ESA cordially invite to participate in the Call for Papers!
The submission of abstracts and online registration has started!

Transformations of the Sacred in Europe and Beyond
ESA Mid-term Conference: Research Network 34 – Sociology of Religion University of Potsdam, Germany, 3-5 September 2012 in cooperation with the German Section for the Sociology of Religion in the DGS

You will find the registration form on:
http://www.uni-potsdam.de/esa-religion/abstractsandregistration.html

Plenary Speakers:
Schirin Amir-Moazami, Institute for Islamic Studies, Free University of Berlin
Hubert Knoblauch, Institute for Sociology, Technical University of Berlin
Gordon Lynch, Religious Studies School of European Culture and Languages, University of Kent
Eva-Maria Schrage, Graduate School “Religion and Politics in the Cultures of Pre-modernity and Modernity”, University of Münster

Panel: Religions on the Move/Changes in Religious Cultures
Inger Furseth, Director of the Nordic Research Program NOREL, Oslo
Dorota Hall, Ass. Professor at the Dep. of Religious Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
Volkhard Krech, Director of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg Dynamics in the History of Religions and speaker of the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) at the University of Bochum
Siniša Zrinščak, Department of Social Work, University of Zagreb

The thesis of secularization, once sheer uncontested in the social sciences, is increasingly under fire. Secularization is nowadays often deconstructed as an ideology or mere wish dream that is intimately connected to the rationalist ambitions of modern Enlightenment. Such alleged blurring of morality and science, of what ‘is’ and what ‘ought’, informing sociological analysis obviously
obscures clear sight on recent developments in the Western world. Countless empirical and theoretical studies convincingly demonstrate that religion is alive and well in Europe and beyond. Particularly after the attacks of 9/11 in 2001, religious identities
have become salient in a situation of cultural polarization and religious pluralization. Moreover, we are witnessing a trend towards ‘believing without belonging’ (Davie, 1994) and – particularly in those European countries that are most secular – a shift from organized religion to ‘spiritualities of life’ (e.g., Heelas and Woodhead, 2005), paganism and ‘popular religion’ (Knoblauch, 2009). And although the thesis of secularization has always been highly problematic from a non-European or global perspective, the rapid globalization of Islam and the Evangelical upsurge – especially in Africa, Latin America and East Asia – fly in the face of the long-held expectation that religion is doomed to be a marginal or socially insignificant phenomenon. Evidently, then, the focus of sociological analysis has shifted over the last decades from religious decline to religious change. More than that: it is theorized that we are living in a “postsecular society” (Habermas, 2005) where religion is re-vitalized, de-privatized and increasingly influences politics, voting behavior, matters of the state and ethical debates in the public domain (e.g., Casanova, 1994). Motivated by such observations, the mid-term conference calls for papers addressing changes in the field of religion and, more in particular, transformations of the sacred in Europe and beyond.

Particularly we welcome studies covering the following topics:
• Studies on how and why conceptions of the sacred, religious beliefs, doctrines, rituals and organizations of long-standing religious traditions – such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism or Hinduism – transform under the influence of processes of globalization, individualization, mediatization as well as changing gender relations.
• Studies dealing with trends of believing without belonging, i.e. non-institutionalized beliefs, personal ‘bricolage’ and privatized conceptions of the sacred outside the Churches, Chapels and Mosques. Encouraged are also studies addressing new, more informal ways of ‘belonging’, religious communication and collective effervescence, i.e. in loose social networks, discussion groups or virtual communities on the internet.
• Studies covering popular religion and post-traditional spirituality, i.e., New Age, esotericism, paganism, occultism, discussing for instance an epistemological turn from belief to experience and emotion; a shifting emphasis from transcendence to immanence; from seriousness to playfulness; or a transition from dualism to monism.
• Studies dealing with implicit religion, i.e. addressing a re-location of the sacred to seemingly secular domains in society such as self-identity, sports, modern science and technology. This avenue of research may also include the place and meaning of the sacred
(i.e., religious narratives, symbols and images) in popular media texts – in novels, films, series on television or computer games.

