Job Opening: Assistant Professor of Sociology of Religion, Tenure-track

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Assistant Professor of Sociology of Religion, Tenure-track, Boston University School of Theology

BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track faculty position in Sociology of Religion at the Assistant Professor rank, to begin July 1, 2016. The candidate will hold a PhD in Sociology of Religion or an appropriate, equivalent degree. An additional seminary degree (e.g., MDiv, MTS, MAR) is highly desirable. Candidates should have a strong research record and research skills with an emphasis on congregational or community studies, and on cross-cultural and global issues in the field. Active engagement in empirical research and excellence in teaching are expected. The ideal candidate might also contribute to the School’s strengths in lived religion, cultural studies, and practical theology.

Candidates should be committed to the School’s mission of preparing leaders for diverse forms of ministry in religious communities and faith-based organizations, as well as teaching doctoral students for the professoriate, clinical practice, and other forms of scholarship within the interdisciplinary context of a research university. Opportunities also include doctoral advising in the PhD programs in Theological Studies, particularly Practical Theology, and in the Graduate Division of Religious Studies. Boston University expects excellence in teaching and research and is dedicated to the goal of building a culturally diverse faculty and staff committed to engaged scholarship in a multicultural environment.

Applications, including a curriculum vitae, statement of teaching and research plans, a major publication sample, and three professional references (sent separately), should be sent to the Omnibus Search Committee, Boston University School of Theology, 745 Commonwealth Avenue, Suite 110, Boston, MA 02215. Applications may be submitted as email attachments to Danielle Stecher at dstecher@bu.edu.

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CFP: Muslim and Sports

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In the recent years, there have been an increasing number of studies on
the physical activity of muslim youth and especially on Muslim
schoolgirls in Europe. The researches on physical activity have expanded
in new domains such as sports activities during the month of Ramadan,
wearing headscarf in olympic games and footbal matches, halal meals in
football training camps, mixed-sex swimming lessons and dancing clubs.
Sports are also at the centre of the debates on Islamic expressions of
identity and diversity. These researches on life experiences of Muslims
in different contexts reveal how sports constitute a terrain for
identity making, empowerment, and religious plurality particulary with
regards to Islam.

The visibilty of Muslim and the presence of Islam in sports need
specific attention. On the one hand, there is an increase in social
mobility, socialisation and participation in the society via sport; on
the other hand, research has indicated that this participation in sports
reveals some particularities in Islamic codes of living. These
particularities and religious expressions in sports are seen as a means
of defying secular values and life.

This workshop attempts to provide more insight on the relationship
between Muslims who live in Europe and sports-physical activity. We
would like to examine how Muslims make sense of religion and their
religious identity in sportive activities and how public policies are
organized vis-a-vis the needs of the Muslim populations in Europe.
During this workshop we want to adress a range of issues such as space,
gender, social inclusion, multiculturalism, citizenship, politics of
identity and secularism.

Tuition Fees

There will be no tuition fees.

Outcome

An edited book will be produced and published by the GCIS with Leuven
University Press, comprising some or all of the papers presented at the
Workshop, at the condition that they pass a peer review organized by the
publisher. The papers will be arranged and introduced, and to the extent
appropriate, edited, by scholar(s) to be appointed by the Editorial Board.

Copyright of the papers accepted to the Workshop will be vested in the GCIS.

Selection Criteria

The workshop will accept up to 10 participants, each of whom must meet
the following requirements:

  • have a professional and/or research background in related topics
    of the workshop;
  • be able to attend the entire programme.

Since the Workshop expects to address a broad range of topics while the
number of participants has to be limited, writers submitting abstracts
are requested to bear in mind the need to ensure that their language is
technical only where it is absolutely necessary and the language should
be intelligible to non-specialists and specialists in disciplines other
than their own; and present clear, coherent arguments in a rational way
and in accordance with the usual standards and format for publishable work.

