Call for Papers Leaving religion and institutional belonging behind

Dear colleagues,

Please, find below the description of the session I am organizing at the ISSR 2021 online conference this summer (12-15 July). You are cordially invited to submit your abstracts here. Deadline: 28 February 2021

Call for Papers: Leaving religion and institutional belonging behind

Chair: Julia Martínez-Ariño
(University of Groningen)

This session will investigate the phenomenon of apostasy, understood broadly as the rejection of religion, faith, institutional belonging or a previously held religious identity. While a big part of the contemporary research on the religious “nones” has focused on those who define themselves as “indifferent”, less sociological research has been done on those who actively decide to leave religion and institutional belonging. There are some exceptions, especially in relation to New Religious Movements, but this field of inquiry deserves more attention. How do people narrate their experiences of leaving a religious group, faith or form of identification? How do these people navigate the apostasy process and which meaning do they attach to it? Which implications does apostatizing have for the everyday lives and social environments of these people? Which factors do apostates identify as triggering the process and how do the self‐narratives make sense of them? What are the political underpinnings and implications of apostasy within different socio‐political contexts? The session welcomes papers analyzing these and other questions, focusing on a range of religious traditions and geographical contexts. Papers based on empirical and comparative research are especially welcome. The session also welcomes theoretical reflections on the meaning of apostasy and its implications for the sociological analysis of religion and non‐religion.

Best wishes,

Julia

Call for Papers: Transformations of Latin American Catholicism

Call for Papers: Transformations of Latin American Catholicism since the mid-20th Century for International Journal of Latin American Religions

http://bit.ly/2Y62UIc

Call for Papers: Transformations of Latin American Catholicism since the mid-20th Century

The International Journal of Latin American Religions (JLAR) invites researchers to submit manuscripts to a thematic section focused on considerable relatively recent changes in Latin American Catholicism. The pluralization of the religious field that has marked most Latin American countries and the new social dynamic that has led to new political experiences and ideological spectrums both present themselves as important ingredients of the analytical background in Latin American Catholicism transformations. Under the impact of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and countless socio-economic transformations, Catholicism in the region has also experienced significant mutations, presenting new amalgamations and social expressions. The thematic section will gather articles presenting research results from various disciplines and academic perspectives dealing with many contemporary expressions of Catholicism in the Latin American region since the mid-20th century.

This thematic section will be part of the second issue of volume 5, to be published in December 2021, and will have as guest editors Dr. Renata Siuda-Ambroziak, American Studies Center, University of Warsaw, Poland, and Dr. Rodrigo Coppe Caldeira, Pontifical University of Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Submissions are due by June 30, 2021.

Call for Papers: “The Family in Chinese Christianity”

“Generational Legacies:
The Family in Chinese Christianity”

Special Issue of Review of Religion and Chinese Society

Though the vast majority of Christians in China today are converts, or first-generation Christians, a significant and influential number of Chinese Christians trace their faith back to earlier generations. Some Chinese families count a Christian heritage six, seven, or even more generations back. In the contemporary Western tradition, Christianity is often framed as an individualized religion—conversion is an individual’s choice and having a “personal relationship” with God is emphasized. However, outside of the West where Christianity has experienced rapid growth, particularly in collectivist cultures, such a framing may not fit. In China, the family, rather than the individual, has traditionally been the most basic unit. The family is integral to the understanding of Chinese religious life, but this has not been a major focus of much of the research on Chinese Christianity, particularly Protestantism. By focusing on the importance of the family in Chinese Christianity, we see that this religion is not simply a Western implant, but truly a Chinese religion.
This special issue of Review of Religion and Chinese Society will publish select articles that provide fresh perspectives on how understandings of the family may shed new insights onto Chinese Christianity. Topics may include (but are not limited to):

  • Commemoration of family history by Chinese Christian families
  • How Chinese Christianity is linked to kinship or lineage networks
  • Religious influence of (great) grandparents on young generations
  • “Sinification” of Chinese Christian families
  • Intergenerational challenges for Chinese Christian families
  • Multi-religious or mixed religious Chinese families
  • How Chinese Christian families perform life course rituals
  • How Chinese Christian families express their religious identity

Important Dates:

