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In this issue:
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Journals
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Books
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Call for papers
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Conferences
- Jobs
JOURNALS
Sociology of Religion, vol 74, no. 2 http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/content/74/2?etoc
Contribution to Indian Sociology – Online. Special Issue: Social Value Projects in Post-liberalisation India: June 2013; Vol. 47, No. 2 http://cis.sagepub.com/
Marburg Journal of Religion, vol 17 http://www.uni-marburg.de/fb03/ivk/mjr/current_issue
Contemporary Islam, vol 7, no. 2 http://link.springer.com/journal/11562/7/2/page/1
Correspondences: An Online Journal for the Academic Study of Western Esotericism is the brainchild of Jimmy Elwing and Aren Roukema, two postgraduates from the University of Amsterdam, and I’ll be interviewing them on their latest exciting venture for my Albion Calling blog in the coming weeks.
Contained within this first issue are papers on ritual black metal from Kennet Granholm, on the Nag Hammadi Interpretation of Knowledge text from Matthew Twigg, on the theological debate within Cochranian Witchcraft from myself, and on the influence of Daoism on Aleister Crowley from Johan Nilsson. There’s also Dave Vliegenhart’s review of Gary Lachman’s new book on Madame Blavatsky.
In contrast to the subscription-based academic journals that currently dominate the field, the entire issue is downloadable for free here: http://correspondencesjournal.com/issue-1-1/
BOOKS
New Book: From Toussaint to Price-Mars: Rhetoric, Religion, and Religion in Haitian Thought
Date: 2013-06-15
‘Inside African Anthropology: Monica Wilson and her interpreters’ edited by Andrew and
Leslie Bank (Cambridge University Press 2013).
CALLS FOR PAPERS
CFP: Religion and Popular Culture
Deadline extension: June 30,2013
Location: New Jersey
Date: 2013-06-30
Description: Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association 2013 Conference, Nov. 7 9, 2013, Atlantic City, NJ Religion and Popular Culture Area Call for Papers The Religion and Popular Culture area seeks presentations on the following topics: Choosing the Leader: This past year Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergo
Contact: adzias[at] comcast.net
URL: mapaca.net
Announcement ID: 204517
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=204517
Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Meeting
Location: Pennsylvania
Date: 2013-07-15
Description: Call for Panelists! This is a call for panelists for the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Meeting that will take place in Philadelphia, PA, March 27-30, 2014. I am
seeking panelists to help address the garment industry in Asia from a wide range of perspectives. My paper will focus on the u …
Contact: Samantha.christiansen [at] gmail.com
Announcement ID: 204541
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=204541
CFP: IABS 2011 Buddhism on the Silk Road III – the Extent of Gandhāran Buddhism
IABS – Vienna 2014
I am organizing again a panel on Buddhism on the Silk Road III – the Extent of Gandhāran Buddhism for IABS conference in Vienna, Aug 18 – 23, 2014. This is one of the provisionally accepted panels and a sequel to the sessions we had on the AAR in 2001 and IABS, 2011. If you are interested in joining the panel, please contact me as soon as possible. The main theme of the panel is the historical transmission of Buddhism from India to China via
Central Asia, where I believe Gandhāran Buddhism had major impacts on artistic inspirations as well as textual transmissions. I would like to receive abstracts of your possible presentation papers (500 words or less) by Oct 15, 2013 (for Nov 1 IABS web submission deadline). Please send me a short email introducing your potential papers beforehand.
Mariko Walter, Ph.D
Research Associate
Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies/Harvard
Director: ACANSRS
Association for Central Asian Civilizations & Silk Road Studies
College House, 3F, 1430 Mass Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
mnwalter[at] post.harvard.edu
mnwalter[at] acansrs.org
CFP: “Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History” – CALL FOR PAPERS FOR PEER-REVIEWED OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL
Date: 2013-09-01
Description: The editors of the online open access journal Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History invite proposal for articles on any aspect of Jewish history from the XVIIIth century to the present day (see the description of the journal in http://www.quest-cdecjournal.it/about.php?issue=4 ) The call is m …
Contact: mail [at] quest-cdecjournal.it
URL: quest-cdecjournal.it
Announcement ID: 204563
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=204563
CFP: United Methodist Women’s History: Voices Lost and Found
Location: Ohio
Date: 2015-05-28
Description: To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the United Methodist Women, Methodist Theological School in Ohio will host a conference on this historic organization on May 28-30, 2015. Papers that explore the history, significance, prominent persons, and defining issues in the development of UMW and its pred …
Contact: slancaster@mtso.edu
Announcement ID: 204538
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=204538
CFP: “Ways of Knowing: Graduate Conference on Religion at Harvard Divinity School”
Oct 25-6, 2013 in Cambridge, Massachusetts
CFP Deadline July 1, 2013
The Science, Religion, and Culture Program at Harvard Divinity School announces the second annual graduate student conference on religion. In our inaugural conference, held in October 2012, eighty students and early career scholars representing twenty-five different graduate programs from across the United States and the world gathered to present their research.
