Call for Papers mid-term Conference “Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia”
Date: June 26 to 29, 2013
Place: University of Goettingen, Germany
Organized by: Competence network “Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia” (DORISEA), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. See http://www.dorisea.de/en.

Keynote Speaker: Robert Hefner, Boston University
Deadline for the submission of abstracts: November 30th, 2012.
Please send your abstracts to dorisea@uni-goettingen.de and indicate in which panel you would like to participate.

Conference topic

In global comparison, Southeast Asia stands out as a region marked by a particularly diverse religious landscape. Various “ethnic religions” interact with so-called “world religions”, all of the latter – with the exception of Judaism – being represented in the region. While religion has oftentimes been viewed as an antithesis to modernity, scholarship has shown that religion shapes (or: is intertwined with?) modernization processes in crucial ways and that its role in contemporary Southeast Asian societies is intensifying. The mid-term conference “Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia” will explore this link between “religion” and “modernity” by focusing on three dimensions of religious dynamics, namely mediality, politics and mobility. In the spirit of Southeast Asian studies as a holistic, i.e. trans-disciplinary approach, we invite papers from fields as diverse as history, anthropology, sociology, political science, media studies, geography or linguistic studies that investigate the peculiar dynamics of religion in times of globalization, and the ways in which these dynamics mediate change and continuity in Southeast Asia.

Panel 1: materializing Religion: on Media, Mediation, Immediacy

Given that religion “is the practice of making the invisible visible, of concretizing the order of the universe, the nature of human life and its destiny, and the various dimensions and possibilities of human interiority itself” (Robert Orsi 2005: 74), the study of religion necessarily has to scrutinize correlating processes and resources of its materialization. Accordingly, we have to acknowledge that the worlds of religions and the media are not separate or competing spheres of influence, but converge. The study of religion, then, is interrelated with the study of media, mediation and audience perception, of sacred books and images, material objects and the human senses, of religious practices in a public sphere, which is extensively permeated by modern communication technologies. Research on the dynamics of religion in modern Southeast Asia will profit from such a perspective.

Invited are papers on the interface of media and religions in Southeast Asia. Hereby, priority is given to four dimensions of the media and mediation of religions.

     * Concept of “medium” beyond mass media.
This involves discussing the medium not only as a means of communication between humans but also between humans and spiritual powers (ritual activities and visual representations through the medium photography; performing arts; ghost pictures and films). In its modern genealogy, the term “medium” always carries a double meaning. Therefore, we include and discuss spirit possession and mediumship as distinct forms of materialization – creating immediacy through embodiment Particular attention will be paid to the modalities of processes of mediation.

     * Constitution and circulation of codes of representation: norms and deviation.
The communication of “religious” contents via media is subject to regulation, from legal restrictions and censorship to historically and culturally constituted codes of representation (including aesthetic ones). In this context, the question may arise as to what medium / media are considered “apt” to communicate religious contents. Hereby, the authoritative role of the medium “text” has to be taken into serious consideration.

     * Medium, loss and preservation.
Media (be it textual, pictorial or material) are used in an effort to document and to preserve, or to remind: this relates to loss, to death (portraits) and cultures of remembrance. Questions surrounding individuality / collectivity emerge here as well as questions of temporal mediation and transmission (the medium as transcending time).

     * Relation between religious authority and medium / media.
New media such as radio or the Internet allow persons without formal religious training to get to a position of religious authority. The effects can be considered as dissolving religious authority and/or as fundamentally democratising. On the other hand, the spread of religious teachings increases through the use of such media, and they are, of course, used intensely by religious authorities.

Papers should address at least one of the above-mentioned dimensions, be empirically grounded and theoretically informed.

Panel 2: Secularization of Religion, Sacralization of Politics? The State of Religion in Southeast Asia

Scholars of Southeast Asia have tirelessly emphasized the tight interplay between politics and religion in the region and questioned the very salience of “religion” and “politics” as separate spheres. From the veneration of national heroes in Vietnamese temples to the declaration by former Prime Minister Mahathir that Malaysia was an Islamic state, a neat distinction between the “religious” and the
“political” seems hard to sustain. In terms of theory, this observation has generally led to a refutation of the cornerstone of modernization theory, namely secularism, as a Eurocentric line of thought. This panel seeks to go beyond the simple refutation of the secularization thesis and welcomes contributions that are both theoretically informed and empirically grounded in their investigation of the manifold relations between “religion” and “politics” in Southeast Asia – from the much noted politicisation of religion, to the ritual and performative dimensions of the political.