Timetable

Abstracts (300–500 words maximum) and CVs (maximum 1 page) to be
received by 20th September 2015.
Abstracts to be short-listed by the Editorial Board and papers
invited by 30th September 2015.
Conference: 7 December 2015

Workshop Editorial Board and Organizers

Joyce Koeman, KU Leuven

Pascal Delheye, KU Leuven

Erkan Toğuşlu, KU Leuven

Venue

KU Leuven University, Belgium.

The international workshop is organized by KU Leuven Gülen Chair for
Intercultural Studies and Faculty of Kinesiology and Rehabilitation
Sciences (FaBeR). The language of the workshop is English and will be
hosted by KU Leuven Gülen Chair in Leuven.

Papers and abstract should be sent to :

erkan.toguslu@soc.kuleuven.be

For more information plz contact:

Erkan Toguslu

KU Leuven Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies

Parkstraat 45 – box 3615
3000 Leuven

Dr. Erkan Toguslu
Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies
IMMRC – Anthropology
KU Leuven

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Implicit Religion Journal – Seeking New Editor

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Following the death of the Founding Editor Edward Bailey in April,
Equinox is seeking to appoint a new editor for Implicit Religion. If
you might be interested in the role, or have anyone to suggest, please
contact Janet Joyce jjoyce@equinoxpub.com.

Implicit Religion is an international journal published quarterly which
welcomes papers on theory and evidence in the study of religion and
secularity, and those which explore the relationship between the context
and dynamism of religious and secular phenomena. It is particularly
concerned with religious life outside the boundaries of the
churches/organized religion in post-modernity. The aim of Implicit
Religion is to enhance our general understanding of human behaviour,
through the insights developed by the academic study of religion.

http://www.equinoxpub.com/journals/index.php/IR

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New Journal: Journal of Religious and Political Practice

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The first issue of a new journal, “Journal of Religious and Political
Practice,” edited by Bryan S. Turner and Irfan Ahmad.

Journal of Religious and Political Practice
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfrp20/current#.VcB6V_ki2Ul
Vol. 1. Issue 1 –2015

Editors’ Introduction

Articles

Nation, Politics, Religion
Peter Van der Veer

Practical Piety: Intimate Devotions in Urban Space
Michael Herzfeld

Christianity, Christianities, Christian
Gil Anidjar

Revival Ritual and the Mobilisation of Late-Modern Islamic Selves
Julia Day Howell

Unorthodox Fate: The Rise of Chile’s Christian Democratic Party
Yuri Contreras-Vejar

In Conversation With

John Keane: Gods, Dogs, Empire, Democracy
Irfan Ahmad

Review Articles

Patterns and Iconoclasm in Motion
Japp Timmer

On The State Of The (im) POSSIBLE: Notes On Hallaq’s Thesis
Irfan Ahmad

Rattling the Indological Cage: Fifty Years of Doniger
McComas Taylor

Editors’ Pick

Miracles of Book and Body: Buddhist Textual Culture & Medieval Japan
Charlotte Eubanks

PK (Bollywood film)
Rajkumar Hirani

Fascinating Hindutva
Badri Narayan

Ranciere Now
Oliver Davis (editor)

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Job Announcement: FT Tenure-track Assistant Professorship in History of Religions

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The University of Copenhagen is hiring for a six-year tenure-track assistant professorship in History of Religions. Deadline for application is 1 October 2015. The full job ad can be found at: http://jobportal.ku.dk/videnskabelige-stillinger/?show=751804

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Post-Doctoral Researcher in Islamic Studies, University of Chester, UK – closing date 6 August 2015

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Post-Doctoral Researcher in Islamic Studies – FTC until 30/09/2016. Closing Date: 6 August 2015.

Applications are invited for the position of Postdoctoral Researcher in Islamic Studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Chester. The Department is currently expanding in the area of Islamic Studies and has appointed Oliver Scharbrodt as first Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Chester with the strategic aim to turn the Department and its new Chester Centre for Islamic Studies (CCIS) into one of the prime centres for the academic study of Islam in the UK.

The post provides an exciting opportunity to develop Islamic Studies at the University by contributing to both research and teaching. The post-doctoral researcher will be part of a research project that examines transnational religio-political networks in contemporary Twelver Shiism operating between Iraq, Iran and Britain. Professor Oliver Scharbrodt is the principal investigator of the project which is funded the Gerda Henkel Foundation, a private foundation that supports research across the Humanities and Social Sciences. The post-doctoral researcher will also contribute to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in the Department.

