Call for Papers: Public Benefit in the Study of Religion

Call for Papers: Joint BASR/BSA-SOCREL panel on the ‘Public benefit in the study of religion’ with keynote panel speakers Prof. Eileen Barker and Prof. Douglas Davies. BASR annual conference, September 5-7 2012 University of Winchester.

The topic of the panel is how research has directly benefited ‘the public’. The panel will focus on two aspects of this broad theme as it relates to the study of religion: 1) What do we mean by ‘public benefit’?  How do we demonstrate it, measure it, communicate it and what are the practical and theoretical issues surrounding the idea of how the study of religion – or faith, or belief – can operate in the, or perhaps as a, public good? Are there theoretical problems in considering what is meant by ‘public’ or ‘benefit’ in different cultural and historical contexts? 2) What are some case examples of how research or teaching about religion has contributed to the public good? We are not asking here for examples about how ‘religion’ has contributed to the public but specifically how the study of and research on religion has done so.

Abstracts to Dr Abby Day a.f.day@kent.ac.uk and Dr Bettina Schmidt b.schmidt@tsd.ac.uk by 1 April 2012.