Symposium/Masterclass on Research on Religion, Gender, and Sexuality

Saturday 29 June 2019
At The University Of Newcastle Sydney Cbd Campus
55 Elizabeth St
Sydney

This one-day symposium brings together postgraduate students and early career researchers working in the interdisciplinary area of religion, gender and sexuality to explore specific issues pertaining to study in this area.

Masterclass 1 (9.30-1pm) Methodological and Ethical Issues in the Study of Religion, Gender and Sexuality
Leaders: Professor Emma Tomalin, University of Leeds; Dr Luke Gahan, La Trobe University

  • This masterclass will explore interdisciplinary approaches to and methodologies in the study of religion, gender and sexuality. The first session will look at the theory of intersectionality when applied to the research and analysis of religion, gender and sexuality in non-western societies. The second session will look at methods and ethics in researching LGBTQI cohorts and issues. Participants will be encouraged to draw on insights from their own research in order to contribute to the discussion, and there will be a pre-symposium reading requirement.

Masterclass 2 (2.00-3.30) Safety in the Research Process
Leader: Dr Kathleen McPhillips, University of Newcastle

  • Researching across gender issues in the study of religion can expose us to challenging and difficult literature and field sites for which understanding and preparation is essential. This Masterclass will explore some of the pitfalls in the research process, the importance of setting up a safe research environment for participants and researchers and the importance of self-care. The class will introduce a trauma informed model of research practice and will draw upon the expertise of a number of experienced researchers, early career researchers and current HDR students who have worked in challenging research areas. Participants will be invited to share their experiences and there will be a pre-symposium reading requirement.

Discussion (4-5pm)

  • A final session will address the importance of mentoring for HDR and early career researchers as well as helpful tips about the move from post graduate student to researcher and academic.
    This event is fully catered for and morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea is provided.

Registration Costs:

  • HDR Students $40
  • Early Career Researchers and part-time academics $50
  • Full time Academics $100

To Register and pay, go to https://www.aasr.org.au/2019-gender-religion-sexuality-symposium

Sponsored By:

  • The Women’s Caucus Of The Australian Association For The Study Of Religion
  • The School Of Humanities And Social Sciences, University Of Newcastle
  • Religion And Society Research Cluster, Western Sydney University
  • Institute For Ethics And Society, Notre Dame University, Sydney
  • Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, Melbourne

Apply for Generations in Dialogue about the Sociology of Religion

The Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California (USC) is seeking applications for its Generations in Dialogue (GID) program about the Sociology of Religion.

The GID program involves a widely-recognized senior Catholic scholar sharing his or her time, expertise, and wisdom with several junior scholars in the same or related disciplines. Over a two-year period these scholars convene for four weekend dialogues that include discipline-specific discussions, personal reflection, shared prayer, and presentations from distinguished scholars and public intellectuals.  Besides benefitting from two years of mentorship, junior scholars will establish relationships with other dedicated scholars in their field.

A generous stipend is included. Early-career (pre-tenure and dissertation stage) social scientists are eligible. Applications are welcome from anyone interested in a substantive and critical engagement with Catholicism’s multiple intellectual traditions

For more information and an application:

https://ifacs.com/programs/generations-in-dialogue/

Call for Papers: “Mosques, families and Islamic Law”

‘Danish Mosques – Significance, Use and Influence’ together with the ‘Nordic Mosques Research network’ invites papers and applications for participation. This will be the first workshop as part of the HS-NOS funding and the mid-term conference in the Danish Mosques research project.

The workshop will take place at in Göteborg in Sweden at the Hotel Panorama from 21st to 23rd August 2019.

The deadline for the call for papers is May 1st, 2019.