Historical accounts have long emphasized the mutually constitutive ties of religion and politics in the region. Religion in Southeast Asia has indeed never been solely a tradition, a belief system, the combination of belief and ritual or an instrument to explain the world. Since the introduction of the world religions Hinduism, Buddhism (both vehicles), later Islam and Christianity from the neighboring regions, these world religions have been, like their tribal beliefs systems, which existed before and together with them, instruments to create and to legitimize rules and rulers and to organize societies. This is a general feature since the times when the earliest kingdoms and empires were founded along the trade routes between India and China in the first centuries AD.

Postcolonial nation-states have intervened directly in the definition of what “religion” entails, from designating a particular religion as “state religion”, incorporating certain religious idioms into national ideology, to legally regulating the religious sphere. Indonesia’s Pancasila ideology that incorporated various “world religions” under a Judeo-Christian-Muslim notion of “religion” (Ramstedt 2004), the parallel processes of representational re-vitalization and institutional weakening of Buddhism in Laos (Morev 2002), or, more recently, the “nationalisation of Islam” in the context of globalization and neoliberal capitalism in Malaysia (Fischer 2008) are all examples of possible articulations of the national and the religious in contemporary Southeast Asia. While processes of globalization, migration, economic, ecological or demographic changes are reaching today the “last frontiers” of Southeast Asia’s rural, jungle and highland areas, so does the reach of the modern state: intensifying globalization has not brought about the demise of the nation-state. Yet, transnational religious networks – such as the Pentecostal Church – do contest the monopoly of the state over certain arenas, such as education, or reject the national as the main frame of reference and identity marker by referring to a land “in which God, not the (…) state, has dominion”
(Glick Schiller & Karagiannis 2006:160).

Rather than to equate “politics” with “the state”, in this panel, we seek to explore the manifold linkages between the “religious” and the “political” in globalized Southeast Asia, from the formal institutions and regulatory mechanisms policing the religious sphere to the political claims of religious networks. Importantly, we are not only interested in the ways in which the secular and the religious are respectively defined in local, national and global contexts, but also how religious and state officials draw the internal boundaries of what “religion” entails, marginalizing, for instance, “(its) less objectified and less rationalized manifestations” labeled as “animism” (Lambek 2012).

Papers may address – without being limited to – the following set of questions: Which political strategies do social actors deploy in the struggle for political, or, respectively, religious authority and to which ends? How are such attempts subverted, instrumentalized or resisted? How is religious authority used to gain political authority and how is the latter used to ‘authenticate’ (e.g. national, religious) identities and its ‘others’? How does the regulation of religion by the nation-state – for instance through law and education – relate to the context of economic globalization? How are transnational religious influences ‘mediated’ with national religiosities?

Panel 3: Spatial Dynamics of Religion between Modulation and Conversion

The panel aims at exploring the spatial dimension of religious change. A reflection on religious practices in Southeast Asia, where different religions share sacred places, multi-religious rituals are common and religious mobility blurs into other forms of travel, clearly shows that religious change is always entangled with dynamics of movement and place-making. But how are these entanglements to be approached empirically and conceptually? Change can be understood on a conceptual and experiential continuum between modulation – as a reproduction and variation within conventional sets of rules, orientations and meanings – and conversion – as a break with previous social and cosmological orientations. The spatial can be conceived as being constituted through the triality of extension, place and movement. Depending on the ways these formal dimensions of change and space take material shape, the dynamics of religion are articulated in historically specific ways which will be the focus of the panel. Papers may address – without being limited to – the following topics:

The movement between places can be understood as a spatial articulation of dynamics of religion. Pilgrimage, for example, potentially facilitates experiences of connectivity, similarity and alterity of places and religions. How do such experiences of movement and distant places mediate experiences and conceptualizations of religious change unfolding between modulation and conversion?

Even without geographic mobility, conversions often imply a spatial dimension. They may involve a shift of or a reorientation within spatial orders (e.g., the integration of certain groups in new structures of religious centers and peripheries). How do such shifts within spatial orders mediate religious change? How are social, political, economic and cultural dynamics related to religion through encompassing spatial orders?