  • Complete drafts: March 20, 2021. Drafts should be 5,000-8,000 words (including bibliography and notes). Please refer to the RRCS Instructions for Authors for paper formatting details. Also, please include abstract (100-200 words) and a brief CV. Submit these materials and any questions to Chris White: chrismwhite@purdue.edu.
  • Decisions will be made by April 1. Those selected will be invited to participate in a workshop that will take place on April 26, 2021, 9:00-11:30 am EST. The goal of this workshop is for all contributors to offer constructive suggestions on the papers and better allow the articles to dialogue with each other. (Attendance at the workshop is not mandatory for consideration.)
  • Final draft: May 31, 2021. After final submission, all papers will go through the normal, rigorous blind peer-review process with the journal. The tentative plan is that the special issue will be published in late 2021 as issue 8.2 of Review of Religion and Chinese Society.

CFP: “Feasts in Latin America: Customs, Cultural Heritage, Social Patterns”

Daniela and I are organizing at the XLIII INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF AMERICANISM, PERUGIA 2021 the panel 15 FEASTS IN LATIN AMERICA: CUSTOMS, CULTURAL HERITAGE, SPACIAL PATTERNS (Fiestas en América Latina: prácticas, patrimonio cultural, patrones espaciales)

The conference takes place at Perugia (Italia), from 6-11 May 2021. The deadline for the submission of a proposal is 31.01.2021. Further information on the conference you find at the following links:

http://www.amerindiano.org/xliii-convegno-internazionale-di-americanistica/?lang=es (Spanish)

http://www.amerindiano.org/xliii-convegno-internazionale-di-americanistica/?lang=en (English)

The proposals and a CV have to be submitted till 31 January 2021 via the online registration form you may find following the same link.

Presentations can be held Portuguese, English, French, Italian, Spanish and any Latin American language.

For any questions please contact the coordinators: Daniela.Salvucci@unibz.it  or Tobias Boos,
tobiboos@gmail.com.

We wish you nice festive days, that you stay healthy and we hope to see you soon another time face-to-face.

Best wishes,
Tobias

SocRel 2021 -Abstract Submission Open

The annual SOCREL conference for 2021 will now take place online via zoom on from 13th to 15th July 2021. To deliver a paper, please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words. We will also be accepting a limited number of panel proposals. To deliver a panel, please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words. Due to the process of receiving and reviewing abstracts, we are unable to automatically accept those abstracts submitted and accepted for the 2020 conference. However, we warmly welcome all those who submitted abstracts for 2020 to resubmit your abstract for 2021. All presenters must be members of Socrel.

Please follow this link for the call for papers and to access the portal to submit your abstract.

Information about the conference, including theme and speakers, can also be found on the page above. Further details regarding registration and how presentations will be delivered (e.g. live or pre-recorded) will be uploaded in due course.

Abstracts must be submitted by 10 February 2021.

Key Dates:

  • Abstract submission: Open now
  • Early bird registration opens: 20 January 2021
  • Abstract submission closes: 10 February 2021
  • Decision notification: 26 February 2021
  • Presenter registration closes: 26 March 2021
  • Registration closes: 30th June 2021

Should you have any questions or queries, then please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Best wishes,
Dr Rachael Shillitoe
R.Shillitoe@bham.ac.uk
Research Fellow
Conference and Events Officer for the British Sociological Association, Sociology of Religion Group (SocRel)

Call for Papers: Critical Approaches to the Study of Religion Conference

Call for Papers
(.pdf)

Critical Approaches to the Study of Religion Conference

co-sponsored by
The Center for Critical Research on Religion
and
The School of Social Sciences, Education, and Social Work
at Queen’s University Belfast

Queens University Belfast
Belfast, Northern Ireland
June 11, 2021 (welcome reception) – June 14, 2021

co-chairs: Veronique Altglas and Warren S. Goldstein

Theme: This conference aims to bring into conversation scholars of religion in the humanities and social sciences (including theology, religious studies, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, political science, and literature among others) who employ critical approaches to the study of religion. It is particularly interested in the development of critical theoretical frameworks in application to empirical research on religion. The conference will be organized around the following themes:

Session Topics:

1. The Critique of Religion
2. Critical Theology
3. Biblical Criticism
4. Marxism and Religion
5. Liberation Theology
6. Psychoanalytic Approaches to the Study of Religion
7. Critical Theory and Religion
8. Post-structural Approaches to the Study of Religion
9. Critical Religion
10. Critical Ethnographies
11. Post-colonialism, Race, and Religion
12. Religion, Gender, and Sexuality
13. Religion and the Environment
14. Religious and Political Conflict in Northern Ireland

Publications: Authors who deliver papers at the conference will be selectively invited to turn them into articles for special issues of the journal Critical Research on Religion (crr.sagepub.com) or book chapters in edited volumes in the book series “Studies in Critical Research on Religion” (brill.com/scrr).