Following the success of last year’s conference, this multi-day event will be comprised of thematic panels that cross religious traditions, academic disciplines, and intellectual and theological commitments. The conference aims at promoting interdisciplinary discussion of prevailing assumptions (both within and outside the academy) about the differentiation, organization, authorization, and reproduction of various modes of knowing and acting in relation to religion.
We invite paper proposals representative of a variety of theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary approaches and that explore religious practices especially in relation to identities, authorities, discourses, texts, and experiences. We welcome projects that utilize all sorts of theoretical tools, including discourse analysis, gender theory, race theory, disability theory, post-colonial theory, performance theory, and ritual theory. Papers may focus on a specific period, region, tradition, person or group, and/or on a set of practices, texts, doctrines, or beliefs. Projects that are primarily sociological, anthropological, theological, ethical, textual, historical, or philosophical are welcome, as are projects indebted to multiple disciplines.
This year’s conference will also feature two thematic modules. Several panels will be devoted to each of the following themes:
1) “Constructions of Autonomy in Early Modern and Modern Contexts”
2) “Ritual as a Category of Religious Experience”
Proposals are to be submitted to gradreligionconference[at]hds.harvard.edu by Monday, July 1, 2013. Please go to our website for further details on the Call for Papers and submission instructions: www.hds.harvard.edu/gradreligionconference
Call for Contributors–_Miracles: An Encyclopedia_
I have recently contracted with ABC-CLIO, a publisher of reference books and other academic titles, to edit Miracles: An Encyclopedia of People, Places and Supernatural Events from Antiquity to the Present. This encyclopedia will be both cross-cultural and interdenominational. I am building an international collaborative of authors who are willing to share their scholarly wisdom on the subject of miracles, from historical, religious, sociological, philosophical and scientific perspectives.
Approximately 190 short articles will range over several topics (for instance, magic, medicine, mind reading), persons (for instance, David Hume, Conyers Middleton, John Henry Newman), geographic areas (Fatima, LaVang, Lourdes), and historical eras. The scope and content of this reference work, including a full list of entries, is available on request (pjhayesphd[at]gmail.com).
Please inquire about the precise word count. As the encyclopedia is meant for a general readership, contributors should bring their scholarly expertise to bear without freighting their entry or entries with overly technical jargon. I would appreciate very much if you would kindly circulate this request among your professional colleagues and graduate students as well.
I am hoping to receive entries between January and March, 2014, with completion of revisions by the fall of 2014, roughly September 1. I would like to submit the whole manuscript by the end of next year for expected publication in 2015.
Survey: Animals and the Spiritual Imagination
Is a new research project on animals and the spiritual imagination. I’m researching connections between religious/ spiritual worldview, spiritual views of animals, and behavior towards animals and animal-oriented causes. If you’re interested, you can help by taking the survey at the link below:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KGP32D8
It will remain open until the end of June 2013. We are particularly in need of male respondents, as we have a preponderance of female respondents as of now, but you are welcome to take the survey regardless of your gender identity. You may also share this link with other interested parties.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Thank you very much for helping me with this research.
Sabina Magliocco
Professor, Department of Anthropology
California State University – Northridge sabina.magliocco[at]csun.edu
CONFERENCES/ EVENTS
Fourth International Conference on Religion and Spirituality in Society
29-30 April 2014
Universidad Nacional Costa Rica Heredia, Costa Rica
Religion and Spirituality in Society is an international conference, a cross-disciplinary scholarly journal, a book imprint and an online knowledge community which, together, set out to describe, analyze and interpret the role of religion and spirituality in society. The bases of this endeavor are cross-disciplinary. The intellectual project is neutral with respect to the agendas of particular religions or explicit counterpoints to religion such as agnosticism or atheism. These media are intended to provide spaces for careful, scholarly reflection and open dialogue.