Places are constituted through practices of inclusion and exclusion which can both accommodate a diversity of religious forms as well as demonstrate the purity of a single religious form. What are the different ways of dealing with diversity in religious places? How are spatial articulations of inclusion and exclusion practically implemented in processes of place-making and how are they related to experiences of modulation or conversion?

Religious places are neither self-contained nor mono-functional in yet another dimension. They may, for example, simultaneously be sites of sacred power, national remembrance, tourism and commerce. How are multiple connectivity and multi-functionality achieved and managed through spatial practices of movement and place-making (e.g., pilgrimage, migration, spatial distribution of objects and
activities, establishing of topographies, etc.) in relation to religious change?

Material Religion
Venue: Durham University, UK
Date: 9 – 11 April 2013

Dr Marion Bowman (Department of Religious Studies, Open University)
Professor David Morgan (Department of Religion, Duke University)
Professor Veronica Strang (Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University)

This conference will focus on the physical, material dimension of religious life and practice, one of the major themes of religious research over the last decade. Material forms express and sustain the human search for holiness, transcendence and identity, and attention to the physical can lead scholars to unique and valuable insights. Commitment to religious communities is learned and displayed through relationships to clothing, food, ritual and decoration, in the home, workplace, street or place of worship. This event will encourage interdisciplinary discussion of the significance of material culture in contemporary religion, including the images and architecture of sacred places and the objects and practices of everyday life.

Topics may include (but are not limited to) the following:
–         Material religion in everyday life
–         The materiality of gender, class, age and ethnicity
–         Sacred objects: statues, icons, relics, holy books, architecture
–         Sacred objects in museums and galleries
–         Religion, landscape and the environment
–         Religion and the arts
–         Marketing and consuming religion
–         Religion and the body: ritual, experience and emotion
–         Health, sickness, disability, death and bereavement
–         The materiality of religious media and technologies
–         Research methods for the study of material religion

We invite proposals for conference papers (300 words), panels (3-4 papers on a shared theme, 750 words) and posters (200 words). Alternative formats will also be considered. Abstracts must be submitted by October 31st 2012 to Tim Hutchings and
Joanne McKenzie at materialreligionconference@gmail.com.

SOCREL is the British Sociological Association’s study group on Religion. For more details about the study group and conference please visit www.socrel.org.uk<http://www.socrel.org.uk/>.

Call for Papers (September- 15 November 2012)
“Thinking Out of the Box: Devising New European Policies to Face the Arab Spring”(NEPAS) –
Website: http://nepas-project.net/
University of Minho, Braga – 21-22 February 2013.

The University of Minho, with the support of the LLP programme of the European Union, is pleased to invite PhD students, master students and young scholars to submit their abstracts for papers for the upcoming seminar in its campus in Braga in February 22-23, 2013 on “Thinking Out of the Box: Devising New European Policies to Face the Arab Spring”. The University of Minho is a reference point in high-quality teaching and learning, not only for Portuguese universities, but also in Europe.

The main objective of NEPAS is to bring together a transnational and multidisciplinary research network to reflect on how the European Union (EU) should address the long-term consequences of the “Arab Spring” for EU-Mediterranean (North Africa and the Middle East) relations. It also aims at creating a network among young scholars in the Arab world and the European countries and, through two academic seminars, give young scholars the opportunity to present their research in EU-Med relations and of the needs, the requirements and the means of putting into place a more effective policy. NEPAS´ first aim is thus to provide opportunities for academics from a range of disciplines and countries to share their research both through the conference podium, roundtable sessions and workshops. It also intends to create a transnational and multidisciplinary research network to provide a framework for international information exchange in this area and to conduct collaborative research in view of the newly adopted EU agenda towards the Mediterranean. A related aim is the promotion and dissemination of knowledge related to the complex reality and evolution of the internal political and socio-cultural processes of the different southern Mediterranean countries and the reforms underway in terms of governance, social development, human rights and political transition. The project means to raise the political recognition of the relevance of a new EU-Med approach: help develop a truly Euro-Med culture and improved knowledge about it. The fourth is to translate participants´ knowledge into policy recommendations for EU decision-makers. The organisation also intends to stimulate interest in the fields of Euro-Mediterranean relations and to provide stimulus to students interested in pursuing research in this area. This initiative envisages offering an opportunity to students of all academic levels to meet, visit, and exchange views and experiences with other practitioners and academics. The project aims to appealing to an enlarging community of post-graduate students, who are working on European Integration, in particular on EU policies towards its southern Mediterranean neighbours.

