2014
Beyond Insider Outsider Binaries: Call for Chapters
Beyond Insider Outsider Binaries: New Approaches in the Study of Religion (working title)
Edited by:
George D. Chryssides (Honorary Research Fellow in Contemporary Religion, University of Birmingham, UK)
Stephen E. Gregg (Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies, University of Wolverhampton, UK)
It has become clear that binary notions of religious belonging, based upon narrow views of religion as a monolithic category of participation, are no longer tenable within the Study of Religion. Similarly, recent scholarship has emphasised a relational approach to engagement with religious communities and individuals, critiquing previous conceptions of scholastic objectivity and participation. However, much pedagogy and research about religion and religions still uses insider and outsider categories uncritically. As methodology within the study of religion – and particularly the study of everyday religion – has developed in the last decade, a more nuanced understanding of what it means to be an insider or outsider is needed. Indeed, this focus upon the performance of everyday religious lives must lead to a re-evaluation of ‘what religion is’, thus complicating issues of situation and approach to religion and religious communities. In so doing, we complicate the associated relationships religious practitioners and scholars have with these religious individuals and communities. Quite simply, when we re-negotiate ‘what religion is’ and ‘what religious people do’, with the subsequent challenging of sacred/profane dichotomies, we create a landscape where structured and restrictive notions of ‘insideness’ or ‘outsideness’ may no longer apply. If this is indeed the case, we need to re-focus upon performed everyday narratives and malleable, often complicated and contested, religious identities at the overlaps and edges between researchers, individuals and religious hierarchies, communities and worldviews.
Call for Chapters
The editors seek high quality original scholarship from a variety of international and multi-thematic and multi-disciplinary approaches to the study of religion in contemporary contexts. Chapters may be related to a particular religious community or tradition, or may focus upon a particular issue or methodological approach. Chapters should be 8,000-10,000 words in length. Examples of particular issues relevant to insider/outsider debate may include, but are not limited to:
- Teaching and researching religion ‘after the world religions paradigm’
- Sociological approaches to membership of religious communities
- Ethnographic issues for researchers in relation to religious communities
- Particular issues in researching controversial or problematic host communities
- Contested religious identities within and between religious movements
- Complicated processes of joining or leaving religious communities – converts, seekers, leavers and apostates.
- Theoretical and methodological approaches within the Study of Religion
- Public discourse on religious belonging and identity
Deadline
Potential contributors should email GDChryssides@religion21.com or s.gregg@wlv.ac.uk with a title, 250 word abstract, and 250 word personal profile, including institution affiliation and research profile, before 1st November 2014. It is anticipated that final chapter submissions will be required by 1st September 2015.
2014
IAHR e-Bulletin Supplement, September 2014
IAHR e-Bulletin Supplement, September 2014
Contents
- Introductory Summary (2-4)
- IAHR XXI World Congress Erfurt 2015: the deadline for panel proposals has been extended to 15 December 2014
- Retain or Changethe Name of the IAHR? (7-8)
- ‘A Rationale for a Change of Name for the International Association for the History of Religions’ (9-13)
- Minutes of the IAHR International Committee Meeting, Liverpool, UK, 2013 (14-39)
- IAHR Business Meetings Erfurt 2015: First Call (40-41)
- IAHR Honorary Life Membership: Call for Suggestions (42)
- Invitation for Letters of Interest for Hosting the IAHR XXII World Congress 2020 (43)
- Appendix to the 2013 International Committee Meeting Minutes (44-45)
Travel Grants
Those in need of a travel grant for attending the 21st IAHR World Congress at Erfurt, 23-28 August 2015, should carefully read the Travel Grant Guidelines before applying for financial assistance. Application for Travel Grants is possible until December 15, 2014. You will be informed about the status of your application before March 1, 2015.
2014
2014
Journal of Contemporary Religion – Special Issue on Religious Cultures and Gender Cultures
Journal of Contemporary Religion – Special Issue on Religious Cultures and Gender Cultures
Call for Papers
What is different about gender across religious cultures?
Instructions to authors and deadlines
Please submit an outline abstract of about 500 words (plus bibliographical references; in .doc and .pdf format) by 15 October 2014 to both heidemarie.winkel and elisabeth.arweck, outlining the following:
• Title of proposed paper
• Contributing author/s and contact details
• Significance and importance of the research question
• Key concepts, research framework, aim and methodology
If provisionally accepted, full papers are to be submitted by April 2015 for review in line with JCRguidelines. Submission of an abstract does not guarantee publication. Submitted papers will go through the journal’s usual peer-review process. Authors will not receive any payment upon publication.
2014
Women, Violence and Religion in South Africa, Johannesburg, 31 October 2014: Call for Papaers
The Department of Religious Studies of University of Johannesburg and the Circle of Women Theologians in Africa invite paper proposals for the one day conference on Women, Violence and Religion in South Africa, to be held on 31st October 2014. Closing date for paper proposals is 15 August 2014.
The theme
Although South Africa enjoys one of the most gender-equal constitutions and has among the highest number of women in government in the world, violence against women is widespread in the country. This conference seeks to examine violence against women by considering the role, perspective and contribution of various religious organisations. Our debates will be framed by three broad questions.
First, are the high levels of violence against women in South Africa influenced by religious ideologies and/or practices? Second, what is the role of women in societies where violence against women is commonplace? In particular, do women in leadership perpetuate cycles of violence against other women? What types of role models are female leaders to other women, especially to the victims of violence? Third, how do religious organisations and teachings perpetuate, condone or combat violence against women?
The conference will address these questions by means of an interdisciplinary approach. The discussion will accommodate theological, anthropological, psychological and sociological discourses. We invite paper from any of these fields, and encourage interdisciplinary papers.
PAPERS ON THE FOLLOWING BROAD TOPICS ARE WELCOME
- Understanding women, violence and the sacred text – with particular reference to episodes dealing with the abuse of women.
- Religious interpretations of violence against women – do religions ‘glorify’ violence against women, or turn a blind eye to it?
- The various roles of leaders in perpetuating or fi ghting violence against women in religious communities or organisations.
- Female leadership and violence – are female leaders in political, medical, educational, economic and spiritual spheres violent towards their subjects or employees?
- Violence against women in sacred spaces.
- Violence against women in the media.
- Violence against marginalised women in South African society, including foreigners, the economically deprived and the politically ignored.
- Theoretical perspectives on how we conceptualise and study the interface between violence against women and different religions.
- Proposals dealing with non-Christian traditions
SELECTED PAPERS WILL BE PUBLISHED IN A SPECIAL EDITION of a peer reviewed and DoHET accredited journal
CONTACT DETAILS:
Dr, Maria Frahm-Arp
Department of Religion
University of Johannesburg
mariafrahmarp@gmail.com