These topics are rough guidelines; papers dealing with religious change and the transformation of the sacred in Europe and beyond other than these outlined above are also very welcome.
Furthermore we invite PhD and post-doc candidates to contribute to a poster session, including work in progress; the best poster will get a – small, but nice – prize.
For further information, dates & deadlines, please see:
http://www.uni-potsdam.de/esa-religion/index.html

Call for Papers
Religion on the Move
How Motion and Migration influence Religion

10th Conference of the SIEF Working Group on Ethnology of Religion
Szeged, Hungary 12-14 September, 2012

In many ways movement is an important aspect of religion and spirituality. Not only has the significance of motion within the practice of religion and rituality increased (Coleman & Eade 2004), but also, through the movement and migration of people all over the world, religions and religious practices are relocating and changing (Jenkins 2007).
Movement is significant for the practice of many religions. It seems that motion has been gaining in importance and that the performative expression and execution of religious practice play a stronger part than they used to do. There might be related to the more participative role of believers in religion and rituality and the enhanced relevance of individuals ‘doing’ religion. The popularity of walking the many pilgrim ways through Europe is an example of that trend, while other expressions of movement like dancing, meditations, processions and other rituals also seem to be more in focus.
A second strand of movement is connected to migration for, by moving, people bring faiths and religious practices to other places in the world where they were not previously known or practised. Nowadays, through mass migrations, refugees, displacements because of war and other translocations, religions and beliefs can expand both spatially and quantitatively. These are processes in which the faiths which are moving are being transformed, and the religion(s) of the areas in which people and their religion are newly settled are likewise affected (examples include Islam in Europe and the new Christians from Africa in Europe). Sometimes beliefs are appropriated through tourism or by ‘spiritual seekers’; aspects of Eastern religion and esoterism have been imported to Western society. In that regard the Internet has become a migratative instrument, in its capacity of ‘posting’ religion all over the globe and into people’s homes, regardless of what religion is practised there. The extension of religion through (digital) migration has an impact on social, cultural and political contexts (Woodhead et al. 2002). The movement of religion might lead to an adaptation to new circumstances, to inculturation, but also potentially to a transformation in the religious constituents of the local culture as well. Sometimes there is openness and religion finds new host communities. Evangelical, Pentecostal, neo-Pentecostal churches have spread across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe (Coleman 2007) and so have Afro-American religions, as Candomblé, Umbanda, or Santeria cubana (Capone 2004; Saraiva 2010). Sometimes the members of the host country become involved in such new practices, but movement may also lead to segregation within host communities and contested situations.

Papers connected to these two research strands on movement and religion are welcomed; one could for example think of the following topics:
•       The influence of migration on religion
•       Movement as constituative element in religion and rituality
•       Effects of globalisation and transnationalism on religion
•       Changes in religion through digital movement, via the Internet.
•       Movement and spatiality related to the practice of religion

Format: the conference takes place over two days, followed by an excursion on the third day. Paper presentations are limited to 20 minutes each, followed by ten minutes of discussion. In total 20 paper presenters will be selected. Colleagues who do not present a paper are welcome to participate in the conference and its discussions. A business meeting of the SIEF Working Group on Ethnology of Religion will be held during the conference.

Organizers: the conference is organized by the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Szeged together with the Bálint Sándor Institute for Research on Religion and the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF).

Venue: University of Szeged and Gál Ferenc Theological College of Szeged

Fee: the conference fee is 60 €, including conference materials, reception, coffee, brunch, excursion.
Participants are responsible for travel and accommodation; there is no funding for expenses available.

Application: submit an abstract of your paper of maximum 300 words, together with your name, position, and institutional affiliation to Dr. István Povedák povedak@yahoo.com by March 15, 2012. The selection of the papers will be done in collaboration with the Board of the SIEF Working Group on Ethnology of Religion. The final selection will be communicated by April 1, 2012.

