Category Archives: Events

Symposium: “Sacred and Secular: Faith and Formation” (16 January, 2015; London)

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FaithXchange invites you to its 2nd Annual Symposium of v. This year’s theme focuses on how do religion and belief inform how we do policy, politics, and practice. This is an exciting day for all of us as it brings together scholars of all stages in their career, as well as practitioners to open up and expand a cross disciplinary and cross national dialogue. 

A keynote panel will proceed a series of exciting papers that bring different disciplinary perspectives in the conversation. Keynotes include Professor Adam Dinham, Professor Elaine Graham, Dr. Daniel Nilsson DeHanas, and Dr. Alp Arat.

Please follow the link for more information http://www.gold.ac.uk/faithsunit/network/​ 

For RSVP, please contact Clare Canning at faithxchange@gold.ac.uk

We are looking forward to seeing you on January 16th at Goldsmiths. 

With best regards

faithXchange Research Network 

23 St. James St. | London SE14 6NW | Goldsmiths, University of London

The post Symposium: “Sacred and Secular: Faith and Formation” (16 January, 2015; London) appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

Public Lecture: Prof. Lori Beaman on ‘The Law’s Contribution to Religion as Culture’ (Dec 8, 2014)

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The Religion and Society Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney invites you to attend a Public Lecture:

‘Reasonable Non-Invasiveness’ and Law’s Contribution to Religion as Culture

Speaker: Prof Lori Beaman, University of Ottawa

Date:  Monday, 08 December 2014

Time:  11:00 am – 12:30 pm

Venue: UWS Bankstown Campus, Building 3, Room G.55, Sydney

RSVP: J.Fishman@uws.edu.au by 02 December 2014 (for catering purposes)

Abstract

This talk will consider the development of a legal and public rhetoric that shifts religious practice and symbols into a framing as culture and heritage.

Drawing on the Lautsi decision from the European Court of Human Rights and the Saguenay case in Quebec (now before the Canadian Supreme Court), the talk explores the notion that these practices represent universal values and as such should be accepted by all.

The post Public Lecture: Prof. Lori Beaman on ‘The Law’s Contribution to Religion as Culture’ (Dec 8, 2014) appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

Public Lecture: “POST-SECULARISM AND NEO-LIBERALISM: TOWARDS THE I-SATION OF SOCIETY?”, Prof. Adam Possamai

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Public Lecture by Prof. Adam Possamai: “POST-SECULARISM AND NEO-LIBERALISM: TOWARDS THE I-SATION OF SOCIETY?”

When: 4 PM – 20.11.14

Where: Conference Room – NATSEM Building 24, University Drive,
University of Canberra, Bruce (ACT)

BELIEF AND SOCIETY SEMINAR SERIES

Abstract:

By post-secularism, Habermas refers to the process of the de-privatization of religion, and to the current dialogue about managing the presence of religious groups within secular frameworks in the public sphere. This dialogue is currently affected by what I call the i-sation of society. In Jameson’s classic work, the end of the 20th century was claimed to face the third phase of capitalism, that of late capitalism, the world space of multinational capital. Around the same time, Ritzer wrote about the McDonaldisation of Society which refers to the permeability of (what Weber made reference to as) rational bureaucracy into our everyday life. This paper argues that we are now in a fourth stage of capitalism, the cyber space of ‘deterritorialised’ capitalism, and that with the help of new i-technologies, this penetration of rational bureaucracy has filtered further from everyday life to our personal biographies. Linking these two theories, this paper presents the argument that we are going through a process of i-sation of society (1) in which capitalism is not only dominating our outer life (e.g. global capitalism) but our inner life as well through its expansion on the Internet facilitated by various i-technological applications and (2) in which the McDonaldisation process has now been normalised and religion has been standardised. This process greatly affects the communicative action that religions were supposed to follow in our post-secular times. I will conclude that they have, paradoxically, been colonised or McDonaldised.

 

Adam Possamai is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Religion and Society Research Centre, University of Western Sydney. He is the former President of the RC22 on the Sociology of Religion from the International Sociological Association. His latest books are Religious Change and Indigenous Peoples: the Making of Religious Identities (with H. Onnudottir and B. Turner, Ashgate, 2013) and The Handbook of Hyper-Real Religions (as editor, Brill, 2012).