Deadline for abstracts: 15 November, 2012

Seminar themes:

The workshop invites papers dealing with theoretical and empirical studies of the following topics:

• The Arab Spring: Revolutions or Stalemate?
• Outcome and Perspectives of the Arab Spring
• Geopolitical Implications of the Arab Upheavals in the Mediterranean
• The Arab Spring: the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ and International Law Implications
• The Fall of Authoritarianism and the New Actors in the Arab World: What Challenges Lie Ahead?
• A New Mediterranean Political Landscape? The Arab Spring and Euro-Mediterranean Relations
• A New Mediterranean Agenda for a New Mediterranean Political Setting

Abstract Submission:

• All abstracts and papers need to be presented in English
  The maximum length of abstracts is 300 words
  Email your abstract as an attachment to: nepasproject@gmail.com
  Please include the following information in your email:
  Name
  Institutional affiliation (if any) and a short CV
  Contact information (including preferred email address)

Authors whose full abstract has been accepted will be asked to deliver a full paper.

For this purpose the following steps are envisaged:

• September 2012: Call for Papers starts
• 15 November 2012: Call for Papers closes
• 15-30 November 2012: review of submitted abstracts and selection by the Scientific Committee
• 1 December 2012: call for full Papers starts
• 1 January 2013: conference registration opens (no registration fee)
• 15 January 2013: call for full Papers closes
• 31 January 2013: announcement of conference programme

A number of selected papers (conference proceedings) will be published in an E-Book and possibly also in hard copy.
Scholars who want to participate in this seminar are encouraged to travel in the framework of the LLP/Erasmus programme, since the University of Minho will validate their mobility.

Scientific Committee

• Maria do Céu Pinto: Associate Professor of International Relations, University of Minho.
• Tiberio Graziani: President of IsAG (Institute for Advanced Studies in Geopolitics), Rome.
• Maria Luisa Maniscalco: Full Professor, Roma Tre University, Rome.
• Maurizio Vernassa: Associate Professor, University of Pisa, Pisa.
• Miguel Estanqueiro Rocha: Lecturer in International Relations, University of Minho.

Call for Papers: Engaging Sociology of Religion

BSA Sociology of Religion conference stream, Annual Conference of the British Sociological Association
Grand Connaught Rooms,
London, 3-5 April 2013

How does sociology of religion engage with topical issues affecting contemporary society? How can field-specific theories and models help in understanding religion’s role in recent global and local social movements (the Occupy movement, transitions in the Arab world, London riots in 2011), the economic crisis and austerity, social mobility, the ‘Big Society’, cultural pluralisation, climate change, and so on? How have – and how should – sociologists of religion engage broader public arenas? What could be the specific contribution of sociology of religion to public discussion? We invite papers that address topical issues such as the above, but also papers on core issues in the sociology of religion, including – but not limited to – the following:

* ‘Public’ Sociology of Religion

* Religion, Social Movements and Protest

* Religion and Welfare (including Faith-Based Organisations)

* Religion and inequalities (gender, ethnicity, class)

* Religion and media

* Religion and State in the 21st Century

* Social Theory and Religion

* Secularism and secularisation

Abstract submission to be completed at:
http://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/Conference

Deadline for abstract submission: 5 October 2012.

E-mail:
bsaconference@britsoc.org.uk
for conference enquiries; t.hjelm@ucl.ac.uk or
j.m.mckenzie@durham.ac.uk for stream enquiries.
Please DO NOT send abstracts to these addresses.