Registration Fees: £175 full fees for those with regular positions; £85 for graduate students, independent scholars, and contingent faculty. Registration is required for organizing or convening a session, presenting a paper, serving as a panelist, or holding another role in the program. Fees go to pay for receptions and other expenses. Registration fees are nonrefundable.

Deadlines: Deadline for session and paper proposals: January 15, 2021. Abstract length: 150 words per paper. Decisions will be made by March 1, 2021. Registration fees due by March 15, 2021.

Conference registration: TBA

Hotel and Tourist Information: https://visitbelfast.com

Send proposals or questions to: Veronique Altglas v.altglas[at]qub.ac.uk and Warren S. Goldstein goldstein[at]criticaltheoryofreligion.org

Call for Papers: “The Ilkley Group at 50”

Call for Papers

The Ilkley Group at 50 – A reunion conference weekend

Online via zoom..

Friday 16th – Sunday 18th April 2021

In 1971 a gathering of (then) young sociologists who were followers of Jesus Christ met together in the Yorkshire town of Ilkley. Their concern was to reconcile their Christian faith and values with the overwhelmingly (with one one or two notable exceptions) secular ethos of the social sciences, to discover how to pursue faithfully their calling as academics and researchers and to influence the future of their chosen discipline. The “Ilkley Group” continued to meet twice yearly at Mill Grove into the early 2000s.

Fifty years on the group intends to hold a virtual conference (free of charge) and invites paper proposals from academics and researchers in sociology or closely related social sciences which address their topics within a Christian perspective. Papers may be autobiographical, theoretical, interdisciplinary or empirically based.

The papers should aim to be no longer than 20 minutes in length and in view of the online format are probably best presented alongside a power-point or other multi-media presentation.

Depending on numbers offering papers and registering for the event it is not at this stage possible to say whether papers will be in plenary or parallel workshop session. We hope that the papers will come from across the generations including some from early career scholars with a personal faith commitment. Our intention is that there will be plenty of space for questions and discussion as well as for informal networking with like-minded colleagues.

The two major themes we want to address are:

Looking back and looking forward: The environment in the academy, the church and society, for Christian and other faith based sociological perspectives over between 1971 and 2021. What are / have been the opportunities and constraints for Christians in sociology, what changes are discernible over that period and how might trends progress into the future? These themes could be discussed in the context of participants’ experiences, through their careers, reflecting on your own intellectual and spiritual journey.

The New Normal in Church and Society : The Covid-19 global pandemic has been a major disruption to social and religious life. Other disruptions have been happening in the same period, for example the financial crash of 2008, the wave of populist and anti-globalist politics, the refugee crisis, and rapid technological, cultural and religious change. What is the impact on the societies and communities in which we live, and on the churches that worship and serve among us?

If you are interested in offering a paper for this conference please send an abstract of no more than 300 words, together with a two sentence biography to gregcity3@yahoo.co.uk before 31st December 2020.

A programme for the conference and registration forms will be available via Eventbrite early in 2021

Please circulate this announcement to relevant networks and colleagues.

Shalom

Greg Smith
Associate Research Fellow, William Temple Foundation

CONTACT ME  by email; gregcity3@yahoo.co.uk
Phone – Mobile 07726177044
http://williamtemplefoundation.org.uk/

Personal web page with list of publications etc.
http://gregsmith.synthasite.com/

News from the American Sociological Association’s Section on Religion

  • JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS
  • UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA at CHAPEL HILL
  • REMINDER: 2021 ASA ANNUAL MEETING & RELIGION SECTION DAY
  • GRADUATE STUDENT MENTORING – STAY TUNED
  • NEWSLETTER & @ASA_RELIGION TWITTER ANNOUNCEMENTS

JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS – UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA at CHAPEL HILL

Tenure-Track Assistant Professor – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – ASA Job ID 16552

  • The Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is pleased to participate in the following search for a tenure-track assistant professor:
  • Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: https://unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/184289
  • Please pass these links along to potential candidates; thank you! For questions about the search, please email Jennifer Eissing, Department of Sociology, at: eissingj@email.unc.edu
  • Applications will be considered until the position is filled, but our review of applications will begin on November 9, 2020.

