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In this issue:
- Future Podcasts
- Book Contribution
- Bursaries
- Call for papers
- Workshops
- Conferences
- Jobs
- Summer Schools
FUTURE PODCASTS
The following are some of the themes which will be covered in future podcasts
- Sociotheology and Cosmic War
- Religion and Globalization
- Religious Experience
- Pilgrimage/Tourism
BOOK CONTRIBUTION
Call for Contributions
We would like to invite you to join our initiative – publishing a book dedicated to the 80th birthday of Professor Alexander Fol (July 3, 1933 – March 1, 2006).
We are a group of young researchers inspired personally by Alexander Fol and we research and study at different universities and institutes in different countries: Senior Research Assistant Dr. Kalin Stoev – Centre of Thracology “Prof. Alexander Fol” Sofiа at the BAS Sofia; Ivan Marinov – Doctoral Candidate at the University of Montréal; Dimitar Tsakov – Doctoral candidate at the Freie Universität Berlin; Georgi Mishev – Doctoral candidate at the University of Library Studies and Information Technologies, Sofia; Ekaterina Ilieva – New Bulgarian University, Sofia. Our group includes also Prof. Dr. Valeria Fol who has responded to our invitation to join our group.
We are trying to develop Prof. Alexander Fol’s ideas and maintain his work at our respective institutions, because we share his view that the Thracian civilization and cultural heritage form an integral part of Bulgarian as well as European culture.
In the planned volume we would like to publish articles on issues within the scientific fields developed by Professor Alexander Fol. We invite everyone to share his views of: Thracian political history; Political and cultural relations of the people from the Southeastern Europe in antiquity; Faith, ritualism and religiosity of the Thracians; Literary and oral Orphism which helps to define the spirituality in Southeastern Europe after the 2nd millennium B.C.; Thracians in the Roman Empire and Late Antiquity; Interpretation and reinterpretation of important archeological objects and finds in the European Southeast; Interaction between literary and oral cultures; Philosophy of history; The Person as a subject and object of their own study and the ability of being in different spaces and times.
Once written and published your ideas will turn into a potential reality, the one of the Word beyond which no other worlds exist, as Alexander Fol claimed.
With this in mind we ask you to send your scientific or essayistic article to contact [at] groupofi.com in two files – .doc and .pdf no later than June 30, 2013.
BURSARIES
Training to teach Religious Education in 2013: Candidates can train to teach Religious Education (RE) through a PGCE course in 28 universities in England, 2 in Wales and 2 in Scotland. Although the government no longer provides a bursary for RE, there are other sources of support. For 2013-14, trainees in secondary RE could be eligible to apply to one of the Church College Trusts for a grant towards course expenses or living expenses. Candidates can check www.cstg.org.uk/acct<http://www.cstg.org.uk/acct> for details of the trusts and foundations to which they can apply.
CALLS FOR PAPERS
CFP: St. Patricks College, Thurles and the Irish Philosophical Society (IPS) Symposium: An Ethics of/for the Future.
Date: 2013-02-28
Description: St. Patricks College, Thurles, and the Irish Philosophical Society invite the submission of abstracts for the forthcoming one day symposium, An Ethics of/for the Future.
Speakers are welcome from a variety of academic backgrounds, including those with an interdisciplinary approach. However, the foll …
Contact: mshanahan [at] stpats.ie
URL: www.stpats.ie/about/upcoming_conferences
Announcement ID: 201204
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=201204
CFP: Economic History of the Jews throughout the ages:Sources, Methodologies, NarrativesKoschitzky Department of Jewish History annual conferenceBar-Ilan University, June 5-6, 2013
Date: 2013-03-01
Description: CALL FOR PAPERS Economic History of the Jews throughout the ages: Sources, Methodologies, Narratives Koschitzky Department of Jewish History annual conferenceBar-Ilan University, June 5-6, 2013 The purpose of this conference is to challenge the writing of Jewish economic history in all periods in ch …
Contact: Orly.Meron [at] biu.ac.il
Announcement ID: 201306
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=201306
Call for Contributions: Guest editors, Dominic Corrywright and Stephen Gregg welcome offers of written papers for a special edition of Diskus on Teaching and Learning.
Deadline for contributions is Friday 19th April. The journal will be available summer this year.