Call for Papers
Christian Congregational Music: Local and Global Perspectives Conference Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, United Kingdom

1-3 August 2013
Congregational music-making has long been a vital and vibrant practice within Christian communities worldwide. Congregational music reflects, informs, and articulates local convictions and concerns as well as global flows of ideas and products. Congregational song can unify communities of faith across geographical and cultural boundaries, while simultaneously serving as a contested practice used to inscribe, challenge, and negotiate identities. Many twenty-first century congregational song repertories are transnational genres that cross boundaries of region, nation, and denomination. The various meanings, uses, and influence of these congregational song repertoires cannot be understood without an exploration of these musics’ local roots and global routes. This conference seeks to explore the multifaceted interaction between local and global dimensions of Christian congregational music by drawing from perspectives across academic disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, history, music studies, and theology. In particular, the conference welcomes papers addressing or engaging with one or more of the following six themes:

* The Politics of Congregational Singing
The choices congregations make to include (or exclude) certain kinds of music in their worship often have significant political ramifications. Papers on this topic may consider: what roles does music play in local congregational politics? How do congregations use musical performance, on the one hand, to build and maintain boundaries, or, on the other, to promote reconciliation between members of differing ethnicities, denominations, regions, or religions?

* Popular Music in/as Christian Worship
Christian worship has long incorporated musical styles, sounds, or songs considered ‘popular’ or ‘vernacular.’ To what extent does congregational music-making maintain, conflate, or challenge the boundaries between ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’? How do commercial music industries influence the production, distribution, and reception of congregational music, and, conversely, how do the concerns of congregational singing shape praxis within the realm of commercial music?

* From Mission Hymns to Indigenous Hymnodies
This theme invites critical exploration of how congregational music has shaped-and been shaped by-Christian missionary endeavours of the past, present, and future. How have colonialism and postcolonialism influenced congregational musical ideologies and practices? Who defines an ‘indigenous hymnody,’ and how has this category informed music-making in the postmissionary church? What does the future of music in Christian missions hold?

* Congregational Music in the University Classroom
What preconceived notions of Christian beliefs, Christian music-making, or the Christian community do instructors face in the 21st century? What should the study of congregational music involve in the training of clergy and lay ministers? How do the experiences and perspectives of university students challenge the way congregational music is practiced and taught?

* Towards a More Musical Theology
Though it has been over twenty-five years since Jon Michael Spencer called for the cross-pollination of musicological and theological studies in ‘theomusicology,’ the theological mainstream still rarely pays attention to music. How might acknowledging the diversity of human musical traditions influence theological reflection on ecclesiology, eschatology, or ethics? What might insights from musicology and ethnomusicology bring to bear on contemporary debates within Christian theology?

* A Futurology of Congregational Music
Papers on this subtheme will offer creative, considered reflection on the future of congregational music. What new emerging shapes and forms will-or should-congregational worship music take? Will congregational song traditions become more localized, or will they be further determined by global commercial industries? What must scholars do to provide more nuanced, relevant, or critical perspectives on Christian congregational music?

We are now accepting proposals (maximum 250 words) for individual papers and organised panels of three papers. A link to the online proposal form can be found on the conference website at
http://www.rcc.ac.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=prospective.content&cmid=182.

Proposals must be received by 14 December 2012.
Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 28 January 2013, and conference registration will begin on 2 February 2013. Further instructions and information will be made available on the conference website.

Conference Information

Location
All conference sessions will be held at Ripon College Cuddesdon, a theological college affiliated with the University of Oxford. The college is located seven miles
south-east of the Oxford city centre and is accessible by car or bus.

Fees
Fees for conference registration, room and board will be posted in January. Ripon College Cuddesdon has extended reasonable rates to make this conference affordable for domestic and international scholars in various career stages.

There are a small number of bursaries available for graduate student presenters. Students interested in being considered for a bursary should tick the box on the paper proposal form.

Conference schedule
The schedule for the three-day conference maintains a unique balance of presentations from featured speakers, traditional conference panel presentations, roundtable discussions, and film documentary screenings. A draft conference programme will be available in February 2013 on the conference website.

Featured Speakers

The Rev Canon Professor Martyn Percy
Professor of Theological Education, King’s College London
Principal, Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, UK

Dr Zoe Sherinian
Associate Professor and Chair of Ethnomusicology
University of Oklahoma, Norman, USA

Dr Suzel Riley
Reader in Ethnomusicology, School of Creative Arts
Queen’s University, Belfast, UK

Dr Marie Jorritsma
Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology
University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Dr Amos Yong
J Rodman Williams Professor of Theology
Regent University School of Divinity, Virginia Beach, USA

Dr Gerardo Marti
L Richardson King Associate Professor of Sociology
Davidson College, Davidson, USA

Dr Roberta King
Associate Professor of Communication and Ethnomusicology
Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, USA