Successful applicants will have a PhD in Religious Studies or other related discipline in the areas of Shia Islam, modern Islam, Muslims in Europe and/or gender and Islam. They must be able to conduct research in Arabic. Proficiency in Persian and experience of ethnographic research are desirable.

Informal enquiries should be directed to Professor Oliver Scharbrodt, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Chester, Parkgate Road, Chester CH1 4BJ, Tel: 01244 511000, email o.scharbrodt@chester.ac.uk

Candidates can apply through our website at www.chester.ac.uk/jobs/ and applications should be made via our Online Recruitment Website quoting reference number HR14429.

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Job Opening: Professor of Anthropology position at UWS, Sydney, Australia

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Professor of Anthropology position at UWS, Sydney, Australia

The School of Social Sciences and Psychology is launching a new anthropology program organised around a new Bachelor of Anthropology that will provide students with the opportunity to undertake a field placement either internationally or in Australia. Anthropology will also be available as a major within the existing Bachelor of Social Science. Currently the School and its associated research centres and groupings includes a number of anthropologists whose ethnographic areas include Australia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and whose broad research themes include economic anthropology, nations and identity, globalisation, gender, and religion. The School plans to recruit further in order to develop an anthropology program that is world class, in both teaching and research. The Level E appointment is to provide leadership for the program, to grow the staffing, research and research student base for Anthropology as a discipline within the University. 

Position Enquiries: Associate Professor Mary Hawkins, (+61 2) 9772 6352, email: m.hawkins@uws.edu.au

Closing Date: 30 August 2015

For more on the position:

Ref 1003/15 Professor of Anthropology, School of Social Sciences and Psychology

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International Conference: Sacred Places, Emerging Spaces in the Caucasus at FSU Jena

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International conference ‘Sacred Places, Emerging Spaces: Pilgrims, Saints and Scholars in the Caucasus and Beyond’

October 9-10, 2015

Venue: Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Rosensäle, Fürstengraben 27, 07743 Jena.

Outline and Program

The Caucasus landscape, like those of Europe, Central Asia, or indeed almost any inhabited region of the globe, is dotted with sites and spaces regarded as ‘sacred’ in some sense. Numerous studies have been devoted to the description of the shrines and sacred sites of the Caucasus, as well as the religious systems, rituals and festivals with which they are associated. The focus of this conference, however, is the role played by sacred sites in the construction and maintenance of social networks, and their function as social nodes, where connections are negotiated, forged, enacted and reinforced; but also contested, ruptured and erased.

The aim of the conference is to explore theoretical and empirical developments in the field of anthropological and historical studies of sacred spaces, pilgrimage, material religion and inter-regional religious networks in the post-Soviet Caucasus and beyond. Voluntary or forced migration as well as rural-urban mobility seems to be an important factor in the formation and transformation of sacred spaces in the Caucasus and its iconography. Key questions are: Which objects follow ‘one-way’ trajectories to the sacred site, intended to remain there permanently, and which items return or circulate further? How do we define ‘shrines’ and ‘sacredness’ as some sites seemed to resemble tourist-oriented venues? Who has the power, who benefits from the changing functions of shrines, and the role of migration in this process?

Taking off from the analysis of traditional and emerging hybridities, shared and non-shared sacred spaces in the Caucasus, we hope to better understand the complexity of the region to stimulate a rethinking of the presuppositions underlying the stereotype of a violent Caucasus and the constitution of the Caucasus as an object of knowledge production.

——————–

October 9th, Friday

Welcome and Introduction (9.15 – 10 am)

Thede Kahl (Slavonic Studies, Jena); Florian Mühlfried, Tsypylma Darieva (Caucasus Studies, Jena)

Panel I: Pilgrimages and Networks (10.30 – 12.30 pm)

Chair: Gayane Shagoyan

Levon Abrahamian The Chain of Seven Pilgrimages in Kotaik, Armenia. Reviving or inventing Tradition?