The process will be fast track because the journal is an e-journal not hard copy (ticking all the governments aims’ for open access research) and the guest editors, Stephen Gregg and myself, will be especially efficient about getting the papers reviewed, revised and the edition collated and published.
If you have a paper on Teaching and Learning that needs a recognised international academic peer-reviewed home then send it to: dcorrywright [at] brookes.ac.uk
We will accept papers 5000-8000 words.
Diskus style guide, and informal guidance available from guest editors..
RASCEE
Religion & Society in Central and Eastern Europe – Journal of the International Study of Religion in Eastern and Central Europe Association (ISORECEA) | ISSN: 1553-9962
Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe (RASCEE) is an open-access peer-reviewed annual (published in December) academic journal reflecting critical scholarship in the study religion in the region.
Journal Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe is included in Index to the Study of Religions Online (A cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles) and in EBSCO Publishing Academic Search Complete, SocIndex with Full Text and in Central and Eastern European Academic Source., while it is in the review process with Religious and Theological Abstracts, ATLA Religion Databases and ProQuest.
RELIGION IN THE SOCIETIES OF FORMER SOVIET UNION TERRITORIES:
ROLES, MANIFESTATIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS
In the early 1990s the territories of the former Soviet Union opened up to social and religious
innovations. After generations of nurturing the idea of a homogenous society, different states emerged, some of them with homogenous, and some of them with heterogeneous, religious fields, with different ways of living and coping with the new conditions of religious freedom, and with different conceptions of the role of religion in society. Looking back after two decades, we can state that religion in the territories of the former Soviet Union has undergone transformations: from forced secularization, to offering new roles, and having a variety of manifestations within contemporary societies that are marked by modernization, individualization and globalization. Is it possible to talk about a religious revival or not? What are the roles of religion in post-Soviet societies? What are the manifestations of new forms of religiosity? How has religion been transformed and mutated in the last two decades? Which religions have been successful and which have failed? Throughout this period a new generation of social scientists and humanities scholars have grown up, and we are particularly interested in their interpretations of the social situation in the region. How does
the new generation of scholars understand and interpret the roles, manifestations and transformations of religion in the former Soviet Union?
Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe invites submissions for a special issue dedicated to religion in the former Soviet Union. We welcome both empirical and theoretical contributions from diverse areas of the social sciences, such as: sociology, anthropology, political science, religious studies, history and law, and that focus on the post-Soviet religious landscape and its post-Communist transformations.
Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe (RASCEE) is an annual, open-access, peer-reviewed academic journal that reflects critical scholarship in the study of religion in the region.
Language: English
Website for the submission of articles: http://www.rascee.net/index.php/rascee
Deadline: June 1, 2013
Contact: Milda Alisauskiene at m.alisauskiene [at] smf.vdu.lt, or Annika Hvithamar ahvit@sdu.dk
Publication is planned for December, 2013
CFP: Religion in Urban Spaces
April 10/11 2014 in Göttingen
Urban spaces have always functioned as innovative laboratories for new religious movements and spiritualities. Studies on the interdependenc <http://www.dict.cc/englisch-deutsch/interdependency.html> e between religion and urban culture, (socio-cultural) space and place and practitioners were published recently (Orsi 1999, Livezey 2000; metroZones 2011, Pinxten/Dikomitis 2012). Still, religious developments in cities remain a marginal field within qualitative social and cultural research. The relationship between urban settings and religious practices hardly come into analytical focus.
The conference will bring the city to the fore in religious research and foster studies that take the meanings of religiosity within the urban context as a central focus. To that end, we take the interdependent terms of religion and religiosity as broad and deliberately blurred analytical concepts, beyond the boundaries of the traditional institutional religions. ‘Religion’ refers here to new or alternative forms of religion and spirituality. One might consider movements such as Neopaganism, Spiritualism, any forms of Esotericism, as well of new practices within dominant belief systems such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism (e.g. New Age Judaism, Salafism, Pentecostalism, Western Buddhism, etc.). The conference aims for a comparative perspective, drawing attention to the contemporary interplay between diverse practices in appropriating and transforming the urban, and considering the reciprocal influence of the cityscape and pluralist culture on religion.
We welcome researchers from various disciplines, including urban/cultural/social anthropology, European ethnology, migration studies, history, philosophy, architecture, sociology, cultural studies, religious studies, and urban studies.
We are particularly interested in research that explores questions such as:
- How does the specificity of urban culture inscribe itself into new religious and spiritual views and performances?