Dr Clive Marsh
Director of Learning and Teaching
Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Leicester, UK

Dr Byron Dueck
Lecturer in Ethnomusicology
Open University, UK

Conference Organisers and Conveners
The Rev Canon Professor Martyn Percy, Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford
Dr Monique Ingalls, University of Cambridge
Tom Wagner, Royal Holloway, University of London
Mark Porter, City University, London

For all programme-related queries, please contact:
music.conference@ripon-cuddesdon.ac.uk<mailto:music.conference@ripon-cuddesdon.ac.uk>

Socrel / HEA Teaching and Studying Religion, 2nd Annual Symposium
Call for Papers

The 2012 Socrel / HEA Teaching and Studying Religion symposium will explore the theme: Religion and Citizenship: Re-Thinking the Boundaries of Religion and the Secular.

The symposium is organised by Socrel, the BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group, with funding from the Higher Education Academy, Philosophy, and Religious Studies Subject Centre. Last year’s inaugural symposium was over-subscribed and therefore early submissions are encouraged.

Keynote speaker: Dr Nasar Meer, Northumbria University

Venue: BSA Meeting Room, Imperial Wharf, London
Date: 13 December 2012
10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Religions today are implicated in a wide variety of publics. From contests over the environment and democracy to protests against capitalism, religions remain important factors in political and public life across diverse, and interconnected, global contexts. A variety of diverse responses have been articulated to the so-called ‘return of religion’ in the public sphere, drawing into question relations between the religious, the non-religious and the secular. As scholars have developed new theoretical understandings of the terms of these debates and questioned how these are bound up with cultural conceptualizations of citizenship, education – in schools, universities and less formal educational contexts – has often been a site where contestations of the religious and the secular have been acutely felt.

The aim of this symposium is to consider the interrelation between conceptions of the religious, the secular, citizenship and education, and to explore how these issues affect the study of religion in higher education. We hope to attract presentations of sufficient quality to lead to an edited publication.

The day will be highly participative and engaged. The symposium will be organised as a single stream so that the day is as much about discussion as it is about presentation, and therefore the number of formal papers will be limited.

Papers are invited from students, teachers, and researchers in the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, geography, theology, history, psychology, political science, religious studies and others where religion is taught and studied.
Empirical, methodological, and theoretical papers are welcomed.

Presenters will circulate a five-page summary of their paper before the day so that all participants can come prepared for discussion. Presentations will last 10 minutes and will be structured into three sessions, each followed by a discussant drawing out key points. The day will conclude with a discussant-led, focused panel discussion.

Key questions to be addressed may include, but are not limited to:
What are the relationships between the religious, the secular and the public sphere, and how do these affect the study of religion, in both universities and schools?
How do different historical constructions of religion and secularity shape understandings of the civil sphere and citizenship, and what are the implications of this for the study of religion?
Does the increased public visibility of religion in national and global contexts affect how we study it?
What is the role of religious education (school and/or university) in forming citizens and shaping understandings of citizenship?
Are there distinct regional, national or international conceptions of the secular?
Are there distinct regional, national or international conceptions of citizenship?
How do different disciplines approach and study these conceptions, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches?

Abstracts of 200 words are invited by September 15 2012. Please send these to: Dr Paul-François Tremlett p.f.tremlett@open.ac.uk

Costs: £36.00 for BSA/SocRel members; £45.00 for non-members; £20.00 for SocRel/BSA
Postgraduate members; £25.00 for Postgraduate non-members.

Call for Papers
Last date for submission of abstracts extended to 21st September 2012
Digital Methodologies in the Sociology of Religion
16th November 2012, Enterprise Centre, University of Derby

Organised by the Centre for Society, Religion & Belief
<http://www.derby.ac.uk/health/social-care/research-groups/society-religion-and-belief-research-group>
(SRB), University of Derby

Funded by Digital Social Research<http://www.digitalsocialresearch.net/wordpress/>
(DSR)

http://www.derby.ac.uk/digital-methodologies-in-the-sociology-of-religion

Within an era of a growing reliance on digital technologies to instantly and effectively express our values, allegiances, and multi-faceted identities, the interest in digital research methodologies among Sociologists of Religion comes as no surprise (e.g. Bunt 2009; Cantoni and Zyga 2007; Contractor 2012 and Ostrowski 2006;Taylor 2003). However the methodological challenges associated with such research have been given significantly less attention. What are the epistemological underpinnings and rationale for the use ‘digital’ methodologies? What ethical dilemmas do sociologists face, including while protecting participants’ interests in digital contexts that are often perceived as anonymised and therefore ‘safe’? Implementing such ‘digital’ research also leads to practical challenges such as mismatched expectations of IT skills, limited access to specialized tools, project management and remote management of research processes.