Postdoc – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – ASA Job ID 16557

  • The Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is pleased to participate in the following search for a postdoctoral research fellow:
  • The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity: https://research.unc.edu/carolina-postdocs/applicants/
  • Please pass these links along to potential candidates; thank you! For questions about the search, please email Jennifer Eissing, Department of Sociology, at: eissingj@email.unc.edu
  • Deadline for submission is November 16, 2020.
  • *Note: We welcome more job announcements. Per ASA policy, academic jobs advertised through our listserv include ASA job bank ID.

REMINDER: 2021 ASA ANNUAL MEETING & RELIGION SECTION DAY

Plans for the 116th ASA Annual Meeting in Chicago, August 7-10, 2021 continue. Note that ASA’s online portal will open for submissions on Monday, November 9, 2020. The submission deadline is Wednesday, February 3, 2021 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.

Sociology of Religion Section Sessions are assigned to Day 4, Tuesday, August 10th. Since this is the last day of the meeting, our section receives an additional session for papers.

The section’s Program Committee consists of colleagues with an array of expertise. In hopes of adequately diversifying the scholarship featured this year, we are issuing an OPEN call for all Religion Section sessions and roundtables, while asking that session organizers for each of our sessions pay particular attention to themes which I believe are of particular significance to the study of religion today as follows:

  • Session: Sociology of Religion OPEN (preference for papers on gender & sexuality) Session
    Organizers: Jonathan Coley and Courtney Irby
  • Session: Sociology of Religion OPEN (preference for papers on cross-national or international dynamics)
    Session Organizers: Gary Adler and Rachel Rinaldo
  • Session: Sociology of Religion OPEN (preference for papers on the State or power dynamics)
    Session Organizer: Meredith Whitnah and Rhys Williams
  • Session: Sociology of Religion OPEN (preference for papers on non-religious dynamics or nones)
    Session Organizers: Joseph Blankholm and Jacqui Frost
  • Refereed Roundtables: Sociology of Religion Roundtables OPEN
    Session Organizers: Orestes Pat Hastings and Laura Krull

Our annual Sociology of Religion Section Business Meeting will convene immediately after the Roundtable Session.

Also, the Religion Section anticipates partnering again with the concurrent meetings of the Association for the Sociology of Religion also in Chicago. For example, we plan to again co-host a joint mentoring session for graduate students as well as a joint evening reception. More details as they are available.

GRADUATE STUDENT MENTORING – STAY TUNED

Our ASA Sociology of Religion Section is making plans to offer opportunities for Graduate Student Mentoring in the coming year. Stay tuned for details as they emerge.

NEWSLETTER & ASA RELIGION TWITTER ANNOUNCEMENTS

If you have newsletter items – Announcements, Awards, Promotions, Publications, Calls for Submissions, Job Listings (with ASA Job Bank ID), and other relevant material, please email Evan Stewart at Evan.Stewart@umb.edu.

If you have anything you would like to share in future announcement emails, please email me – gemarti@davidson.edu.

Gerardo Martí, PhD
L. Richardson King Professor of Sociology, Davidson College
https://www.davidson.edu/people/gerardo-marti

Call for Papers: Special Journal Issue: “Religion and Public Health Threats in the 21st Century”

Special Issue on Religion and Public Health in the journal Religions is seeking papers. The call for papers can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/Religion_Century. Submission deadline for completed papers is June 1, 2021, but we encourage early submissions. Religions is an open access journal, but a 50% discount on publication fee (final cost approx. 500CHF) will be offered to selected good quality papers. If you don’t have funding support and have concerns about the fees, please state so in your cover letter. In addition to the Special Issue online, accepted papers (if 10 or more) will be published in printed book format. Please direct any inquiries to Magdalena Szaflarski, PhD, Guest Editor, at szaflam@uab.edu.