-
How are new forms of religiosity inscribed in urban culture?
-How does religious practice recast the meaning of the urban space?
- What role is played by do urban structure and landscape and architecture?
-
How do shared and contested memories of urban pasts figure in the creation of new religious expressions?
-
What is the significance of the body as an agent of creation of (sacred) places and spaces within urban settings (i.e. ritual movements, dress codes, singing, visualizing emotions)?
-
How do migration, religious self understanding/collective identifications and the city context interrelate?
-
Are there any general characteristics of urbanity related to the construction of (sacred) places or religious practices in the city?
The conference will be the basis for an edited volume which will emphasize the need to link studies on present-day cultural religious processes with the study of urbanism to foster a better understanding of contemporary religious and spiritual cosmologies and practices within the urban realm.
The conference will be held on April 10/11, 2014 in Göttingen. Abstracts of up to 300 words should be submitted via email to Victoria Hegner and Peter Jan Margry by May 30, 2013. All applicants will be informed regarding the acceptance of their proposals by the end of June 2013. We will apply for funding to cover the travel expenses of the participants. Notification of funding should be due by October 2013. The paper`s outline (1-2 pages) should be submitted by March 15, 2014, so that they can be pre-circulated.
Victoria Hegner, Institute for Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology, University of Göttingen
Peter Jan Margry, Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam
victoria.hegner [at] phil.uni-goettingen.de
peterjan.margry [at] meertens.knaw.nl
CONFERENCES
“Folk Belief and Traditions of the Supernatural:Experience, Place, Ritual, and Narrative”
Date: 2014-03-25
Description: This folklore conference will explore past and present supernatural traditions worldwide, focusing on how they relate to experience, place, ritual, and narrative. Throughout
history, scholars and laypeople have theorised on supernatural
experience. Europeans have debated, for example, whether fairie
Contact: agrydehoj [at] islanddynamics.org
URL: www.islanddynamics.org/folkloreconference.html
Announcement ID: 201181
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=201181
“The Supernatural in Literature and Film: Ghosts, Fairies, Aliens, Vampires, Monsters, and Demons”
Date: 2014-03-29
Description: This conference will bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss the role of the supernatural in books and movies, past and present, worldwide. Ever since the dawn of literature, the supernatural has played a role in the stories humanity has told about itself.
Contact: agrydehoj [at] islanddynamics.org
URL: www.islanddynamics.org/supernatural-2014.html
Announcement ID: 201182
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=201182
Uncanny Landscapes
4th-8th March 2013
The Centre for Creative Collaboration
16 Acton Street,
London,
WC1X 9NG
Contributors include:
Steve Pile (Open), Sophie Hoyle (Goldsmiths,) Rachel Sarah Jones (Goldsmiths)
Jane Rendell (Bartlett, UCL), Sarah Sparkes (GHost), Niklas Fanelsa (Tokyo)
Tim Cresswell (RHUL), David Kendall (Goldsmiths), James Thurgill (RHUL)
Tim Edensor (MMU), Lisa Tilda (Ohio), Rupert Griffiths (RHUL), Aileen Harvey (Routledge)
Douglas Spencer (AA), Ben Murphy (UEL), Peter Dickens (Brighton)
Carol Mancke (Kingston), Mariela Cvetic (Belgrade), Elizabeth Straughan (Aber)
Uncanny landscapes is a week long series of events consisting of workshops, symposiums, a conference and exhibition, bringing together artists and academics whose work addresses the ambiguity between subject, object and landscape relations.
The uncanny (unheimlich) was perhaps most famously sketched out by Freud (1919). Defined as everything that ought to have remained secret and hidden but has come to light. (Schelling), the uncanny represents that which upsets, disrupts or disturbs our engagement with the world around us. The Uncanny was a unique work in Freuds oeuvre; unstable, oscillating between analysis and fiction itself blurring the distinction between the real and the imaginary. The idea of the uncanny has since been revisited and reworked in numerous ways, from the architectural to the technological uncanny. At its heart there remains the question of ontological ambiguity. Where are the boundaries between the self and the environment? The uncanny demands that this question is always answered with uncertainty and dissolution.
