Religious Studies Project Opportunities Digest – 26 May 2015
Please note that there was a mix-up with a couple of the calls for papers last week, and we do apologize for any inconvenience and misinformation that resulted from the mistake.
The correct information should be included below, in this week’s digest.
Gurdjieff and the Study of Contemporary Religion
David Robertson speaks to two remarkable scholars, Carole Cusack and Steven Sutcliffe, on the significance of G. I. Gurdjieff to the study of religion. How do we approach figures like Gurdjieff whose legacies (and archives) are tightly controlled by their followers, and who often aren’t seen as worthy of study by the academy and publishers?
The Logics of Bricolage Reconsidered: A Cognitive Approach to Individuals and Their Constraints
This response is a defense of the academic interest in the individual, which I take to be inclusive of the variety of ways that the activities of individuals are constrained, or not, in any given context. All constraints are not equal.
Veronique Altglas is to be commended for her intervention into the contemporary academic discussions and (often uncritical) usage of the concept of bricolage. As she rightly suggests, …
Bricolage
In this interview with Chris, Altglas discusses the complex genealogy of ‘bricolage’, tracing a movement from forms of cultural warfare to ‘playful, postmodern bricoleurs’ – what many might be tempted to dub ‘pick and mix spirituality’. However, as Altglas goes on to demonstrate,…
Véronique Altglas
Image courtesy of Brian O’Neill: https://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_oneill/15146826735/in/set-72157646842235687/ Véronique Altglas is a Lecturer in the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work at Queen’s University Belfast. Her main research interests lie in the globalisation of religion, new religious movements, religious exoticism, responses to cultural and religious diversity in Britain and France, and anti-Semitism. She completed her PhD at the Ecole […]
Religious Studies Project Opportunities Digest – 28 October 2014
Calls for papers Atheism: Psychological Perspectives – Secularism & Nonreligion Journal Symposia August 17-20, 2015 Marmara Üniversitesi, Turkey Deadline: January 15, 2015 More information Religion, Gender and Body Politics: Post-secular, post-colonial and queer perspectives February 12-14, 2015 Utrecht University, The Netherlands Deadline: December 1, 2014 More information (CFP), (programme) AAR: Eastern International Region Meeting May 1–2, […]
On the Outside Looking In: Western Appropriations of Eastern “Subtle Body” Discourse
To my knowledge, prior to the nineteenth century, suksma sarira was never applied to the body of a living human being. In India’s yogic and tantric literature, this has simply been called “the body,”
I find Jay Johnston’s endeavor to integrate what she acknowledges as Eastern concepts of the “subtle body” into Western conversations on subjectivity, ethics, perception, interpersonal relations,
David Gordon White
David Gordon White received his Ph.D. (with Honors) from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago in 1988. He also studied Hinduism at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, France, between 1977-1980 and 1985-1986. A specialist of South Asian religions, White is the J. F. Rowny Professor of Comparative Religions at the […]
When Atheists Pray…
An atheist could perform all kinds of prayer in the exact same way a believer does but would not necessarily perceive his (or her) actions to be connected to a higher power.
In his interview with Thomas Coleman for the Religious Studies Project, Dr.Kevin Ladd talks about his research on prayer. Dr. Ladd explains how he got interested in the topic,…
Religion, Neoliberalism and Consumer Culture
According to Gauthier, it is important to note is that religious activity of the day is not haphazard or random pick-and-choose at all. Instead, it is following a new kind of logic, that of consumerism. Marketization and commodification among other phenomena are affecting the field of religion – and vice versa. Listen and find out more!
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 20 Sept 2013
In this new collection the editors present a selection of key writings that reflect a broad range of voices on the nature and practice of the discipline, illustrating the spectrum of ideas that people throughout history have had when considering how to understand and study religion.
Religion, Secularism and the Chaplaincy
“As Sullivan and other religious studies scholars complicate terms like religion and secularism, reducing these terms to near incoherence, and insist on the constant intermingling of the sacred and the secular, they leave jurists and legislators in a predicament with important practical consequences.”
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 15 March 2013
Description: Call for Paper Submissions The main function of the international conferences “Buddhism & Australia ” is to provide a platform for academics and monastic scholars and lay Buddhists to present academic presentations. Traditionally all the presentations of our conferences have been published on the we …
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 28 Dec 2012
Description: We are happy to announce that the application period for the Leo Baeck Summer University 2013 has begun.The Leo Baeck Summer University is an English-language six-week summer school in Jewish studies at the Humboldt University, Berlin, under the auspices of the new Zentrum fr Jdische Studien Berlin- …
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 28 September 2012
This conference will convene in the shadows of the slave castles to examine church responses to contemporary threats to black social, physical, and religious well-being, including political oppression or coercion; group conflict; co-optation of religious life; captivities of persons (e.g., modern slavery, human trafficking, mass incarceration); and economic distortions and dependencies.