For more information: http://religioninsociety.com/the-conference
Registration is open for the one day conference Risk and Rapture: Apocalyptic Ideology in Late Modernity to be held at the University of Chester, Wednesday 11th September 2013
SECURE ONLINE REGISTRATION IS AVAILABLE AT http://storefront.chester.ac.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6&products_id=270
Cost: £65 waged and £30 unwaged
Please use the dedicated email address for any enquiries at Riskraptureconf[at]chester.ac.uk
From September 13 to 15, 2013 the international conference “The Christian Mystery. Early Christianity and the pagan mystery cults in the work of Franz Cumont (1868-1947) and in the history of scholarship” will be held in Ghent (Belgium)
The theme of this international conference, hosted by Franz Cumont’s alma mater Ghent University, is the way the Belgian historian of religions and his contemporaries conceived the relationship of Early Christianity to the pagan mystery cults. We will also include predecessors and more recent scholarship on this topic.
The online registration system for our conference is now open:
http://www.csct.ugent.be/christianmystery/registration
We kindly ask to register before September 1, 2013 so as to make it easier for us to organize the further logistics of the conference.
The University of Illinois will host an international symposium, “Religious Performance, City and Country in East Asia,” October 9-10, 2013, at Levis Center of the Urbana-Champaign Campus.
This conference brings together leading scholars in the field from North America and Japan for a two-day symposium, October 9-10, 2013 (Levis Center), to examine the relationship between metropole and rural religious performance by drawing a set of clear lines of liturgical practice in the East Asia case, with special reference to Japan. The keynote speakers will be Professors Matsuo Kōichi, National Museum of Japanese History, and Haruo Shirane, Columbia University. First, we pay attention to the position of medieval Japanese religious performance vis-à-vis continental East Asia. What were the ritual and cultural flows that informed the development of medieval Japanese Buddhist and other religious performance (Kami worship, Shugendō [mountain asceticism])? Second, we consider the character and movement of a series of religious performances in the Japanese isles. What were the producers and audiences of these performances? How, moreover, were these performative modes translated between groups in the metrapole and countryside? Third, how did performance genres such as divine dance (kagura), visual didactic performance (etoki), and biwa lute playing influence religious performance and reception through their mixture of multiple media? Finally, how did the mobility of performers and media influence the development of religious performance? That is, how did the travel of the monk Ennin to China influence his production of shōmyō chanting in Japan? What does archeological study tell us about the movement of Pure Land Buddhist performative practices? How did performances of Kumano believers and Shugendō practitioners transmit or otherwise transform their practices in currents between metropole and mountainside? Furthermore, how were textual-performative practices related to temple arts and ritual transmission in the city and country?
Registration is free but required (contact ruppertshogyo[at]gmail.com) since there is limited seating. Booklets with the full lectures by participants, including translations into Japanese and English, will be provided to all registrants at the event; discussants, with the exception of Professor Matsuo, will comment in English, and discussion will be in both English and Japanese. Japanese participants will present in Japanese.
Islam in Europe through the Balkan Prism
Date: 2013-06-25
Description: Islam in Europe through the Balkan Prism, Sarajevo, October 24-26, 2013 This conference aims to look at Islam in Europe through the Balkan prism. What are the historical, institutional and religious traits that characterise endogenous European Muslims? How have they recast themselves vis–vis Europe …
Contact: arolda.elbasani@eui.eu
URL: www.eui.eu/Projects/ReligioWest/Home.aspx
Announcement ID: 204554
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=204554
Literature of Luther: The Individual, Freedom, and Grace
Location: New York
Date: 2013-07-15
Description: 2013 Northeast Regional Meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature: Literature of Luther: The Individual, Freedom, and Grace St Francis College, NYC November 8-9, 2013 It has been almost 500 years since Martin Luther penned his Ninety-Five Theses. It is in view of this upcoming anniver …
Contact: NECCL [at] sfc.edu
URL:www.pepperdine.edu/sponsored/ccl/conferencesandannouncements/northeast.htm
Announcement ID: 204566
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=204566
LAST FEW PLACES AVAILABLE
HEA workshop: Narrating your academic practice
Thursday 27 June, Kents Hill conferencing centre, Milton Keynes
This workshop is free of charge to colleagues from subscribing institutions.