Uncanny Landscapes repeats these questions, asking how ambiguity is experienced and understood in terms of landscape and the perceiving subject. How does ambiguity or porosity between subject and landscape arise? How did subject and landscape ever come to be seen as distinct in the first place? Is the uncanny an affective trope or can it be considered as a by-product of distributed agency, a glimpse of a decentred self? Can the Freudian rubrics of the uncanny, such as doubling, compulsion to repeat, apparent telepathy, coincidence, omnipotence of thought, still translate to readings of landscape or is the uncanny located in a particular historical moment? How does the idea of return (e.g. Derridas revenant) create an ambiguous body/landscape? Does Deleuze and Guattaris schizoid finally and gleefully jettison the subject in favour of an uncanny multiplicity?
These theoretical perspectives are intended merely as momentary guides or loose anchors. The real questions revolve around how geographical thought can approach ambiguity as a framework through which to describe the experience of place and landscape.
All events are free but admission is by ticket only and places are strictly limited. We suggest booking early to avoid disappointment. Tickets can be reserved by following the link to the Uncanny Landscapes Eventbrite homepage:
http://uncannylandscapes.eventbrite.co.uk
Whilst the workshops are open to all, they are primarily aimed at PhD researchers and early career academics and restricted to a maximum of 15 participants per session.
For more information including timetable, abstracts and venue information, please visit the Uncanny Landscapes website at www.uncannylandscapes.wordpress.com.
Please contact the organisers at uncannylandscapes [at] gmail.com with any further questions.
Uncanny Landscapes is organised by PhD researchers James Thurgill (RHUL) and Rupert Griffiths (RHUL) and is supported by Landscape Surgery (RHUL ) and the Centre for Creative Collaboration.
JOBS
Lecturer in Philosophy
School of Divinity, History & Philosophy
University of Aberdeen
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AFY321/lecturer-in-philosophy-northern/
University of Oklahoma – Norman – Postdoctural Fellowship in Modern
China / China studies (all social sciences and history)
<http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=46275>
University of British Columbia – Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the
field of Persian Literary Culture and /or Iranian cinema.
<http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=46312>
SUMMER SCHOOLS
Summer School in Comparative and Transnational History: Theories, Methodology and Case Studies
Description: Are you convinced that national history and its approaches are limited? Do you want to look beyond the nation in which you live? In this case, you may be interested in attending the HEC 2013 Summer School which will take place in one of the most evocative places in Florence: Villa Schifanoia.
Contact: francesca.parenti@eui.eu
URL: www.eui.eu/DepartmentsAndCentres/HistoryAndCivilization/SummerSchool/Index.aspx
Announcement ID: 201174
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=201174
Call for applications
2013 UCSIA summer school on “Religion, Culture and Society”
Sunday 25 August – Sunday 1 September 2013
Antwerp, Belgium
In 2013 the UCSIA summer school focuses on the topic of Religion, Reform and the Challenge of Plurality. We will research processes of change that arise in the interaction between religions and societies in contexts of plurality – especially and also in a global world. Where a diversity of religions and societal perspectives are present, identity-claims are problematised, and the understanding of citizenship is evolving. What role can religions play in shaping such societies? How do plural societies affect religions towards changing their own attitudes towards one another and revising their role in society? How do religious convictions and perspectives on citizenship relate to one another? Can one ‘belong’ to various cultures and religions? These challenges can be studied in various areas: changes in the perception and self-image of religions and faith-based organizations (so-called ‘identity-issues”), education, public health management, welfare programs, the relevance of voluntary work, attitudes towards (im)migration, gender and race issues, culture, politics, involvement in the public sphere, etc.
Guest lecturers:
Guest lecturers are José Casanova (Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, Georgetown University, Washington DC), Robert W. Hefner (Boston University), John Hutchinson (London School of Economics) and Louise Ryan (Social Policy Research Centre, Middlesex University, London).
Practical details:
Participation and stay for young scholars and researchers are free of charge. Participants should pay for their own travel expenses to Antwerp.
You can submit your application via the electronic submission http://www.ucsia.org/main.aspx?c=.SUMMERSCHOOL&n=48426 on the summer school website http://www.ucsia.org/summerschool. The completed file as well as all other required application documents must be submitted to the UCSIA Selection Committee not later than Sunday 28 April 2013!
For further information regarding the programme and application procedure, please have a look at our website: http://www.ucsia.org/summerschool.
Contact:
Sara Mels, Project coordinator
UCSIA
Prinsstraat 14
2000 Antwerp
Belgium
Tel: +32/3/265.45.99
Fax: +32/3/707.09.31