HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL announces five full-time non-tenure track positions as Research Associate and Visiting Faculty for 2020-21 in its Women’s Studies and Religion Program.  Proposals for book-length projects utilizing both religion and gender as central categories of analysis and focusing on any religion are welcomed.  Salary for 2020-21 will be $60,000.  Completed applications are due online by October 15, 2019.  Applicants must have received their PhD by October 1, 2019.  Please see our website (http://wsrp.hds.harvard.edu/apply) for more information.

Employer Description:
The Women’s Studies in Religion Program was founded in 1973 to explore the fundamental role played by religious traditions in defining roles for women and men.  Research on religion and gender sheds light on questions about the changing roles of women both inside religious communities and in broader public spheres.  The Program’s goal is the production of new primary research addressing these and related issues and the dispersal of that information through courses, publications, and public programs.

Finland, Greece, Ireland and Portugal

Editors: Tuomas Martikainen, José Mapril and Adil Hussain Khan

This volume focuses on Muslims in Finland, Greece, Ireland and Portugal, representing the four corners of the European Union today. It highlights how Muslim experiences can be understood in relation to a country’s particular historical routes,See More

Publication Date: 29 July 2019

ISBN: 978-90-04-40456-4

Part 1: Governing Islam and Muslims

1 The Founding of the Islamic Council of Finland
  Tuomas Martikainen
2 State and Religion in Peripheral Europe: State-Religion Relations, Corporatism and Islam in Portugal and Ireland (1970–2010)
  Luís Pais Bernardo
3 The Governance of Islamic Religious Education in Finland: Promoting “General Islam” and the Unity of All Muslims
  Tuula Sakaranaho

Part 2: Politics of Recognition

4 Concepts of Authority in Irish Islam
  Adil Hussain Khan
5 Nation-state, Citizenship and Belonging: A Socio-historical Exploration of the Role of Indigenous Islam in Greece
  Venetia Evergeti
6 Perceptions of Mis/Recognition: The Experience of Sunni Muslim Individuals in Dublin, Ireland
  Des Delaney

Part 3: Public Debates and (In)Visibility

7 Explaining the Absence of a Veil Debate: The Mediating Role of Ethno-nationalism and Public Religion in the Irish Context
  Stacey Scriver
8 Muslim Migration Intelligence and Individual Attitudes toward Muslims in Present-day Portugal
  Nina Clara Tiesler and Susana Lavado
9 From the Margins to the Fore: Muslim Immigrants in Contemporary Greece
  Panos Hatziprokopiou

Part 4: Mobilities and Belonging

10 Iraqi Diaspora and Public Space in a Multicultural Suburb in Finland
  Marko Juntunen
11 Sudanese and Somali Women in Ireland and in Finland: Material Religion and Culture in the Formation of Migrant Women’s Identities in the Diaspora
  Yafa Shanneik and Marja Tiilikainen
12 The Socio-spatial Configuration of Muslims in Lisbon
  Jennifer McGarrigle
 References
 Index

Conference of the International Society for Media, Religion and Culture Conference location: Sigtuna Foundation, Sigtuna, Sweden. Conference dates: 4-7 of August 2020. Deadline for Paper proposals: 6 December 2019.

Religion, as humanity’s oldest expression of values, identity and community, has always been a mediated practice. In contemporary society religious ideas are communicated, learned, represented, enacted and resisted through various forms of media. Religion circulates through social media, is discussed in the news and becomes a source of imagery for film and television.

The International Society for Media, Religion and Culture (ISMRC) was founded in 2010 out of a series of conferences on the interplay between media, religion and culture starting in 1994. Today the ISMRC is a vibrant research community of scholars with a large variety of international, disciplinary and religious backgrounds, covering topics such as journalism on religion; religion, popular culture and entertainment; and digital religion.

The ISMRC organizes biennial conferences and the Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture (RMDC) is published by Brill in cooperation with the ISMRC.

Click HERE for detailed information.

AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION

The 2019 AASR conference will be held from December 5-6 at the city campus of the University of Newcastle, co-hosted by the AASR, the Centre for the Study of Violence and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. 

Conference Theme: Religion and Violence

We invite scholarly reflections on the complex and diverse relations between religion and violence, incorporating counter discourses of peace and social justice.

The relationship between religion and violence continues to be contentious and marked by significant changes in global and domestic politics including humanitarian crises, displaced peoples particularly asylum seekers, the rise and fall of extremist religious movements, the status of hate speech, the role of social media and the ongoing threat of religious terrorism. 

These major upheavals, particularly the claims to religious authority and legitimacy through violent means, have led to a growth in collective anxiety threatening global and local security.  Religious violence can be direct and institutional; aimed against individuals or groups; administered by the state or by non-state actors; material and symbolic.

A counterpoint is provided by religiously-motivated peace and social justice movements, including those for welcoming religiously-diverse refugees and migrants, interfaith initiatives and movements for gender and sexuality equality and animal rights. For example, values of religious diversity, social solidarity and pluralism have been notable in responding to recent expressions of violence including the events in Christchurch in March 2019 and provide notable moments of hope in moving towards religious diversity as a global value.

The conference invites papers engaging these issues from relevant disciplines including religious studies, politics, history, philosophy, law, theology, sociology and anthropology, social work, criminology, gender and women’s studies and education. Of particular interest are contributions examining:

• ·         the relationship between religious identity and violent extremism
• ·         state management of religious violence including the regulation of social media and hate speech
• ·         state perpetration of religious violence
• ·         perceptions and constructions of religious violence
• ·         theoretical approaches to the meaning of religious violence including examples of scapegoating and symbolic forms of violence
• ·         the relationship between gender, sexuality, religion and violence with particular attention to current issues of clergy abuse and domestic violence
• ·         representations of religious violence in popular culture
• ·         race, ethnicity, otherness and religious violence
• ·         religion and animal rights
• ·         religious movements for peace and social cohesion

How to Submit

Send proposals to the conference convenor Kathleen McPhillips: Kathleen.mcphillips@newcastle.edu.au

Please include Title, Author, Abstract (maximum 150 words) and university affiliation by 1st August 2019.

