with, for example, larger surveys, from British Social Attitudes to the World Values Survey and how accurately can such data from any of those instruments represent changing religious landscapes? How does a faith in surveys and censuses manifest itself by discipline, and what impact does this have on our understanding of research methodology and outcomes? We invite to this panel papers discussing this and other issues concerning national census and survey design and data from the UK or any other country. Please send abstracts (app. 150 words) to Dr Abby Day a.f.day@kent.ac.uk and Dr Bettina Schmidt b.schmidt@tsd.ac.uk by 1 May 2013.

European Association for the Study of Religions Annual Conference, Liverpool Hope University.
3-6 September 2013
RELIGION, MIGRATION, MUTATION

CALL FOR PANELS AND PAPERS IS NOW OPEN

The 12th EASR Annual Conference will be hosted by the British Association for the Study of Religions (BASR) at Liverpool Hope University. This will also be a Special Conference of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR).
The conference theme will be RELIGION, MIGRATION, MUTATION.
The conference invites papers and panels that examine what happens to religious beliefs and practices when they are displaced, and what occurs to religions when new cultural practices interact with them. The focus on transformation is not only to be taken in connection with movements of people but panels and papers are invited that deal with the issue of mutation in the broadest sense. We invite scholars from different disciplines to participate in the conference.

RELIGION, MIGRATION, MUTATION is the 12th annual conference of the EASR and the second to be organised in collaboration with the BASR.

Panels will be 2 hours long and consist of 4 speakers (papers should be no more than 25 minutes long, allowing a 20 minute discussion period).
Proposals should include Panel/Papers information: title, abstract for the panel and the individual papers (150 words), any unusual IT required, list of chair, panellists, and abstracts for both the panel and the individual papers.
Individual papers are welcomed.
Submission deadline: 1st June 2013
Proposed Papers and Panels should be sent to the Conference Administrator (Sara Fretheim): frethes@hope.ac.uk