Agnieszka Halemba From Community Cult to Religious Network: a New Pilgrimage Site in Transcarpathian Ukraine and Beyond

Kevin Tuite Landscape, Ritual, Gender and Social Space in Upper Svanetia

Panel II: Locality and Informality (2 – 4 pm)

Chair: SERGEY SHTYRKOV

IGOR KUZNETSOV Shifting Abkhaz Religion: From Local Christian Cult to Nativist Neo-Paganism

HEGE TOJE Accompanying the Dead Souls – Transforming Sacral Time and Encounters

HAMLET MELKUMYAN Murids as New Religious Mediators: Informal Religious Practices and Social Transformations in Yezidi Community

 

Panel III: Saints and Scholars (4.30 – 6.30 pm)

Chair: MARIA LOUW

TSYPYLMA DARIEVA Between ‚Great‘ and ‚Small‘ Traditions? Situating Shia Saints and Shrines in Contemporary Baku

VLADIMIR BOBROVNIKOV Hybrid vs. Traditional Religious Practices and Narratives: Networks of Muslim Shrines in Post-Soviet Dagestan

STEPHAN DUDECK State Law or the Spirits – Who is Protecting Siberian Sacred Sites?

October 10th, Saturday

 

Panel IV: Encounters and Representations (10am – 12 pm)

Chair: BRUCE GRANT

FLORIAN MÜHLFRIED Not Sharing the Sacra

NINO AIVAZISHVILI Ingiloys and Sacred Rituals

SILVIA SERRANO Sharing the Not Sacred: Rabati and the Display of Multiculturalism

 

Final Discussion (2 – 4 pm), Chair: Kevin Tuite

 

Registration and contact: Michael Stürmer (michael.stuermer@uni-jena.de), Katrin Töpel (katrin.toepel@uni-jena.de)

 http://www.kaukasiologie.uni-jena.de/en/Projects/Transformation+of+Sacred+Spaces.html

The admission is free, but registration for lunch/or dinner is requested. Please register by 30 September 2015.

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Prórroga para el envío de resúmenes

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La Asociación de Cientistas Sociales de la Religión del Mercosur y la Universidad Nacional de Cuyo organizan las XVIII Jornadas de Alternativas Religiosas en América Latina, en la ciudad de Mendoza, Argentina, del 16 al 19 de noviembre de 2015. El sitio web de las jornadas, donde podrán consultarse los Grupos de Trabajo aprobados, y encontrar información útil sobre la realización de las jornadas y la ciudad de Mendoza, es: http://www.alternativasreligiosas.fcp.uncu.edu.ar/ Los invitamos a visitarlo.

Prórroga para el envío de resúmenes

La organización de las XVIII Jornadas ha extendido el plazo de envío de resúmenes para participar de los Grupos de Trabajo hasta el 31 de julio de 2015. Los mismos deben enviarse a los correos electrónicos de los/as coordinadores/as del GT (consultar en el sitio web, solapa “Grupos de Trabajo”), con copia a: gtjornadasacsrm@gmail.com

Los resúmenes no deberán superar las 300 palabras con espacios y deberán especificar el nombre y apellido, junto con la afiliación institucional de los/las autores/as.

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Book Announcement

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Please note: this new publication is available in German only.

Heinrich Wilhelm Schäfer: Identität als Netzwerk. Habitus, Sozialstruktur und religiöse Mobilisierung.

http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-658-10343-9

Schäfer presents an innovative concept of identity as a network of cognitive, emotional, and bodily dispositions. Based upon praxeological sociology Schäfer develops from an empirical study of religious movements in Guatemala and Nicaragua a concept of identity that encompasses even the strategies of collective and individual actors as well as religious mobilization. The development of this theoretical approach from the ‘empirical scratch’ facilitates to operationalize it as a research method that provides a better understanding of religious and other kinds of collective or individual praxis. The theory of identity and strategy as a network of dispositions of perception, judgment, and action combines perfectly with the project of HabitusAnalysis the first volume of which also has been published recently (http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-531-94037-3).

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