All contact should be addressed to Niels Valdemar Vinding, lbm993@hum.ku.dk

https://mosques.ku.dk/activities/mosques-families-and-islamic-law/

Call for Papers

For this workshop, we invite scholars and researchers in the Nordic countries (and beyond) that work in the intersection of mosques, family and Islamic law. Mosques are widely understood as Muslim institutions in the discursivity of Islam. Similarly, Islamic law is widely defined as Islamic ethics, norms and practice. In our view and in legal terms, the biggest challenge for mosques and Muslims in the Nordic countries is building authentic and responsive legal institutions that may help Muslims in their ethnic, social and legal dilemmas and problems, where Western society seems to disappoint. There is a significant degree of experimentation and different attempts at articulating a religious legal identity and institutions amongst Muslims in the Nordic countries. This has been going on for a number of years, but now seems to be quasi-institutionalised to point where we are able to find legal documents, interview people and observe the process of legal institutionalization.

However, currently Muslim legal institutions are reaching out to governments and courts to better regulate and establish their practices to mitigate the significant risk of having their work deemed illegitimate and even illegal. The most significant legal concern by far is Muslim family law with the fear of parallel legal orders and subversive counter-normativity.

The operable questions for the workshop are; how are Muslims in mosques (and beyond) articulating their legal, ethical and normative identities? What kind of institutions are being build? How many so-called Islamic councils are there in the Nordic countries? How are they seen and used by Muslims? What kind of Islamic law and ethics issues are seen by the courts and quasi-courts in the Nordic countries, such as family matters, divorce, mediation, inherence, honour, polygamy? How do the courts and the legal systems in general approach and address these issues?

We are inviting submissions for papers as well as for participation in the workshop. We will give preference to papers to be presented during the workshop. For paper presentations, we are expecting written contributions to either an upcoming special issue of a leading journal or to a concluding anthology on Nordic Mosques in Context.

Paper abstracts of 300 words or expressions of interest in participation and a short CV to be submitted to Niels Valdemar Vinding, lbm993@hum.ku.dk, on May 1st 2019 at the latest.

Workshop Series Theme

This is the first in a series of three workshops on Nordic Mosques in Context – On the institutional embeddedness of Islam in the Nordic countries sponsored by a NOS-HS Workshop Grant. The second is on ”Mosques, power and politics,” in Copenhagen, Denmark, in January 2020, and the third is on ”Mosques, communities and finance,” in Oslo, Norway, August 2020. The purpose of the workshops is to investigate the dimensions of institutional embeddedness of Islam in the Nordic countries as mosques seek to be responsive institutions for the needs of Muslims, challenged by economic, legal and political alternatives. We are considering mosques as the focal point of Islam in economic, legal and political terms, the primary objective of this research project is to study the institutional strategies of mosques and Muslims in embedding Islam in the Nordic wider societies. The key here is to see to what extend mosques are responsive institutions for the needs of Muslim in soliciting the wider public, or if Muslims go beyond the mosque in the pursuit of other more apt forms of institutionalised religious life such as invoking Islamic economic, legal and political responses. We argue that the entire future of mosques depends on whether they can give and refine responsive and meaningful answers and make them coherent with the economic, legal and politics questions that Muslims seek the answers to. As such, this may result in the secularisation of mosques as they negotiate and find their place in society. Will these new or re-interpreted institutional expressions clash with the general public, will they fail Muslims or will they be viable alternatives for embedding Islam in the Nordic countries?

Workshop structure

We are aiming to conduct this workshop from the afternoon on Wednesday 21st August and finish with lunch on Friday 23rd August. All accepted participants will have flights, trains and other public transportation and hotel costs covered. We are organising a programme with keynotes, paper sessions with 20 minutes presentation and 10 minutes Q&A, as well as an afternoon open to the public and local stakeholders.

Conveners

Brian Arly Jacobsen, assoc. professor, Sociology of Religion, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Torkel Brekke, Research Professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Norway

Göran Larsson, Professor in Religious Studies, Göteborg University, Sweden

Niels Valdemar Vinding, post.doc., Islamic Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

News and Events Reposted from AASR (May/June, 2018)

Here is a set of events, updates, and conferences/calls-for-papers reposted from the website of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion (https://www.aasr.org.au/mayjune/)

Events:

Updates:

Conferences / call for papers:

CFP: International Workshop “Religious Contacts in Early Modern Scandinavia 1500-1750”

The Käte Hamburger Kolleg Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe of the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) invites papers to be presented at the international workshop “Religious Contacts in Early Modern Scandinavia 1500-1750” to be held 10-11 October 2018 in Bochum, Germany.