We are particularly interested in panel proposals on the conference theme, which must include no more than 4 panel members with a theme, paper titles, abstracts and authors.

Confirmations of acceptance will be sent by 1st September 2019. Late papers will not be considered.

Membership

Please note: submissions will only be considered if authors are members of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion.

For membership please visit the AASR website https://www.aasr.org.au/join-us. Members of NZASR do not need to also have AASR membership.

Conference Venue

The University of Newcastle is Australia’s leading regional university and has a record of global excellence in enquiry and engagement. The School of Humanities and Social Sciences supports the interdisciplinary study of religion including via the Centre for the History of Violence, where researchers work on projects across a breadth of themes including religion. The University’s city campus– Newspace – is located in the centre of the business district close to transport, accommodation, the harbour, beaches and the entertainment area. See https://www.newcastle.edu.au/about-uon/our-environments/new-space

Newcastle is located 2 hours north of Sydney and is easily accessible by road, air and train.  Transport to and from Newcastle airport provides easy access into the city and hosts international flights, including direct flights from Auckland and most major Australian cities.

Friday, August 2, 2019

Millersburg, Holmes County, OH

Conference hosted by the Amish & Plain Anabaptist Studies Association

Proposals are due by Friday, April 5; registration will follow.

For more details, see: www.amishstudies.org

The ongoing growth of the plain people—the Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites, German Baptists, Apostolic Christians, and others—means that more and more people are encountering these subcultures in the public sphere. For this reason, those who specifically study or work with the plain people—including health practitioners, public servants, and social researchers—must continue advancing our bodies of knowledge and best practices through critical evaluation of old paradigms and introduction of new concepts. The goal of this conference is to discuss advances in theory—the conceptual understanding of the plain people—and practice—the hands-on experiences of practitioners working with the plain people. We will also explore the connection between the two, how the lessons of one can be used by the other. For the convenience of attendees, the bi-annual Amish Health Conference of the Center for Appalachia Research in Cancer Education (CARE) will be held back-to-back, on Thursday, August 1, with this conference.

CALL FOR PAPER PROPOSALS

Rethinking Religion in the Public Sphere in 21st century Global South

RC-22 Mid-Term Conference
University of Ghana, Accra
Dates: November 14-18, 2019
Proposal Abstract Deadline: April 15, 2019
Notification of accepted abstracts: May 31, 2019.

The politics of knowledge that seeks to posit it as a preserve of the West has exacerbated a criticism against the dominance of Euro-American Scholarship in the sociology of religion, particularly in its interpretation of religious reality in Africa, and the global South more generally. In advancing the changing dominant pattern of knowledge production and consumption, which reflects a very stratified global division of intellectual labour, this conference draws on historical and methodological trajectories to explore innovative ways in which the sociology of religion can employ both theoretical and epistemological insights into sociological understanding of religion in the global South and its diaspora. What are the current trends and trajectories within the sociology of religion in the global South? What knowledges are being produced by sociologists of religion in the global South? How and to what extent do they contribute to global sociology of religion scholarship? How is religion located in private and/or public spheres? To what extent is religion engaged in the public sphere? How is religion even defined and negotiated in the global South within wider processes of secularization? Also important is the distinction between secular and sacred domains in public life.

The conference draws on ethnographic data of researchers in the field to demonstrate how religious forms, expressions and experiences in the global South either reinforce or transcend socio-political, ethnic, regional, class, age and gender identities and boundaries. Paper and panel proposals are invited from scholars of religion, sociologists of religion and others engaged in interdisciplinary research that extend debates on these and related questions.

Abstract proposals of not more than 150 words should reach the organizers by April 15, 2019 through the following email address: UG-ISA-RC22-Conference@ug.edu.gh  Notification of accepted abstracts: May 31, 2019.

Sub-themes:

• Religion in private and public spheres
• Public reason, public religion and the public sphere
• South-south transnational networks
• Religion and global South publics
• Global South, secularism and post-secularism
• Religion, migration and the public sphere
• Controversies, religious transformation and innovation
• Religion, environment and sustainable development
• Religion and the political economy
• Religion, governance and politics
• Religion, leadership and public accountability
• Religion, gender, sexuality
• Religion, culture and media
• Religion, conflict and violence
• Sacred places and spaces

Organizers:

Host and local organizing committee:

1. Michael P.K. Okyerefo, School of Arts, University of Ghana & Board Member, Africa Rep.
2. Rose Mary Amenga-Etego, Department of Religions, University of Ghana
3. Genevieve Nrenzah, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana

With the support of:

• Afe Adogame, Princeton Theological Seminary & RC 22 President
• Anna Halafoff, Deakin University, Australia, RC22 Secretary/Treasurer

Special Issue of the journal ‘Religions’

Following our very successful one-day conference on ‘Leadership, Authority and Representation in British Muslim Communities’ at Cardiff University last month, we are now actively seeking articles for a Special Issue of the international peer-review journal Religions<https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/bmc> on the same conference theme. This edition of the journal is being co-edited by Professor Sophie Gilliat-Ray and Dr Riyaz Timol.
We are inviting articles of 5,000-8,000 words (including all references and footnotes) by 25th April, though there may be scope to extend that deadline by a few weeks (only) if this makes the difference in terms of potential contributions.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you would like further information. We very much hope you will consider the submission of a paper. Please do circulate to your networks.

With thanks
Sophie Gilliat-Ray and Riyaz Timol

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