Confrence: Religion(s) and Power(s)

Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania
October 5-6, 2017

The Lithuanian Society for the Study of Religions in cooperation with Latvian Society for the Study of Religions and Estonian Society for the Study of Religions invites proposals for its upcoming international conference “Religion(s) and Power(s)”. To encourage new directions in the critical research of interrelations of religion(s) and power(s) from a broad range of approaches, we are seeking proposals on a wide range of topics including:
•    Private and public religions
•    Religions and politics
•    Non-religion and power
•    Religious inequalities and discrimination
•    Religions, human rights and justice
•    Powers of/within religions
•    Religion and nationalism
•    Mythology, divine kinship and power
•    Religion and colonialism
,•    Religions and education.
Other topics related to the conference theme are also encouraged.

Conference paper and session proposals must be sent by June 15, 2017. Please send your 250-300 word abstract and a 200-word personal bio to email: religiousstudieslt@gmail.com

Important conference dates:
June 15, 2017 – submission of conference paper and session proposals;
July 1, 2017 – notification of paper/session proposal acceptance;

July 1, 2017 – opening of registration for the conference;

August 15, 2017 – closing of registration for the conference;

September 1, 2017 – announcement of the conference program.


Conference Registration Fees:
–    Members of national associations of Baltic States associations for the study of religions – 50 EUR
–    Permanent/full-time faculty and non-affiliated participants – 80 EUR;
–    Graduate students and emeritus faculty – 50 EUR;
–    Late bird conference fee – 100 EUR.

Publishing announcement: Migration and Society

Journal published by Berghahn

Migration is at the heart of the transformation of societies and communities and touches the lives of people across the globe. Migration and Society is a new interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal advancing debate about emergent trends in all types of migration. We invite work that situates migration in a wider historical and societal context, including attention to experiences and representations of migration, critical theoretical perspectives on migration, and the social, cultural, and legal embeddedness of migration. Global in its scope, we particularly encourage scholarship from and about the global South as well as the North.
Migration and Society addresses both dynamics and drivers of migration; processes of settlement and integration; and transnational practices and diaspora formation. We publish theoretically informed and empirically based articles of the highest quality, especially encouraging work that interrogates and transcends the boundaries between the social sciences and the arts and humanities.
We also welcome articles that reflect on the complexities of both studying and teaching migration, as well as pieces that focus on the relationship between scholarship and the policies and politics of migration.
Submissions are welcome for consideration in one of the five journal sections:
o   Research Articles: Each issue will include articles (max. 8,000 words) addressing a key theme, in addition to a range of other migration-and-society related articles
o   The People & Places section consists of shorter pieces (2,000-4,000 words), including notes from the field, ‘migrant voices’, and interviews with scholars, practitioners, and policymakers
o   The Reflections section invites critical reflections (max. 5,000 words) on migration research and teaching
o   The Creative Encounters section invites poetry, shorter prose pieces, photo essays, and other  engagements with migration
o   Each issue concludes with a Book Reviews section (800 words for single book reviews, 13-1400 words for reviews of two books, 15-1600 words for three books).
 
Migration and Society is edited by Mette Louise Berg (UCL) and Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (UCL).
 
Inaugural issue (publication August 2018)
Hospitality and hostility towards migrants: global perspectives
Recent years have seen an unprecedented scale of global forced migration. Millions of people have fled conflicts and mass human rights violations as well as poverty and persecution. Across sites of transit and settlement migrants have been met by a combination of hospitality and hostility.
For the inaugural issue of Migration and Society, we welcome theoretically and empirically informed contributions that help us develop a more nuanced understanding of the complex responses and experiences of hospitality and hostility around the world and in different historical contexts. We invite contributions that offer critical analyses of the following questions:
1.      How, and why, have different actors responded to the actual, prospective, and imagined arrival of migrants across time and space?
2.      How have migrants and refugees experienced and responded to different, and at times overlapping, processes of hospitality and hostility in sites of transit and settlement?
3.      What are the politics and the poetics of hospitality and hostility towards migrants in different spaces?
4.      As ‘new’ migrants join established diasporas and transnational communities, how have ‘locals’ and ‘established’ migrants and refugees responded to ‘newly’ displaced people?
5.      How, why, and with what effects have diverse media represented processes of migration? Who has been rendered (hyper)visible and audible, and/or invisible, inaudible, and silenced in different representations of migration?
6.      What are the historic resonances, continuities, and discontinuities of contemporary dynamics of hospitality and hostility towards migrants?
We especially welcome articles that examine – and interrogate – the applicability of the concepts of hospitality and hostility in different settings; and that explore the relationship between these and other concepts, including cosmopolitanism, welcome, conviviality, neighbourliness, and solidarity, from the perspective of the global South as well as the North.
 
