Category Archives: Seminars

The Frankfurt School and Religion at the Left Forum

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The Center for Critical Research on Religion (www.criticaltheoryofreligion.org) which publishes the journal Critical Research on Religion with SAGE Publications (crr.sagepub.com) and the book series “Studies in Critical Research on Religion” with Brill Academic Publishers in hardcover (brill.com/scrr) and Haymarket Books in paperback (www.haymarketbooks.org/category/scrr-series) is pleased to sponsor the following session:

The Frankfurt School and Religion
Left Forum
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
524 West 59th Street
New York, NY
Saturday, May 21, 2016
12:00pm-1:50pm
Room 1.107

Presider and Discussant:

Warren S. Goldstein (Center for Critical Research on Religion and Harvard University, USA)

Panel:

Eduardo Mendieta (Penn State University, USA), “The Axial Age, Social Evolution, and Postsecular Consciousness”

Christopher Craig Brittain (University of Aberdeen, UK), “Elucidating Evangelical Support for Donald Trump: Adorno on Religion and Sectarian Movements”

Matt Sheedy (University of Manitoba, Canada), “”Habermas, Islam, and the Limits of Public Reason”

Session and Conference Details:
http://www.leftforum.org/content/frankfurt-school-and-religion

The Frankfurt School and Religion at the Left Forum

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The Center for Critical Research on Religion (www.criticaltheoryofreligion.org) which publishes the journal Critical Research on Religion with SAGE Publications (crr.sagepub.com) and the book series “Studies in Critical Research on Religion” with Brill Academic Publishers in hardcover (brill.com/scrr) and Haymarket Books in paperback (www.haymarketbooks.org/category/scrr-series) is pleased to sponsor the following session:

The Frankfurt School and Religion
Left Forum
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
524 West 59th Street
New York, NY
Saturday, May 21, 2016
12:00pm-1:50pm
Room 1.107

Presider and Discussant:

Warren S. Goldstein (Center for Critical Research on Religion and Harvard University, USA)

Panel:

Eduardo Mendieta (Penn State University, USA), “The Axial Age, Social Evolution, and Postsecular Consciousness”

Christopher Craig Brittain (University of Aberdeen, UK), “Elucidating Evangelical Support for Donald Trump: Adorno on Religion and Sectarian Movements”

Matt Sheedy (University of Manitoba, Canada), “”Habermas, Islam, and the Limits of Public Reason”

Session and Conference Details:
http://www.leftforum.org/content/frankfurt-school-and-religion

Invitation to Public Panel Discussion with Professor Jose Casanova at the Institute for Religion, Politics, & Society

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We hope you will be able to join us for a public panel discussion on Global Catholicism, with Professor Jose Casanova, to be held at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne on Friday, May 6.
Information about the event, and a registration link, can be found in the flyer below, as well as here: https://irps.acu.edu.au/events/asia-pacific-catholicism-and-globalization-public-event/
Please circulate this to anyone who may be interested.
irps.acu.edu.au
The project, following the successful model of the Jesuits and Globalization project, gathers a group of experts on different regional and thematic aspects of Asian Catholicism in order to examine jointly and comparatively three sets of questions: a) A comparative historical reconstruction of the development of Asian Catholicism in major Asian countries and Oceania (Korea, …

Symposium: Art Approaching Science and Religion, 12 May 2016, Turku

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We warmly welcome you to participate in the symposium Art Approaching
Science and Religion, organized by the Donner Institute and the
knowledge laboratory AmosLAB. The symposium aims at bringing together
the fields of art, science and religion.

How can science and religion be explored from the perspective of the arts?

Thursday, 12 May 2016 at the Sibelius Museum
Biskopsgatan 17, Åbo/Turku, Finland

08.45 Opening of the Symposium: Bengt Kristensson Uggla

09.00 Kent Bloomer: “[The Greeks] called it KOSMOS which means ornament”
Response: Pauline von Bonsdorff

11.00 Melissa Raphael: The Creation of Beauty by its Destruction:
Idoloclasm in Modern and Contemporary Jewish Art
Response: Ruth Illman

12.30 Lunch (at own cost)

14.00 Serafim Seppälä: The Temple of Non-Being
Response: Catharina Raudvere

16.00 Mark C. Taylor: The Aesthetic Turn
Response: Esa Saarinen

17.30 Concluding remarks

The lectures are free of charge. Welcome!