The workshop will bring together scholars of religious studies, history and cultural studies from the Northern countries as well as Baltic States, German-speaking countries and beyond to explore further the multitude of religious contacts on and around the Scandinavian Peninsula and the Baltic in Early Modern Age.

Among others we would like to compare case studies of different religious contacts and how they were executed by the actors involved. The focus will be rather on the situation and effect of religious contact than on a single religious group.

Examples to be discussed are among others:
– indigenous religions’ (Sami, Karelian, Inuits of Greenland) encounters with Lutheranism and/or Pietism,
– adaption and local alignments of, or resistance towards ideas derived from Protestant Reformation,
– encounters of Scandinavian colonists with the religious beliefs practiced by native peoples (of North America, Africa, Asia),
– early encounters between Protestantism and Orthodox Christianity in Finland and the Baltic,
– Jewish communities of and Jewish migration towards the Scandinavia peninsula in Early Modern Times,
– the spread of non-theistic Enlightenment ideas in Scandinavia and the Baltic before 1750.

Each participant is invited to present a paper in English.

The paper shall later be published in the Käte Hamburger Kolleg’s peer reviewed online journal Entangled Religions (https://er.ceres.rub.de/). All costs (travel expenses, accommodation, dining) will be covered by the Käte Hamburger Kolleg.

The Käte Hamburger Kolleg Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe is an international research institution directly funded by the German government. It conducts research in the field of religious studies and history of religion that is dedicated to the formation and expansion of religions, the mutual permeation of religious traditions and their densifications into the complex figurations called ‘world religions.’ Find more information here: https://khk.ceres.rub.de/en/

The Käte Hamburger Kolleg welcomes applications including an abstract on the intended paper to be presented (max 1,500 words) and a short notice about the academic affiliation of the applicant. Applications should be submitted electronically to ulf.plessentin@rub.de no later than June 15, 2018.


Call for Papers Understanding urban religion

Call for Papers Understanding urban religion Heritage, public space and governance International Workshop Barcelona, 25-27 October 2018

While sociological research on religion in urban contexts has proliferated in recent years, the city has less frequently been taken explicitly as a relevant dimension in the study of religion. Historically, social scientists considered cities as the epitome of secularization, and predicted that processes of secularization would diminish the role of religion in urban life. However, dynamic and vibrant forms of urban religion have emerged in cities across the world in recent years (Becci, Burchardt and Casanova, 2013). Developments such as rising levels of transnational migration and the growth of new religious movements have contributed to the religious revitalization of contemporary cities.

The diversification of urban religious landscapes is documented by a variety of studies (Knott, Krech and Meyer, 2016; Lanz et al., 2016). All over the world, cities are witnessing a proliferation of non-traditional places of worship of several kinds (Martínez-Ariño et al., 2011; Stolz and Monnot, forthcoming). On the one hand, religious communities have begun to adapt to trends of urban change such as sub-urbanization and de-industrialization by establishing places of worship in shopping malls, former industrial warehouses, newly established industrial estates and other commercial zones. On the other hand, and especially in Europe, a rapidly increasing number of traditional church buildings are closed and repurposed as a consequence of dropping membership and resulting financial pressures. Churches are sometimes demolished, but more commonly they are put to new use: they are handed over to other faith communities, converted into lofts or other kinds of commercial property, or into public and civic facilities such as museums, libraries or art spaces. In many cities, the future and the management of religious heritage has been object of debate and controversy. In recent years, there has also been a proliferation of multi-faith and inter-faith places. These are either construed as unified places that remain architecturally neutral and open to believers and practitioners of all persuasions, or contain symbolic and architectural elements of different religious communities (often the so-called Abrahamic faiths, Christianity, Islam and Judaism).