Deadline for submitting articles for inclusion in issue 1: 30 September 2017.
 

Book Announcement: Let them not return

 Publication of the edited volume LET THEM NOT RETURN: Sayfo – The Genocide against the Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire.  In May the publisher offers it at a 50% discount (see attached code). Link to table of contents: http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/GauntLet
 
See for my latest article about the same theme in Genocide Studies International: http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/gsi.10.2.04 
‘What Could Not Be Written: A Study of the Oral Transmission of Sayfo Genocide Memory Among Assyrians’.
 
 
 

Call for Abstracts: Routledge International Handbook of Religion in Global Society

Routledge International Handbook ofReligion in Global Society

Eds. Jayeel Serrano Cornelio (Ateneo de Manila), François Gauthier (Université de Fribourg), Tuomas Martikainen (Migration Institute of Finland) and Linda Woodhead (Lancaster University)

 

This is a Call for Abstracts to contribute to theRoutledge International Handbook of Religion in Global Society (target publication: 2018).  We are particularly interested in contributions from early career scholars from around the world.

The study of religion is at a turning point, along with religion itself. This book will capitalise on the emergence of a new paradigm, which considers religion in the 21st century as globally interconnected and mediated by new geopolitical and market logics.

 

This volume will showcase new approaches toreligion, which work across boundaries of religioustradition, academic discipline, and region.

Please consider the following rationale for your proposed papers.

You may send your proposed title, abstract (no more than 500 words), name, and affiliation to Jayeel Cornelio (jcornelio@ateneo.edu) by July 15, 2017.

RATIONALE

The volume understands changes in religion since the 1980s as shaped by wider socio-political-cultural changes of the period.  The shift is from one dominated by modernist national-statist formations and alliances to one in which forces, institutions and ideologies of neoliberalism, consumerism, migration, and mediatisation have become major structuring vectors.  But at the same time we also see a pushback from anti-globalisation movements of right and left and a return to the nation and/or more locally based identities. Growing environmental concern and the concept of the Anthropocene add an additional element.   

This is how the handbook characterizes the contemporary state of global society.  As a result, ‘soft power’, including religion and competing forms of secularity and ‘no religion’, come to be central in new geopolitical configurations and contestations of power.  Recognizing these new configurations, this handbook will interrogate the past, present and futures of religion in global society. 

The handbook welcomes contributions approaching religion at different levels of society (whether local, regional, national, transnational) — the macro, meso and micro.  For example, chapters can focus on internal transformations that occur within religious institutions; on the changing nature of practices, belief, adherence, piety and devotion among individuals; or the changing role of religious organizations with respect to politics, the economy and other social institutions.  Some contributions may discuss how religious movements are taking on global issues. Others will take a theoretical perspective and try to make sense of the current situation, even when this requires rethinking existing theories and concepts.

The handbook is multidisciplinary in approach and organized according to the following themes.  We invite contributions from scholars around the world, particularly those who are in their early careers.  Our aim is to make this handbook the first to go beyond Western-centric appraisals, and present a truly global portrait. Contributions dealing with dynamics around the world are therefore solicited.

The following topics are indicative only, and will change in response to submissions. 