Organizers: The Donner Institute, AmosLAB, The Hjelt Foundations

Symposium website: http://www.amoslab.fi/?page_id=214

You also find the event on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1119482044782732/_____

Inform Spring Seminar – Registration Now Open!

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INFORM SPRING SEMINAR
New Religious Radicalisms

Date – Saturday, 21 May 2016; 9.30am – 5.00pm
Location – New Academic Building, London School of Economics

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 25 April 2016 are £38 each (£18 students/unwaged). Tickets booked after 25 April 2016 will cost £48 each (£28 students/unwaged). 

 

Religion has a long history of radicalism and teachings and/or practices considered extreme by some, or even most. The point of radicalism is that it is a significant departure from norms or traditions. From the extreme acts of mortification of the self by some ascetics to the theologically and politically radical position of the Protestants protesting against what they considered errors inherent in the then dominant Roman Catholic Church, the history of religion is a history of extremes and opposition. It has always provided commentary on the worldly (as well as the other-worldly).

A recent example is the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon by an armed group protesting against the federal management of land, including grazing rights – a political issue. However, the main initiator of the occupation, a Mormon, stated he was compelled to lead this initiative after praying for, and receiving, divine inspiration. Several key figures in this stand-off have cited Mormon scripture as justification for opposing and challenging the federal government. (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has strongly condemned the action.)

Usage and understanding of the terms radical and extreme have changed over time, often to reflect the norms and politics of the era. This seminar will explore new religious radicalisms, and new forms of opposition, with the aim of developing new understandings of such world views.

Speakers will include:

Professor Susan J. Palmer, Dawson College, Montreal

Michael Williamson, London International Christian Church

Dr Alexandra Plows, Research Fellow, Bangor University

Dr Tristan Sturm, Lecturer, Queen’s University Belfast

Shamsher Singh, National Sikh Youth Federation

Professor Eileen Barker, Founder and Chair of Inform

Istanbul Seminars 2016 | Call for Students and Scholars

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Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations is glad to announce the 9th Istanbul Seminars, to be held on 24-28 May 2016 at the Istanbul Bilgi University. This email is to announce that applications are open for students and young scholars

Istanbul Seminars 2016 | 24-28 May 2016
Religion, Rights and the Public Sphere
Whereas religiously inspired social movements, political parties, institutions of charity make an important contribution to society in terms of civil life and social cohesion, every religion can also play a negative role in radicalizing identities, in making compromises more difficult, in provoking violence and wars. That religious traditions risk to be a double-edged sword is today particularly evident in the Muslim world, where democratization and modernization processes risk to be obliterated by radical Islam, terrorism, the escalation of the Shia-Sunni conflict. This rises important questions with regard to what makes religions contribute to the foundations and legitimacy of democracy and why, on the contrary, at times religions turn to be source of extremism and intolerance. What is the connection between religious radicalism and the colonial and postcolonial legacy? Is radical Islam a consequence of imposed and fragile state-building processes confiscated by secular authoritarian regimes or vice versa? Can it be explained by the collapse of nationalist and socialist ideologies or by underdevelopment and inequalities? Do religious doctrines bring forth the radicalization of identities quite autonomously and independently from the political and social context? Accordingly, the Istanbul Seminars ’16 will discuss how much religious pluralism is a matter of politics, law and economy and to what extent it is also a matter of theology.

Among the confirmed speakers so far: Mustafa Akyol, Zygmunt Bauman, Rajeev Bhargava, Seyla Benhabib, Manuel Castells, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Mohd Eiadat, Alessandro Ferrara, Silvio Ferrari, Nilüfer Göle, Peter Gordon, Amr Hamzawy, Elisabeth Shakman Hurd, Aleksandra Kania, Cristina Lafont, Ebrahim Moosa, Fabio Petito, David Rasmussen, Olivier Roy, Saskia Sassen, Richard Sennett, Ananya Vajpeyi, Michael Walzer (in video), Patrick Weil, Boyan Znepolski and many more.

