Welcome on this website of the SOAS Centre for Gender and Religions Research.

The Centre participates in the international research networking project Interdisciplinary Innovations in the Study of Religion and Gender: Postcolonial, Post-secular and Queer Perspectives, funded by the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research. As part of this project, on 17-19 December 2012 the Centre will host an interdisciplinary workshop on

Catachreses?

‘Gender’, ‘Religion’, and ‘Postcoloniality’

On this website you can find up-to-date information about the workshop, such as the Call for Papers, details about the programme and information about the key-note speaker.

The Centre for Gender and Religions Research is based in the Department of the Study of Religions at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. It aims to promote the cross-cultural study of gender and religion. For more information about the Centre, please follow this link.

The header of this website presents the painting Catachrese by the French artist Daniel Friboulet.

CFP: Networked Humanities

Not on their website yet, will link when it is)

Miami University, Oxford Ohio November 9-11

Submission Deadline:  July 15

The Midwest Division of the Society for Women in Philosophy invites papers in all areas of feminist philosophy, theory, and praxis. Papers ranging from political, ethical and social theory, to epistemology, mind and metaphysics are welcome. Work that interrogates the intersections between race, gender, ability and class is particularly encouraged.

In celebration of Adrienne Rich’s life and work, Midwest SWIP extends a special request for work that considers the aesthetic as a site of feminist resistance. On this topic we invite traditional papers as well as performances that engage feminist theory and praxis. Interdisciplinary work is welcomed, particularly that which challenges the disciplinary practice of philosophy and the theory/practice distinction.

Please submit papers, proposals for panels, and panels to midwestswip2012@gmail.com.

Attending Midwest SWIP: Midwest SWIP endeavors to make attendance affordable for all participants by requiring no attendance fees and providing snacks throughout the conference. Please contact Gaile Pohlhaus at pohlhag@muohio.edu to request local housing and we will solicit community member hosts. Travel grants ($70) are available on a first come, first served basis though priority will be given to students, the unemployed and the underemployed. You need not be a member of SWIP to participate in the conference, to request local housing, or to request a travel grant.

August 15, 2012 submission deadline

Volume 29, Number 1, Winter 2014
Guest Editors: Kristie Dotson and Donna-Dale Marcano

Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy seeks papers for a special issue on women of color feminist philosophy.  We welcome feminist philosophical scholarship with the aim of interrogating and/or demonstrating work created within the terrain of these three terms- women of color, feminist, philosophy. (Read the complete cfp here, halfway down the page.)

University of Newcastle, 5-6 October 2012

Since the ‘religions of the book’ centre on calls to personal and social transformation (Hebrewshuv, Greek metanoia, Arabic tawbah), they have given rise to repeated radical and revolutionary movements. This radicalism continues, even in the context of the privatized and individualist faith of the West, but also in Eastern contexts, such as the Taiping Rebellion in China. The political and legal definition of such an act is ‘treason’: conspiring to overthrow the ‘state’, whether the political state or the states of our social and individual lives.

Theology is also notorious for supporting the status quo (see Romans 13). Thus, theology is caught between political reaction and radicalism: the same theological system – whether Christian, Islamic or Jewish – can foster support of an oppressive status quo and yet undermine that state. Or, one theological system – notably some forms of Islam – may challenge the dominance of another, such as Christianity (see Qur’an 5:51).

This tension between religious reaction and radicalism, between theology and treason, which takes place within and between theological traditions, is the focus of a two-day conference at the University of Newcastle, to be held on 5-6 October, 2012. It is part of the ‘Religion in Political Life’ project at the university. We will include speakers who bring new perspectives to this discussion, especially from Asia.

Topics include but are not limited to:

1. Permutations of theological treason in Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
2. Internal and systemic tensions between religious radicalism and conservatism.
3. Events when religion’s treasonable resources were deployed to overthrow the ‘state’.
4. Theological underpinnings – much denied – of Islamic-Western tension and misunderstanding.

The symposium will bring four international experts to Newcastle to present papers in the conference and mix with the locals. The speakers are Zhang Shuangli (Fudan University, Shanghai), Chin Kenpa (Chung Yuan Christian University, Zhongli, Taiwan), Ward Blanton (University of Glasgow) and James Crossley (University of Sheffield, to be confirmed).

Please send paper proposals to me by 1 September.

There is no registration cost for the conference and food will be included, but you will need to get here and find a bed.

Please find attached below the provisional schedule for the forthcoming NSRN conference, to be held at Goldsmiths, University of London, in July.

NSRN 2012 Conference Schedule (provisional)

Please kindly circulate widely. 

To register please visit this link http://nsrn.net/2012/04/23/registration-now-open-for-the-nsrn-annual-conference/  we are pleased to be able to extend the period of ‘early-bird’ registration until 1 June.