A.  CONTEXT

1.  Introduction: a new approach   

2.  Theorising religion in a global context 

3.  Global demographics of religion

4.  Globalization and the national   

5.  Rethinking religious traditions  

6.  Authority and individualization

B.  INDIVIDUALS, IDENTITY, and INTIMACIES

7.  Generations         

8.  Religion, sex, family and gender

9.  Intimacy   

10.  Global classes    

11.  Religion and identities

C.  MARKETS, MEDIA, and CULTURES

12.  Branding religion          

13.  Merchandising religion

14.  Digital religion   

15.  Popular culture 

16.  Religion and fashion

D.  MOBILITY AND MIGRATION

13.  International migration and mobility 

14.  Missionaries and traveling gurus       

15.  Transnationalism and diasporas        

16.  Migrant religious settlements 

17.  Pilgrimage and religious tourism

E.  COMMUNITIES and MOVEMENTS

18.  Moderates versus fundamentalists    

19.  The shape of religious organizations  

20.  Networks and virtual communities    

21. Religious spectacle, pilgrimage and festivals  

22.  Global subcultures        

23.  Religion and science

 

F.  POLITICS, THE STATE and INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

24.  Secularism and the post-secular         

25.  State governance of religion    

26.  Religion and civil society          

27.  Radicalization, securitization and terrorism  

28.  Religion and law           

29.  Religion and supranational organizations     

30.  Religion and populism

G.  GOVERNANCE AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

31.  Governance of religious diversity       

32.  Religion and education

33.  Religious freedom         

34.  Religion and development       

35.  Religion, peace and violence    

36.  Religion in international relations      

37.  Religion and the environment

Book Announcment: Islam, State and Modernity: Mohammed Abed al-Jabri and the Future of the Arab World

Islam, State and Modernity: Mohammed Abed al-Jabri and the Future of the Arab World, Palgrave, Middle East Today Series, 2017. Co-edited with Zaid Eyadat (Jordan) and Francesca Corrao (Rome):
 
This is the first work in English that examines the work of the influential Moroccan philosopher al-Jabri (d. 2010) – known by his magnum opus Critique of Arab Reason in four volumes – in the Arab-Islamic world. 
 
The book, which includes 13 chapters and a critical introduction, will be out in June 2017.
 
About this book:
 
This book offers the first comprehensive introduction to one of the most significant Arab thinkers of the late 20th century and the early 21st century: the Moroccan philosopher and social theorist Mohammed Abed al-Jabri. With his intellectual and political engagement, al-Jabri has influenced the development of a modern reading of the Islamic tradition in the broad Arab-Islamic world and has been, in recent years, subject to an increasing interest among Muslims and non-Muslim scholars, social activists and lay men. The contributors to this volume read al-Jabri with reference to prominent past Arab-Muslim scholars, such as Ibn Rushd, al-Ghazali, al-Shatibi, and Ibn Khaldun, as well as contemporary Arab philosophers, like Hassan Hanafi, Abdellah Laroui, George Tarabishi, Taha Abderrahmane; they engage with various aspects of his intellectual project, and trace his influence in non-Arab-Islamic lands, like Indonesia, as well. His analysis of Arab thought since the 1970s as a harbinger analysis of the ongoing “Arab Spring uprising” remains relevant for today’s political challenges in the region.
 
 
Reviews:
 
“Al-Jabri left no one indifferent; intellectuals throughout the Arab world were passionately either for or against him. His oeuvre offers several original insights which are just beginning to be assessed with some degree of objectivity. The present volume is the first publication in English to offer such assessments in a number of articles by specialists focusing on various aspects of one of the most original and multifaceted Arab philosopher and intellectual of our time.” 
(Abdou Filali-Ansary, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Aga Khan University, London, UK) 
 
“This book celebrates a remarkable, but insufficiently recognized Muslim thinker. All those who claim that Islam lacks both reason and philosophy are refuted by al-Jabri’s work. Rooted in the great Islamic philosophical tradition, al-Jabri also is a herald of democratic renewal in our time.” 
(Fred R. Dallmayr, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, USA)
 
 “These informative and thoughtful articles offer a critical assessment of a most influential and controversial Arab thinker of the late 20th century. Praised by some for his historicist, archaeological analysis of Arab intellectual legacy, and appreciated by others for his work toward an immanent Arab rationality, al-Jabiri was also criticized for his essentialist and reductionist conclusions. A timely and valuable contribution to a necessary discussion of his work.” 
(Elizabeth S. Kassab, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar)
 
 
Editors:
 
Zaid Eyadat is Professor of Political Science at the University of Jordan.
Francesca M. Corrao is Professor of Arab-Islamic Studies at LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome, Italy.
Mohammed Hashas is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome, Italy.
 