Contacts: povedak@yahoo.com; peter.jan.margry@meertens.knaw.nl

CALL FOR PAPERS
ALTERNATIVE SALVATIONS
One Day Conference, Sept 18th 2012, University of Chester

The conference will explore how ‘unorthodox’ readings of sacred texts inform salvation experience; how life transformations outside of religious contexts might be considered spiritual; how ideas of this-worldly salvation are politicised; how ideas of salvation are simultaneously secularised and infused with new power; what alternative salvations can be discovered within Christianity and how might they be practised? In particular, we are seeking to explore the ways that alternative religious, spiritual and secular understandings of the notion of salvation already shape, and have the potential to shape, how people live and act in Christian and post-Christian contexts . This exciting conference breaks new ground in exploring alternative approaches to salvation.
Proposals for short papers are invited on any aspect of the theme of ‘alternative salvations’ as outlined here.
Papers will normally be 20 minutes in length with an additional 10 minutes for discussion.

Applications to submit a short paper should include:
-Proposer’s name and affiliation;
– a title for the paper;
– a 200 word abstract;
– details of any audio-visual equipment you will need to deliver your paper.

Short paper proposals should be submitted to alternativesalvations@chester.ac.uk by no later than 4:00pm on 16th April 2012. Applicants should know the outcome of their proposal by 18th May 2012.
Conference costs: £28 (£18 for unwaged and students) inclusive of lunch and refreshments.
If you would like any further information, please contact: alternativesalvations@chester.ac.uk

Special Issue “Religion & Globalization”
A special issue of Religions<http://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/> http://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/religion_globalization/

Call for Papers
Whether globalization is considered as a worldwide structured system of interstate relationships (Friedmann, 1998) or as a world “in motion” (Tomlinson, 1999) crossed by human and cultural flows (Appadurai, 1998), it refers indisputably to a new set of environmental conditions for religions. Globalization is creating new dynamics of change including transnational expansions of traditions (Csordas, 2007), deterritorialized sites, cultic areas (even parishes), virtualized and networked “communities” of believers, electronic and mediatized gods (Stolow, 2010), the universalization of cosmopolitan values and the localization of universalized beliefs (Robertson, 1992). Also shifting religious geographies (for example, Christianity turning “southern” and “black”, Islam turning “Asian”, Buddhism turning “white” and “western”) have contributed to a reshaping of global geopolitics (Huntington, 1993), an “ecological” turn in religious beliefs (Taylor, 2005), a worldwide standardization of religious systems (Beyer, 1994, 1998, 1999) and re-enchantment on a global scale (Csordas, 2007). Migrations have been – and still are – major forces for the geographic redistribution of beliefs and cults, while the world is also becoming ‘proselytized’. This does not clarify the very specific modes by which each process of mobility affects the various ways different religions are acted upon by global forces in their specific contexts. Neither does it take into account the fact that global religious changes may have nothing to do with mobility (Friedmann, 1998) but rather with global systems (Beyer, 1994). A global perspective on religious changes and adaptations in the contemporary world requires a prudent examination of different case-studies as not all religions are subjected to the same forces and engaged with similar processes of changes. Indeed, the “great” historical religions do not face global changes like new expanding religious cults or sects do. Analysis must cautiously distinguish between globalizing religions in global conditions, the impact of globalization on religions, and the role of religions in the rise and the shaping of global (economic, political or ideological) forces. This special issue aims at gathering papers in which scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds (religious studies, anthropology, sociology, political sciences, history, political economy or others) can explore, on an empirical basis and in clearly identified geographic, historical and cultural contexts, the effects of religion on globalization or of globalization on religions.

Please contact Prof. Lionel Obadia, anthropologist, University Lyon 2 at:
Lionel.obadia@univlyon2.fr<mailto:Lionel.obadia@univ-lyon2.fr>

Keywords: Globalization, Global and globalizing religions, spiritual transnationalism, migration and missionary activism, mediatization of religions, religion and the Internet, deterritorialization and new geographies of religions.

Expected deadline: September 30, 2012.