At the same time, cities have turned into sites of religious innovation and have become stages for the performing of religious events and celebrations that are parts of urban consumer cultures and contribute to the construction of urban identities and city images. The density of religious actors in the city fosters processes of religious hybridization, transformation and crossfertilization. This vibrant dynamism becomes a fertile ground for cooperation and exchange, but also for conflict. In this context, the governance of religious diversity gains new saliency at the level of cities (Griera, 2012). Municipal authorities, including political as well as administrative actors, pay increasing attention to religious issues and a multiplicity of policy instruments are in place to govern them (Martínez-Ariño, 2017). In addition, urban religious affairs often become the object of public contestation, and generate media and civil society attention (Griera and Burchardt, 2016; Siemiatycki, 2005; Watson, 2005).

The aim of this workshop is to explore the conditions, forms and consequences of the ways urban religion is revitalized, spatialized and governed in contemporary cities. The general topic of the workshop is organized around three sub-themes: heritage, religious expressions in public space, and governance.

Workshop papers should address one or more of the following themes:

1. Religious heritage. The aim of this thematic focus is to discuss cultural, political and power dynamics associated with religious heritage, and explore its role in contemporary cities.
2. Urban religious expressions. This strand explores public religious expressions such as festivals, parades, public prayers and meditations and aims to understand processes of the eventization of urban religion as well as the challenges these presences pose to cities and their dwellers.
3. Governance. Contributions in this third thematic section will look at different articulations of state-religion regimes and political secularism at the urban level.

Abstracts of no more than 250-300 words should be submitted to j.martinez.arino@rug.nl* by 15 June 2018.

Organisers Paul Bramadat (University of Victoria, Canada) Marian Burchardt (University of Leipzig, Germany) Mar Griera (Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain) Julia Martínez-Ariño (University of Groningen, Netherlands)

Workshop on religious urbanization in Africa, 11 May

Moral economies of ‘development’ in urban Africa

 

An international research workshop funded by the British Academy/Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) through the RUA project and hosted by SSPSSR, University of Kent

 

Friday 11 May 2018 | The Common Room, Cathedral Lodge, Canterbury, Kent

Programme:

https://rua-project.ac.uk/international-symposium-may-2018/

Places are free, but limited. To book a place and for further information:

please email:   ruaproject@kent.ac.uk

This interdisciplinary symposium brings together scholars from three continents to discuss the intersections and tensions between moral economies of ‘development’, religious urbanisation and social change in contemporary Africa. How are visions of the ‘ideal city’ materially articulated in religious imaginaries, experiences and concrete urban developments? What kind of centralities and peripheries are produced and reproduced through mega-urbanisation and religious place-making? How should development policies and analyses take account of religious dynamics and religious actors in African urban contexts?

 

Speakers include:

Simon Coleman (University of Toronto)

Immaculata Nwokoro (University of Lagos)

Paul-Francois Tremlett (Open University)

Xavier Moyet (University of Toronto)

Aurélien Mokoko-Gampiot (GSRL/CNRS, Paris)

Ben Jones (University of East Anglia)

Marloes Janson (SOAS, London)

Gareth Millington (University of York)

Thomas Akoensi (University of Kent)

Organiser:

David Garbin (SSPSSR, University of Kent)

 

Places are free, but limited. To book a place and for further information:

please email:   ruaproject@kent.ac.uk

Workshop on Transnational and Multicultural Nationalisms

Workshop on Transnational and Multicultural Nationalisms

CERI-SCIENCESPO

27 April 2018

 Transnationalism has become an inevitable development in human experiences imposed by globalization and concerns domains going from the distribution of natural resources to organized crimes and terrorism. Studies for a least two decades have explored transnational phenomenon as migrants’ experiences « here and there », « at home and abroad » and have spread to an interdisciplinary approach. All sorts of networks – economic, cultural and political –connect home and host countries. These networks ensure the transfer of norms, values, and rights and foster a transnational solidarity and where new forms of interaction occur, creating new symbols and engendering identities which seek to assert themselves beyond borders. Transnationalism raises the question of nationalism and territoriality of belonging. Transnational communities are guided by a de-territorialized “imagined geography” that gives rise to a form of transnational nationalism, non territoiral, not bounded.