Call for papers

Religions: Fields of research, methods and perspectives

The First International Krakow Study of Religions Symposium, 12-14 September 2012

Keynote speakers:
Prof. Grace Davie (University of Exeter)
Prof. Ralph W. Hood Jr (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)
Prof. Barnaba Maj (University of Bologna)

Organisers: International Journal “Studia Religiologica” and Institute for the Study of Religions, Jagiellonian University

“Religion is a defining mark of humanity – as emblematic of its bearer as the web for the spider, the dam for the beaver, and the song for the bird,” writes Patrick McNamara in his most recent book. It may seem that such a role and position of religion would require sophisticated reflection, extended methods of scientific analysis and the creative activity of research communities. However, in spite of the clear evidence of the importance of these issues, religious studies is a long way both from the role of the “crown of the humanities” foreseen by Eliade and from agreement on and verification of research tools. For some scholars, religions remain a “by-product” and a “virus of the mind”, while for others they are proof of the existence of “supernatural forces” and the central activity of people on the path to transforming their condition. The conference “Religions: fields of research, methods and perspectives” will present the spectrum of approaches to religious phenomena that are multi-layered and anchored in various ways in cultures, societies and individuals as well as new methods of research and refined versions of previous ones. It will also show the research quandaries and problems to be solved which religious studies scholars come up against in their historical, comparative, sociological, philosophical and psychological studies. The aim of the conference is to demonstrate the potential of religious studies and related fields in solving and comprehending the fundamental problems of humanity.

Conference languages: English, Polish

Registration form (in English, in Polish) please send by e-mail: symposium@iphils.uj.edu.pl
Deadline for registration: 15 June 2012
Full name, academic title, home institution, contact details, address, e mail, telephone, title of paper, abstract (1000-1800 characters)

An interesting conference for the network, regarding forms of secularism and trends of believing without belonging.

ESA Research Network 34 – Sociology of Religion

Transformations of the Sacred in Europe and Beyond
First bi-annual conference, 3-5 September 2012 at the University of Potsdam, Campus Griebnitzsee

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 “post-secular 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.

Contact details

University of Potsdam

PD Dr. Heidemarie Winkel

esa-2012@uni-potsdam.de

Postal Address:

August-Bebel-Straße 89

D-14482 Potsdam

Religion, Value, and a Secular Culture

University of Kwazulu-Natal
Durban, South Africa
November 5-6, 2012

Theme

By the term ‘secular culture’ is meant one which problematizes the foundations for the various religious beliefs that make up the traditions of that society, though the public order may not be founded on any particular expression in those traditions, of the ethical framing of life together. The shift from a premodern culture is characterized by two central changes: (i) the greater degree of individual freedom. This is recognized as a key value in changing societies and is given expression in the democratic institution of universal suffrage; and (ii) the emergence and prestige of the sciences and of scientific method as the default paradigm of human knowledge.

As the major religious traditions acquired their canonical expression in premodern culture, they do not to any great extent deal with a thought-out response to the major factors or key values which characterize contemporary culture. Thus the first factor challenges the traditions to re-think attitudes to women, to moral rules and values, and to hierarchy; the second factor calls upon religious thinkers and leaders to be involved in dialogue with the sciences and knowledge acquired thereby.

One response to these changed conditions of society has been to remove religion and religious beliefs altogether from public debate. This is then framed solely in terms of individual human rights and the values of equality and tolerance. However, in the absence of any foundation for these rights and values, this framework might itself seem arbitrary and imposed, in particular in a global situation of the interaction of more developed with still developing cultures and economies. A purely procedural democracy and ethical framework might disallow real dialogue on substantive values or with persons.

Not amenable to scientific inquiry strictly speaking. Religious fundamentalism, for its part, sees no possibility of such dialogue, and can be seen, as does Karen Armstrong, rather as a reaction thereto.

Papers are invited from any discipline whether philosophical, theological-religious, sociological, psychological, legal, political, and on any issue arising out of these intellectual challenges:

• Developments within religious traditions in response to secularity
• Conflicts and divisions within religious traditions in meeting the new conditions for religious beliefs
• Differing political frameworks for regulating interaction between state and religion
• Legal matters arising from separation of church and state
• Religious traditions as challenging dominant models of secular ethics, in particular a possible bias towards individualism
• The problems of building human community and countering fragmentation in conditions of a secular culture
• Fundamentalism as response and resistance to secularity; recourse to violence
• Secularisation in relation to neo-colonialism
• Responses of particular countries in the face of secularism ? South Africa, Turkey, United States, and others
• Secularism depicted and problematized in fiction ? Pamuk?s Snow, Dastgir?s A Small Fortune, for example
• Secularism and particular religious traditions ? Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, for example
• Romantic love as a theme in religious responses to secular changes ? Pamuk,    Dastgir, Shutte?s Conversion, for example
• Transcendence in a framework of immanence in the religious traditions
• African traditional thought and response to secularism
• Debates between science and religion ? open and closed versions of neo-Darwinism
• Studies of a contemporary writer on these theological themes: Karen Armstrong; Keith Ward; Mustafa Akyol; Mark Johnston; for example; or on the ethical themes: Alisdair MacIntyre, Herbert McCabe, Marilynn Robinson, for example
• Philosophical frameworks for fruitful dialogue between secular culture and religious traditions: B. Lonergan; Charles Taylor; and others

Contact:

Professor John Patrick Giddy

University of Kwazulu-Natal

Durban, South Africa

Giddyj@ukzn.ac.za

We now invite graduate students who have advanced to PhD candidacy to
apply for this status for 2012-13.  Preference will be given to
candidates whose dissertation projects are well advanced and who
demonstrate a need for Newberry collections in their dissertation
projects.  The students who are selected will be provided with
research carrels, access to the Newberry during extended hours, and
opportunities to present their work-in-progress to the Newberry’s
scholarly community.

medeamalmo:

This issue of Postmodern Culture aims to gather ways of seeing the term “medium” beyond current disciplinary frames. Rather than take the routes of literary or film studies, art history or communication theory - and rather than see media as discrete, pre-constituted categories of aesthetics or…