Executive Committee of the Istanbul Seminars: Asaf Savaş Akat, Seyla Benhabib, Giancarlo Bosetti, Alessandro Ferrara, Abdou Filali-Ansary, Nina zu Fürstenberg, Nilüfer Göle, Ferda Keskin, David Rasmussen

CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION AND UPDATES

Grants and enrollment:
As usual, there is no fee of attendance. Reset-Dialogues does not arrange travel and accommodation for participants, but is happy to provide information and support through its website. A limited number of small grants (up to 300 euros) for Undergraduates, Graduates, PhDs and Post PhDs, is available.

Granted applicants are required to attend the whole program 24-28 May.

The application deadline to apply for a grant is the 8th of April 2016. Applicants asking for a grant will be notified regarding the selection by April 15th.
The enrollment deadline to apply without asking for a grant is 15th May 2016.
CLICK HERE TO FILL IN THE APPLICATION FORMS

A daily free lunch ticket to be spent at the Campus Cafeteria will be provided to all granted participants and to all enrolled participants.

Working groups:
Both granted students/scholars and not granted enrolled participants may ask for being part of the discussion working groups. Participants involved in the working groups will receive some reading material by April 30th. Each working group will discuss the preliminary readings and the speeches given by the Speakers. At the end of the program each working group will present the results to the audience. Working groups meet daily at the end of the sessions, for about one hour. Involvement in the working groups is not compulsory, but welcome.

Check www.resetdoc.org regularly for updates

This event is organized and cosponsored by Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations and Istanbul Bilgi University

Invitation to seminar on ‘Governing religion: Interfaith dialogue and organized cultural encounters’

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You are invited to the research seminar ‘Governing religion: Interfaith dialogue and organized cultural encounters’ held at University of Agder (UiA) in Kristiansand, Norway, on March 30 2016.

The seminar critically engages with the ways in which interfaith dialogue constitutes a means to govern religion and the religious, and it explores which forms of religion that are produced from these organized cultural encounters and raises questions as to which roles local government, migration and media play.

 

Two keynote lectures by international experts on interfaith dialogue, Mar Griera from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Lise Paulsen Galal from Roskilde University, will take place during the morning session. The rest of the seminar will take the form of a workshop and provide an opportunity for Ph.D.-students to present on-going Ph.D.-projects (app. 30-45 min. each) and receive comments from the lectures, commentators and fellow Ph.D.-students.

 

The seminar is free of charge. Lunch, coffee and tea will be provided as well as mandatory reading for the seminar (app. 3 texts). The seminar is open for all, but preregistration is necessary.

 

Deadline for registration: March 7 2016 to Louise Lund Liebmann (louise.l.liebmann@uia.no).

For those PhD-students who want to present a paper: please add an abstract of 200 words.

Notification of paper acceptance will be given shortly after the deadline.

 

The seminar is organized by the research project ‘Conflicts in Mediatized Religious Environments’ (CoMRel) and University of Agder.

 

Colloque AFSR, CNRS, 59-61 rue Pouchet, Paris 17 Lundi 1er et mardi 2 février 2016. Entre indifférence religieuse et athéisme militant

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Lundi 1er février, 10 h – 12 heures

• Anne-Laure Zwilling, DRES, CNRS / Université de Strasbourg: Introduction

Entre histoire et concepts

Présidente de séance : Céline Béraud, Université de Caen, présidente de l’AFSR

• François Dingremont, EHESS Historicité du « troisième homme ». Athéisme et indifférence depuis l’Antiquité

• Jean Baubérot, GSRL Laïcité, athéisme, indifférence religieuse: quelques pistes de sociologie historique

• Lionel Obadia, Université Lyon 2, LARHRA Quelle anthropologie pour quel athéisme ? Au-delà des Writing Cultures et du Postcolonialisme

Midi – AG de l’AFSR 14 h 30 – 17 h 30 Terrains français

Président de séance : Philipe Portier, EPHE / GSRL

• Raphaël Liogier, Sciences po Aix-en-Provence / CHERPA Le mythe hypermoderne de l’incroyance bouddhiste

• Raul Magni-Berton, Université Grenoble Alpes, Sciences po Grenoble / PACTE L’athéisme des scientifiques français : comment l’expliquer?