 

Among many aspects of transnationalism, in particular is of interest for this one day workshop is to clarify what this phenomenon encompasses in terms of nationalism and national identity; how the modes of attachment that we find here relate to the relevant political authorities and how transnationalism relates to multiculturalism. To some the emergence of transnational communities appears as a logical next step to multiculturalism defined as a “politics of recognition”. But for scholars who is advocating a multicultural nationalism, like Tariq Modood for Britain, the key political challenge today is monocultural, populist nationalism and they think that the multiculuralising of national citizenship is a more feasible response than cosmopolitianism or other post-national tendencies.

 

If these variations of nationalism are perceived as challenge to states, studies show that states following their migrants in movement intervene in order to “reterritoiralize” globalized identities. In doing so they compete with a more bottoms-up transnationalism or a vernacular cosmopolitanism as well as with polities re-asserting their national identities, in monocultural or multicultural ways. We seek to understand these alternative and competing nationalisms as responses to migration-based diversity and the interactive dynamics between these political ideas and movements.

 

This one day workshop will bring together scholars who have been working on transnationalism in realtion to multiculturalism, nationalism, and citizesnhip.

 

 10h00 – 12h30

Panel 1: Transnationalism with regard to state and nationalism : conceptual and methodological framework

Tariq Modood, University of Bristol: Multicultural nationalism and citizenship

Riva Kastoryano, Sciences Po – CERI – CNRS: Transnational nationalism and the state

Thomas Faist, University of Bielefeld: Transnational civil society and sate and citizenship

Discussant: Hélène Thiollet, Sciences Po – CERI – CNRS

Pause déjeuner

14h30 – 17h30

Panel 2: Transnational and multicultural politics of integration

Ruud Koopmans, WZB : Assimilation and Multiculturalism

Marco Antonsich, Loughborough University : Multicultural Nationalism : connecting the macro and the micro

Thomas Lacroix : From simultaneity to plurality. Transnationalism in action

Discussant : Hélène Thiollet, Sciences Po, CERI – CNRS

 

Responsables Scientifiques: Riva Kastoryano, Sciences Po – CERI – CNRS et Tariq Modood, Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, SPAIS, University of Bristol

 

Venue details:

https://www.sciencespo.fr/agenda/fr/events-front?event=138

Tariq Modood, MBE, FBA, FAcSS, FRSA

Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy,

Director, University of Bristol Research Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship

School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS)

NEW C0-EDITED BOOK: ‘The Problem of Religious Diversity: European Challenges, Asian Approaches’:

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-problem-of-religious-diversity.html

NEW PAPER: ‘Must Interculturalists Misrepresent Multiculturalism?’

file://ads/filestore/SocSci/spais/sotm/_tariq/Interculturalism/Must%20Interculturalists%20Misrepresent%20Multiculturalism_CMS%20Symposium.pdf

WEBSITES: www.tariqmodood.com

Music workshop

WORKSHOP

WORKSHOP INTRODUCING THE ‘LIVING IN HARMONY’ MUSIC PROJECT AT THE WOOLF INSTITUTE AND OTHER MUSIC PROJECTS WITH AN INTERFAITH ELEMENT

23 APRIL 2018, 2.00PM
WOOLF INSTITUTE, MADINGLEY ROAD,
CAMBRIDGE CB3 0UB

http://www.woolf.cam.ac.uk/whats-on/events

Please note the Woolf’s new contact details

Woolf Institute
Madingley Road
Cambridge
CB3 0UB

Office telephone: 01223 761977
Mobile telephone: 07859 883887

Reg Charity No 1069589
Company Limited by Guarantee No 3540878
Registered in England and Wales at the above address

INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP: DECOLONISING THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN THE ERA OF INTERNATIONALISED EDUCATION (Singapore, 7th/8th March 2018)

INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP: DECOLONISING THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN THE ERA OF INTERNATIONALISED EDUCATION (Singapore, 7th/8th March 2018)