 

Conference: Race, Power, and Moblities

ETMU Days, October 26–27, 2017
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
 
Race, Power and Mobilities
 
Welcome!
 
The 14th ETMU Days of 2017 will take place in Jyväskylä. This year’s theme “Race, Power, and Mobilities” hopes to break taboos around the word “race” with the intention of reclaiming it and drawing attention to processes of racialization, power, and movement as well as their intersections. On the one hand, in the Nordic countries previous studies on (im)migration and ethnicity, have mainly neglected or ignored questions of power. On the other hand, whiteness and critical race scholars have commonly analyzed power and racialization processes without foregrounding issues of mobilities. Therefore, we believe that in the study of migration and mobility there is an urgent need of scholarship that unites critical analyses of power and hierarchical structures with a focus on racialization.
 
The conference theme will be explored and illuminated by our invited keynote speakers:
 
·        Kaarina Nikunen, University of Tampere, Finland
·        Tobias Hübinette, Karlstad Universitet, Sweden
·        Nando Sigona, University of Birmingham, UK
 
In addition, as another highlight of the 2017 ETMU Days, an invited panel organized in collaboration with the anti-racist RASTER research network will discuss practices and consequences of racialization.
 
We specifically invite working groups who examine social hierarchies and categories such as ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, language, geographical location, or physical dis/ability within the context of race, power, and mobilities.
 
We further welcome examinations of how descriptions of migration and ethnic relations are produced performatively. This includes, for instance, practices of racialization in media, education, work life, individual experiences, discourses or societal structures that are analyzed through the lenses of difference and power.
 
We look forward to a multidisciplinary event with much-needed discussions, for example on the status of refugees seeking asylum and undocumented migrants, legislations and policies, artistic mobility and cultural representations, racialized hate speech, and global impacts of migration.
 
The main languages of the ETMU Days are English, Finnish, Swedish and Finnish Sign Language. All keynotes will be presented in English. We encourage participants to use multilingual and visual resources in their presentations in order to enable multilingual and multidisciplinary discussions.
 
ETMU Days also organises a pre-conference seminar for doctoral students on October 25, 2017. More information about the pre-conference on our website before summer.
 
Submission Guidelines for Working Groups
 
We are inviting prospective working group convenors to submit a 300–400 words abstract for a working group theme to etmu2017@gmail.com. Prospective working group leaders are free to suggest relevant questions and topics to be discussed, not limited to the examples mentioned above. The convenors will be contacted by the June 16, 2017 and call for papers will be published on July 1, 2017.
 
Important dates and practicalities
 
·        Deadline for working group submissions 31 May, 2017
·        Length of working group abstracts: 300–400 words (including references)
·        The notification of acceptance of working groups June 16, 2017
·        Working group abstracts should be sent toetmu2017@gmail.com
 
·        Call for papers starts July 1, 2017
·        Call for papers ends August 31, 2017
·        The notification of acceptance of papers, September 15, 2017
·        Abstracts for working groups should be sent directly to convener(s) of the working groups
 
·        Registration starts September 15, 2017
 
·        Pre-conference for Ph.D. students October 25, 2017
·        ETMU Days October 26–27, 2017
 
For any enquiries regarding ETMU Days, please contact: etmu2017@gmail.com
For fees, registration, updated news, please check our website: http://etmudays.etmu.fi/
The 2017 website will be launched later in May
We are on Twitter: @ETMU2017, #ETMU2017
 
We look forward to seeing you at ETMU Days!
 
Sincerely,
 
Local organising committee
Sari Pöyhönen & Tuija Saresma (co-chairs), Minna Nerg (secretary), Johanna Ennser-Kananen, Outi Fingerroos, David Hoffman, Karina Horsti, Katarzyna Kärkkäinen, Päivi Pirkkalainen, Miikka Pyykkönen, Maiju Strömmer, Sonya Sahradyan and Sanna-Mari Vierimaa.
 