The post Public Lecture: “POST-SECULARISM AND NEO-LIBERALISM: TOWARDS THE I-SATION OF SOCIETY?”, Prof. Adam Possamai appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

Registration Now Open: INFORM Autumn Seminar: “Minority Religions and Schooling”

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INFORM Autumn Seminar

Minority Religions and Schooling

Date – Saturday, 6 December 2014; 9.30am – 4.45pm
Location – New Academic Building, London School of Economics

‘State multiculturalism has failed’, declared David Cameron in 2011.  Yet there is a continued expansion in state-funded religious schooling in Britain. This expansion has gone hand-in-hand with legal rulings that have placed minority religions on stronger footing next to the more established faiths. After exponential growth of Academies operating outside of local authority control since 2000, and three years after the first Free Schools opened their doors (a programme which has assisted the expansion of a diversity of faith-based schools), it is a good opportunity to take stock and reflect on the nature of minority faith schooling in Britain.

Speakers include:

  • Farid Panjwani (Director of the Centre for Research and Evaluation in Muslim Education at the Institute of Education, University of London) “Muslims and Faith Schools: identity and social aspiration in a minority religion”
  • Ozcan Keles (Chairperson of the Dialogue Society) “Fethullah Gulen-inspired Hizmet Schools from an Alumnus: basics, characteristics and critique”
  • Nitesh Gor (Chief Executive, Avanti Schools Trust) “Inclusivity and Fidelity”
  • Jonny Scaramanga (Doctoral student at the Institute of Education) “The History of Accelerated Christian Education in the United Kingdom”
  • Richy Thompson (Campaigns Officer (Faith Schools and Education), British Humanist Association) “A Humanist Perspective on Minority Religions and Schooling”
  • and others.

Registration is now open and can be done using a credit/debit card through PayPal or by posting a booking form and a cheque payable to ‘Inform’ to Inform, Houghton St., London WC2A 2AE. Tickets (including buffet lunch, coffee and tea) paid by 10 November 2014 are £38 each (£18 students/unwaged).

Tickets booked after 10 November 2014 will cost £48 each (£28 students/unwaged).  A limited number of seats will be made available to A-Level students at £10 before 10 November 2014 (£20 after 10 November). 

Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://lse.ac.uk/emailDisclaimer

The post Registration Now Open: INFORM Autumn Seminar: “Minority Religions and Schooling” appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM: BRINGING THE SOCIAL BACK INTO THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

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Friday 2 May 2014, Queen’s University Belfast (Senate Room)

09.00 – 09.30 Welcome and introduction by symposium organisers

Véronique Altglas, Eric Morier-Genoud and Matthew Wood

09.30 – 10.45 Understanding Faiths and Theologies

Christophe Monnot (University of Lausanne, Switzerland)

Does being a good sociologist of religion mean being a specialist in a specific faith?

Gwendoline Malogne-Fer (Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités, CNRS, France)

Protestant churches and the ‘marriage for all’: ‘theological’ criteria and the sociological approach

10.45 – 11.15 Break for refreshments

11.15 – 12.30 Understanding Mysticism and Spirituality

Alix Philippon (Institut d’Études Politiques d’Aix-en-Provence, CHERPA, France)

Essentialization, idealization and vilification: a reassessment of axiological neutrality in the sociological study of ‘mystical’ and ‘political’ Islam in Pakistan

Véronique Altglas (Queen’s University Belfast, UK)

Spirituality and discipline: not a contradiction in terms

12.30 – 13.30 Lunch

13.30 – 14.30 Ethnographic film: Laatoo: Dance and Spirituality in Pakistan

Directed by Alix Philippon and Faizaan Peerzada (2003)

14.30 – 15.45 Understanding Emotions and Behaviours

Yannick Fer (Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités, CNRS, France)

Studying religious emotions as a social fact: from pre-notions to the (re)shaping of a sociological object

Matthew Wood (Queen’s University Belfast, UK)

Congregational studies, worship, and region behaviour

15.45 – 16.15 Break for refreshments

16.15 – 17.30 Understanding Mission and Secularisation

Eric Morier-Genoud (Queen’s University Belfast, UK)

Reverse mission? A critical approach

Christopher Bunn (University of Glasgow, UK)

Foucault’s neglected secularisation: new pastoralism, confession and messianic managerialism

17.30 – 18.45 Ethnographic film: Bread or Coconut: Moorea and the Two Traditions

Directed by Yannick Fer and Gwendoline Malogne-Fer (2010)

18.45 – 19.00 Closing remarks

 

Registration is free (includes lunch) but must be booked before 11 April 2014:

please contact Véronique Altglas (v.altglas@qub.ac.uk)