Summary of the Workshop

The social sciences are typically understood as having been formally institutionalised in the manner that we recognise them today in a specific Western context. The significance of this is often overlooked despite it continuing to play a role in shaping approaches to teaching and research in the social sciences today. Nonetheless, there have been numerous scholars, particularly those from the periphery, who have highlighted the ways in which the social sciences remain thoroughly ethnocentric. These scholars argue that the perspectives and contributions of various minorities, particularly non-Western scholars, have been excluded from academic knowledge production. Crucially, this exclusion has not been due to a dearth of erudite non-Western scholarship, but due to historical factors that produced Orientalist hierarchies in imagining which types of scholars produce the most useful knowledge. In recent years there has been an intensification of calls to overcome ‘academic imperialism’ by way of ‘decolonising the curriculum’. This workshop will bring together a diverse and interdisciplinary range of participants to discuss the ways in which the social sciences remain parochial and why. In order to further the discussion in a way that it often isn’t, special emphasis will be placed on theorising innovative proposals that may address the problems that are identified. This FREE workshop will provide an inclusive space for scholars, students and those who are curious to discuss these pressing themes regardless of occupation, status or disciplinary specialism.

Keynote Speakers

Syed Farid Alatas is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. He is also appointed to the Department of Malay Studies at NUS and headed that department from 2007 till 2013. His books and articles include Ibn Khaldun(Oxford University Press, 2013); Applying Ibn Khaldun: The Recovery of a Lost Tradition in Sociology (Routledge, 2014), and (with Vineeta Sinha) Sociological Theory Beyond the Canon (Palgrave, 2017). His areas of interest are the sociology of Islam, social theory, religion and reform, intra- and inter-religious dialogue, and the study of Orientalism.

Biko Agozino is a Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Virginia Tech, USA. He was educated at Edinburgh University (Ph.D.), Cambridge University (MPhil), and University of Calabar (BSc). He is the author of Counter-Colonial Criminology: A Critique of Imperialist Reason, London, Pluto Press, 2003; and of Black Women and the Criminal Justice System: Towards the Decolonisation of Victimisation, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1997, among other works. He directed and produced ‘Shouters and the Control Freak Empire’, winner of the Best International Short Documentary, Columbia Gorge Film Festival, USA, 2011.

When

Wednesday 7th March 2018: 15:00 – 18:30

Thursday 8th March 2018: 11:00 – 16:00

Where

The workshop will be held at the University of Liverpool in Singapore, Block 29B, Tampines Aveune 1, 528694, Singapore.

Registration

Participation in the workshop is FREE. Registration is essential to facilitate appropriate catering and room bookings. There are a limited number of places available which will be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis. To register, send an email with your name and email address in the body of the email to: ULIS@Liverpool.ac.uk. Please indicate whether you wish to attend on day 1, day 2 or both days. Registration will close on Wednesday 28th February 2018.

Financial Support

Multiple travel assistance grants of £100 are available for scholars attending the workshop that are based in category B and category C countries (as defined by the International Sociological Association: http://www.isa-sociology.org/en/about-isa/membership/table-of-economies-by-category/). Scholars who wish to be considered for one of these grants should email ULIS@Liverpool.ac.uk with a brief description of why they wish to attend the workshop. The travel assistance grants will be paid to selected participants on condition of attending all of the workshop sessions.

Programme

Day 1: Wednesday 7th March

15:10 – Audience to be seated

15:20 – Welcome by Dr Leon Moosavi, Director of the University of Liverpool in Singapore

15:30 – Professor Syed Farid Alatas – ‘Decolonising the Social Sciences: Resurrecting Knowledge in the South’

16:15 – Professor Biko Agozino – ‘The Decolonization Paradigm and the Postcolonial Criminology Perspective’

17:00 – Discussion

17:30 – Open buffet with networking opportunity

18:30 – Event end

Day 2: Thursday 8th March

11:00-13:00 – Symposium discussion 1: The problem: In what ways and why are the social sciences ethnocentric? What other forms of exclusion in academia need to be addressed?

13:00-14:00 – Open buffet with networking opportunity

14:00-16:00 – Symposium discussion 2: The solutions: Can the social sciences be decolonised and if so, how? What has already been done that seems to be working?  

16:00 – Event end

————

ALL WELCOME