• Marion Maudet, EHESS, IRIS et GSRL Sans religion, indifférent-e-s, catholiques affirmés : quels positionnements dans le domaine de l’intime ? A partir des enquêtes sur la sexualité en France

• Sebastian Roché, CNRS, Sciences po Grenoble / PACTE Indifférence et implication religieuses : quels effets sur la confiance aux institutions publiques ? Enquête auprès des adolescents

17 h 30 Pot offert par l’AFSR

Mardi 2 février 9 h – 13 h

Perspectives comparées dans différentes aires culturelles

Président de séance : Dominique Iogna-Prat, EHESS, CéSor

• Philippe Martin, Université Lyon 2, LARHRA / ISERL L’athéisme naît-il au 18e siècle ?

• Hsin-Tien Chuang, EHESS, CéSor L’ « athéisme » des Chinois, de Niccolò Longobardo S.J. (1565-1655) à aujourd’hui

• Soufian Al Karjousli, EMAM/CITERES, Université de Tours Les visions plurielles de l’athéisme dans le monde arabo-musulman

• Pierre Bréchon, Université Grenoble Alpes, Sciences po Grenoble / PACTE Sociologie des athées et des indifférents en Europe • Nathalie Caron, Université Paris-Sorbonne L’indifférence religieuse existe-t-elle aux Etats Unis ?

14 h – 17 h 30 Terrains étrangers et européens

Président de séance : Philippe Martin, Université Lyon 2, LARHRA / ISERL

• Emilie Pontanier, Lisst-Cas, Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès Indifférence religieuse et athéisme, ou le choix d’une école laïque en Tunisie

• Eva Patzelt, Département d’études germaniques de la Sorbonne Enseigner l’athéisme : les dilemmes d’une discipline est-allemande, entre indifférence et ambitions

• Bérengère Massignon, GSRL La Fédération humaniste européenne : un athéisme organisé et militant auprès des institutions européennes

• Louis-Léon Christians, Université Catholique de Louvain, RSCS Irréligion individuelle ou d’Etat : les ambiguïtés de la jurisprudence européenne

• Philippe Portier, EPHE / GSRL Synthèse du colloque

Colloque organisé par Pierre Bréchon, Lionel Obadia, Anne-Laure Zwilling

CALL FOR PAPERS International conference RELIGIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS Padua (Italy), April 14-15, 2016

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The relationship between religion and human rights is controversial and debated. The aim of the international conference is to take stock of the complex connections between religion and human rights, emphasizing that both the definition and the application of these two concepts are influenced by the different social and cultural contexts within which they are placed. Starting from the geopolitical changes which have involved contemporary society on a global scale, the conference intends to critically evaluate the two main narratives on this topic: on the one hand religions understood as an element opposing the affirmation of human rights, and on the other religions considered as agencies facilitating the implementation of human rights. Religious rights, understood as individual and/or collective rights, are disputed as well. How do religious traditions and new religious communities approach human rights issues? How do states manage religious traditions and religious diversification? How are human rights discourses and practices affected by the social context?

Participants are invited to explore from different disciplinary perspectives the following topics: Freedom of expression, speech, choice, association; non-discrimination; gender issues; religionstate relations; violence; conflict; peace.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

Eileen Barker, London School of Economics

Lori Beaman, University of Ottawa

Willy Fautré, Human Rights Without Frontiers International Silvio Ferrari, University of Milan

Enzo Pace, University of Padua James Richardson, University of Nevada

Hans-Georg Ziebertz, University of Wuerzburg

The international conference is organized by the Joint PhD Programme on “Human Rights, Society, and Multi-level Governance” (Universities of Athens-Panteion, Padua, Western Sydney, Zagreb). Scientific Committee: Giuseppe Giordan, University of Padua Adam Possamai, Western Sidney University Constantin Preda, University of Bucharest Siniša Zrinščak, University of Zagreb.

Abstracts (300 words) should be sent to Giuseppe Giordan (giuseppe.giordan@unipd.it) no later than January 15th, 2016. Acceptance notification will be sent by January 25th, 2016. There are no fees for attendance.