ETMU-päivät 26.–27.10.2017
Jyväskylän yliopisto
Rotu, valta ja liikkuvuus
 
Tervetuloa!
 
Vuoden 2017 ETMU-päivät pidetään Jyväskylässä teemalla Rotu, valta ja liikkuvuus. Nostamme tabuksikin muuttuneen sanan ETMU-päivien teemaksi, sillä haluamme kiinnittää huomiota rodullistamisen prosesseihin sekä rodullistamisen, vallan ja liikkuvuuden kombinaatioihin. Kun pohjoismaisessa muuttoliiketutkimuksessa on tutkittu esimerkiksi maahanmuuttoa ja etnisyyttä, kysymykset vallasta ovat saattaneet jäädä vähemmälle huomiolle. Valkoisuuden ja kriittisen rotuteorian tutkijat taas ovat analysoineet tarkkanäköisesti vallan ja rodullistamisen prosesseja, mutta liikkuvuuden näkökulma on ollut taka-alalla. Valta, hierarkkiset erot ja rodullistaminen liittyvät kuitenkin kiinteästi liikkuvuuden tutkimukseen. Näihin teemoihin pureutuvat ETMU-päivien kutsutut puhujat
– Kaarina Nikunen, Tampereen yliopisto
– Tobias Hübinette, Karlstad Universitet, Ruotsi

– Nando Sigona, University of Birmingham, Iso-Britannia
 
Rodullistamisen käytänteitä ja seurauksia käsitellään myös paneelissa, jonka järjestämme yhdessä antirasistisen RASTER-tutkimusverkoston kanssa.
Kutsumme ETMU-päiville työryhmiä, joissa rotua, valtaa ja liikkuvuutta tarkastellaan yhteydessä muihin hierarkkisiin eroihin ja sosiaalisiin kategorioihin, kuten etnisyyteen, sukupuoleen, seksuaalisuuteen, uskontoon, kieleen, maantieteelliseen sijaintiin tai ruumiilliseen kyvykkyyteen. Toivotamme myös tervetulleeksi analysoimaan sitä, miten muuttoliikettä ja etnisiä suhteita koskevia kuvauksia ja tietoa tuotetaan performatiivisesti. Esimerkiksi mediassa, koulutuksessa ja työelämässä yksittäisten kokemusten, diskurssien ja yhteiskunnan rakenteiden tasoilla tapahtuvia rodullistamisen käytäntöjä voi analysoida erojen ja vallan näkökulmasta.
 
Toivomme ETMU-päivien virittävän monitieteistä keskustelua esimerkiksi turvapaikanhakijoiden ja paperittomien asemasta, lainsäädännöstä, liikkuvuuden taiteellisista ja kulttuurisista representaatioista, rodullistavasta vihapuheesta ja muuttoliikkeen globaaleista vaikutuksista.
 
ETMU-päivien viralliset kielet ovat englanti, suomi, ruotsi ja suomalainen viittomakieli. Kaikki keynote-esitelmät pidetään englanniksi. Kannustamme esiintyjiä käyttämään monikielisiä ja visuaalisia keinoja, jotta monitieteinen ja monikielinen keskustelu olisi mahdollista.
 
ETMU-päivät järjestää seminaarin jatko-opiskelijoille 25.10.2017. Lisätietoa seminaarista ETMU-päivien verkkosivuilla ennen kesää.
 
Kutsu työryhmille
 
Kutsumme työryhmien vetäjiä tarjoamaan 300–400 sanan abstraktin työryhmästä osoitteeseen etmu2017@gmail.com. Työryhmän vetäjät voivat ehdottaa aiheita, jotka ovat konferenssin teeman kannalta relevantteja tai jotka muutoin liittyvät etnisten suhteiden ja kansainvälisen muuttoliikkeen tutkimukseen. Työryhmän hyväksymisestä ilmoitetaan vetäjille 16.6.2017 mennessä, ja esitelmäkutsu työryhmiin julkaistaan 1.7.2017.
 