Hosted by the Centre forSociety, Religion, and Belief at the University of Derby and funded by Digital Social Research, this conference will bring together scholars to critically evaluate the uses, impacts, challenges and future of Digital Methodologies in the Sociology of Religion. We envisage that the conference will lead to an edited textbook and are currently in discussion with key publishers. For the purpose of the conference and textbook, digital research is broadly defined as research that either works within digital contexts or which uses either online or offline digital tools. Abstracts for papers that focus on one, or more, of the following themes are invited:

1.         Epistemological Positioning
2.         Ethical Dilemmas
3.         Implementation & Practical Challenges
4.         Wider impacts beyond Academia

Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words, as well as the title of the paper, name of the presenter, institutional affiliation, and contact details to Dr Sariya Contractor (s.contractor@derby.ac.uk<mailto:s.contractor@derby.ac.uk>) and Dr. Suha Shakkour (s.shakkour@derby.ac.uk<mailto:s.shakkour@derby.ac.uk>) by 5pm on Tuesday 21st September, 2012. Shortlisted participants will be notified by 28th September 2012 and will be expected to submit summary papers (1000 words) by 1st November 2012 for circulation prior to the conference. A registration fee of £30 will apply for all speakers and delegates. A few travel bursaries are available for post-graduate students – please enquire about these by e-mail. Further details about the registration process will be circulated by mid-September2012. Please visit our website – http://www.derby.ac.uk/digital-methodologies-in-the-sociology-of-religion for further details.

AFROEUROPE@NS IV: BLACK CULTURES AND IDENTITIES IN EUROPE Continental Shifts, Shifts in Perception
London, UK 1-4 October 2013

Afroeurope@s/Afroeurope@ns is an international research and development group funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [Ref. FFI2009-08948]. The group is holding its fourth international conference in London from 1-4 October 2013 at Senate House, Malet House, London WC1E 7HU. The conference is supported by the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Studies at the University of London, and by the Postcolonial Literatures Research Group, Department of English at The Open University.
The fourth conference will be a focus for the many strands of this dynamic field of study, and aims to include presentations on both established and emerging research areas of a trans- and multidisciplinary nature. We recognise that this field cannot be confined to traditional textual representations and forms of expression and so encourage submissions from a wide range of disciplines. These may cover not only literature, history or sociology, but also music, the visual arts, popular culture(s), sports, religion, film etc. We welcome submissions dealing with topics that are cross-genre in nature and use different expressive media, which may tackle the following:
* Tomorrow’s Generations Examining policies relating to AfroEuropean young people, work on and by AfroEuropean youth, the depiction and perceptions of these groups
* Embracing ‘Others’ Exploring work by AfroEuropean artists and writers which breaks stereotypes, from science fiction to crime writing, from art to opera
* Tongue Twisters Highlighting issues across the world of translation, such as how work is chosen to be translated or how translators surmount linguistic barriers
* North Africa’s ‘Arab Spring’; Western constructs deconstructed Interrogating European depictions of North Africa’s recent civil uprisings
* All Gods in the New World? Reflecting on the clash and convergences of religions in the AfroEuropean arena
* Going for Gold Analysing how Africa has changed the face of European sport

Submissions that do not directly deal with the aforementioned topics will also be considered. Presentations, which are not restricted to written academic texts, should be planned to last for no more than twenty minutes. The language of the conference for presentations will be English, French or Spanish. We require an abstract of 400 words, which must be written in the language of the presentation.

Abstracts for AfroEurope@ns IV should in the first instance be sent to the following email address –sharmilla.beezmohun@speaking-volumes.org.uk – and should be submitted no later than 1 March 2013.
The scientific committee will reply to all abstracts no later than 15 April 2013.
A full programme, including plenary speakers and all other participants, will be published by 1 June 2013.
A selection of papers and other presentations will be published after the conference.
In Association with Speaking Volumes Live Literature Productions