By the end of this workshop you will have:
•analysed your teaching in a critical and creative way;
•started to construct a narrative of your own teaching, drawing on the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF), which can be used as the basis for your application for recognition as Academy Associate Fellow or Fellow.
According to Hannah Arendt, storytelling can be ‘a place to begin inquiry’, which can ‘hold fragments together’. In this workshop we will take you to the heart of your academic ‘story’ to curate the different experiences and encounters of your own teaching.
Metaphor and narratives abound in the Arts & Humanities and in the Social Sciences. This workshop aims to bring together the language of our disciplines with the language of academic practice used in the UKPSF.
Throughout the day you will participate in a series of creative ‘making and connecting’ activities – for example, creating rich pictures, identifying narrative structure (story and plot) and drawing on dominant tropes – that will both support your own reflective practice and provide you with a ‘toolbox’ for use with your students in the future. In the final session of the day you will draw on the outcomes of these activities to develop the structure for the narrative of your own learning and teaching.
For further details and to book a place: http://bit.ly/11WJtwa
Seminar Title: ‘The possessions at Loudun: Their significance in the history of the science of mind’
Date: Wednesday 26 June, 2013
Location: UCL Institute of the Americas, Room 105, 51 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PN
Time: 6pm-7.30pm
Speaker: Dr Craig E. Stephenson (AGAP/CPA/CAPT/IAAP)
Abstract: This seminar focuses on the seventeenth-century possessions at Loudun, France and presents how the events of this famous case played out at the time and how theorizing about possession and obsession changed over almost four centuries of writing about them.
For instance, in his definition of demonism for the Schweizer Lexikon (1945) C.G. Jung referred to the debate about Loudun, as did Gilles de la Tourette, Michel Foucault, Michel de Certeau, and Jacques Lacan.
Eventually, psychopathology co-opted the word ‘obsession’, stripped of its religious connotation, and left the word ‘possession’ outside medical discourse. Then, in 1992, the American Psychiatric Association attempted to introduce ‘possession’ into its diagnostic manual (DSM-IV) as a mental disorder. Revisiting the history of Loudun provides a means for situating the APA’s recent interest in possession within a medical and intellectual continuum.
JOBS
Koc University – Professor, Sociology
<http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=46826>
Zentrum Moderner Orient – Research Positions (Post-doc/very limited Doctoral) from January 2014 (36 months)
<http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=46828>
National University of Singapore – Research Fellowship at Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
<http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=46831>
Richard Stockton College – Visiting Instructor/Assistant Professor Pacific World/Asia-Pacific History
<http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=46829>
William Temple Foundation wish to appoint an Assistant Director: Communications and Development
We are looking for someone who can make a significant contribution to the development of the William Temple Foundation’s influence in the growing debate about the relationship between religion, society, economics and human flourishing. The successful candidate will be either London or North West based, and have skills in communication, media relations and network creation as well as being knowledgeable in the areas of social justice, politics and faith communities.
The post holder will achieve their goals by:
· Engaging with potential new stakeholders in public life, the churches and the academy
· Generating media networks for the dissemination of research findings, including front of camera and audio representative work
· Using social media for tweeting and re-presenting research findings for public and media engagement with the work of the William Temple Foundation.
· Working collaboratively on scoping new research projects and funding bids with our Research Director and Senior Honorary Fellows.
The successful candidate will enjoy enhanced opportunities for networking, research and travel in an exciting and expanding area of public policy and research, engaging with a wide variety of stakeholders including the faith and voluntary sector, media (at all levels), academic departments and think tanks, the public and private sector and government policy makers. For the right person and with the anticipated growth of the William Temple Foundation’s work there could be the possibility to extend the role to include the conducting, writing up and publishing of empirical research projects.
This is an appointment on a three year fixed-term contract. The post is 25 hours a week on an annual salary of approximately £30, 000 (paid pro-rata).
For the application pack see the William Temple Foundation’s website www.wtf.org.uk