Tärkeät päivämäärät ja ohjeet:
 
·        Työryhmäesitysten viimeinen lähetyspäivä31.5.2017
·        Työryhmäesitysten pituus 300–400 sanaa (mukaan lukien viitteet)
·        Työryhmäesitykset lähetetään osoitteeseenetmu2017@gmail.com
·        Työryhmien vetäjille ilmoitetaan hyväksymisestä 16.6.2017
 
·        Abstraktikutsu työryhmiin julkaistaan 1.7.2017
·        Abstraktikutsu työryhmiin päättyy 31.8.2017
·        Abstraktien tarjoajille ilmoitetaan hyväksymisestä 15.9.2017
·        Abstraktit lähetetään suoraan työryhmän vetäjälle
 
·        Rekisteröityminen alkaa 15.9.2017
 
·        Jatko-opiskelijoiden seminaari 25.9.2017
·        ETMU-päivät 26.–27.10.2017
 
Kaikissa ETMU-päiviä koskevissa kysymyksissä ota yhteyttä: etmu2017@gmail.com
Maksut, rekisteröityminen, uutiset, ETMU-päivien verkkosivut: http://etmudays.etmu.fi/ (avataan myöhemmin toukokuussa)
Olemme myös Twitterissä: @ETMU2017,#ETMU2017

Book Announcement: Religion and Superdiversity

Announcement: Visualizing Faith, Trauma and Conflict through Art

Visualizing Faith, Trauma, and Conflict through Art: The Work of Marcello Silvestri

“In a fast-paced world saturated by flashy images and by the monotonous black and white colour of the written words of experts or pseudo experts, I have opted to pause and stay away from the frantic international travel and glamour of my early career. I like to observe and meditate and then to engage, away from the spotlight, on a local level, with many of those that have been left behind or have experienced all sorts of traumas in their life.

With my artwork I reflect on the dramatic yet extraordinary beautiful mystery of human life – and God’s deeds in it. With the naivety of a baby taking its first steps ‘sensing’ the world, and inspired by my post-WWII rural upbringing steeped in simple pious religious practices, I explore human journeys through life. I like to wonder at how the Divine is present throughout our experiences, as a ray of hope, even in the most tragic situations – and how the material earth is responding to these traumas alongside human beings. With the use of humble waste materials I also want to show how nothing is worthless and can be Beautiful in the eyes of God.

While I believe that art is there to be enjoyed intuitively and not to be explained, I have always felt the urgency to translate, through my multi-media artistic expressions, my existential dilemmas and concerns relating to thorny societal problems. Hence my paintings, sculptures and murals seek to bring out the lived traumas and denunciating societal hypocrisy that emerge through conflict, migration, refuge, detention, drug addiction, and execution. These choices have naturally led me to become involved as a volunteer in a range of educational and interfaith and rehabilitation projects addressed to youth, orphans and children from deprived backgrounds as well as with mental health problems, recovering drug addicts, and other marginalised groups, such as my current art and faith workshops with (immigrant) detainees in Civitavecchia.” – Marcello Silvestri

Book Announcement: A New Issue of Sociology of Islam Journal 2017 Volume 5 Issue 1

A New Issue of Sociology of Islam Journal 2017 Volume 5 Issue 1

Editors-in-Chief 

Gary Wood, Virginia Tech
Tugrul Keskin, Shanghai University

Assistant Editors
Sara Swetzoff, Howard University
Michael McCall, American University of Beirut

Associate Editors
Joshua Hendrick, Loyola University of Maryland
Isabel David, University of Lisbon
Mark Gould, Haverford College
Sari Hanafi, American University of Beirut
Sean Foley, Middle Tennessee State University

Book Reviews Editor:
Joshua Hendrick, Loyola University of Maryland

Research Article

Multivocality in Shia Seminary

Research Article

Hair: Practices and Symbolism in Traditional Muslim Societies

Research Article

Navigating the Cultural Divide: Islam, Gender, and the Integration of Somali Immigrants

Book Review

Inside the Muslim Brotherhood: Religion, Identity, and Politics, written by Khalil al-Anani

Book Review

On British Islam: Religion, Law, and Everyday Practice in Shari’a Councils, written by Bowen, John R.

Book Review

For Love of the Prophet: An Ethnography of Sudan’s Islamic State, written bySalomon, Noah