West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, 1-2 November, 2013

The importance of Pentecostal-charismatic movements in the “Global South” has been well established. We would like to call for a scholarly reorientation toward the “Global East” where economic miracles go hand in hand with rapid growths of Christianity. This symposium particularly focuses on Chinese Pentecostalism in Asian societies. With its innovative styles of experiential spirituality, female leadership, and powerful communication strategies, Chinese Pentecostalism is challenging the dominance of conventional Christianity. This symposium seeks to assess the status and characteristics of Chinese Pentecostal-charismatic movements worldwide, with a special focus on East and Southeast Asia but also including Chinese diasporic communities in other parts of the world. We hope to bring together scholars from Asia, Europe and North America for a comparative understanding of global Chinese Pentecostalism. We are especially interested in papers reporting historical and empirical research on the following topics:

• Studies of a congregation, a sect, a network of such congregations, or a movement of Chinese Pentecostals or charismatics anywhere in the world
• Studies of Chinese Pentecostals or charismatics in their social and cultural contexts
• Transnational connections of Chinese Pentecostals and charismatics
• Experiential spirituality and female leadership of Chinese Pentecostal movements
• The development and distinctiveness of Chinese Pentecostalism
• The relationship of Chinese Pentecostals and charismatics with other Chinese Christians

The confirmed plenary speakers include:

Allan Anderson (Keynote), University of Birmingham, UK

Donald Miller (Keynote), University of Southern California, USA

Kim-Kwong Chan, Hong Kong Christian Council, Hong Kong

Hsing-Kuang Chao, Tung Hai University, Taiwan

Gordon Melton, Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University, USA

John Cheong, Sabah Theological Seminary, Malaysia

Deadline for the submission of abstracts (250-500 words, with a brief biographical note): 20^th April, 2013.

Completed paper is due on 1^st Oct, 2013. Submissions and questions send to Joy Tong at joy_tong@ymail.com.

We intend to edit a special issue of a journal out of the papers presented. We will also provide accommodations and meals for presenters. The conference is organized by The Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University, and co-sponsored by International Programs, Asian Studies Program, and Religious Studies Program at Purdue University.

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
http://www.ucsia.org
http:///www.ucsia.org/summerschool

The 11th Institut des Amériques Conference Call for papers interrogates the theme of “Women in the Americas.” A generation of scholars in the humanities and social sciences have paid considerable attention to gender- and women-related issues. This more comprehensive framework, constructing North/South and transamericanist paradigms, ambitions to revisit such topics from interdisciplinary and intercultural perspectives. Beyond traditional oppositions and stereotypes, we invite contributions which question permanence and change in the role and status of women in the Americas.

Conference languages are English, French and Spanish.

A SPECIFIC SESSION IN PREVIEWED ON WOMEN AND RELIGION

Despite the critical and antireligious nature of major American feminist protests in the 1960s and 1970s, religion has been a field of experiment, challenges and change for twentieth century American women, much more so than for their European counterparts. Thus, new political forms of religious commitment have emerged and which remain largely unexplored: the feminization of the Church, the feminization of the priesthood in various Christian churches, the social policy of transcontinental female religious congregations, the struggle for the empowerment of poor women in conversional churches, religious militancy against established powers or deforestation or the destruction of indigenous peoples, as well as female contemporary anti-globalization counterculture. This panel session will examine and compare current scholarly research within the Americas. Topics include but are not limited to:

1. Religion and Feminism.

2. Political and social critics and experiments.

3. Transcontinental networks

Proposals should be sent to panel Organizers by April 1, 2013. They should include a one page abstract and one page bio, including institutional affiliation

Organizers: Blandine Chelini-Pont (Aix-Marseille Université) : blandine.chelini-pont@univ-amu.fr    Florence Rochefort  (GSRL/ EPHE. Institut Emilie du Châtelet) : florence.rochefort@wanadoo.fr  Pierre Langeron (Sciences Po Aix) : langeron.pierre@wanadoo.fr   

For more information, see http://women-americas.blogspot.fr

We will continue the two-day meeting pattern we initiated in Denver last year, with the ASA Religion Section meeting the day following.  This means our actual session dates will be the 11^th and 12^th of August.  There will be five simultaneous sessions each day, and as customary, the Presidential and Furfey Lectures and Receptions.  The theme for the 2013 meeting is “Tributaries, Eddies and Cross-Currents: Religion Outside the Mainstream.”  Fred Kniss is 2013 President, Nancy Ammerman is our Furfey Lecturer, and Kelly Chong is our Program Chair.

To have a paper or session proposal considered: (1) You must have paid your 2013 dues; and (2) If you are submitting a session proposal, at least one author of each paper included in the session must be a 2013 ASR member.  This same provision applies to discussion and book review panels.  Please visit the “Membership” section of this website to renew your dues or join the Association.

The deadline for submitting session proposals is March 15, 2013, while the submission period for individual papers extends through April 30, 2013.

Whether you plan to be on the program or not, please try to attend our meeting and help us celebrate 75 years.  New York City is easily accessible by air and train, and we promise to have a excellent program lined up for you.

Applications are encouraged from scholars in a variety of disciplines — from practical theology to the social sciences, from history to biblical studies and contextual education — for projects that involve learning from and about living communities of faith. Fellows will explore avenues for making that knowledge available for the sake of those communities’ wellbeing, as well as developing strong academic contributions appropriate to their disciplines. Applicants should have completed their graduate work and be placed in a professional position at the time of application. We especially encourage early-career scholars to apply, but will consider applications from persons who have recently been tenured.

The application deadline is 15 February 2013. For application information and instructions, visit www.hirr.hartsem.edu or contact the Engaged Scholars project office at Hartford Seminary (engagedscholars@hartsem.edu).

*This program is supported by a major grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. and is administered by the Congregational Studies Team: Nancy Ammerman, Anthea Butler, Bill McKinney, Omar McRoberts, Larry Mamiya, Gerardo Marti, Joyce Mercer, James Nieman (project director), Bob Schreiter, and Steve Warner.

The Research Network Sociology of Religion (RN34) has issued its call for papers. The call includes joint sessions with Sociology of Culture at https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56963/CFP%20RN35.pdf, Society and Sports, Sociology of Emotions, Qualitative Methods, and Sociology of Migration.

Click here to download a PDF of the Call:  https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56963/CfP%20-%20RN34%20-%20Sociology%20of%20Religion.pdf

Click here to visit the main conference website: http://www.esa11thconference.eu/call-for-papers

Abstract submission opens on 12 December 2012 and closes 1 February 2013.

Click here for information on how to submit an abstract:  http://www.esa11thconference.eu/abstract-submission

Call for Papers

RN34 – Sociology of Religion

Coordinators:

Anne-Sophie Lamine, anne-sophie.lamine@misha.fr, University of Strasbourg, France

Heidemarie Winkel, hwinkel@uni-potsdam.de<mailto:hwinkel@uni-potsdam.de, University of Postdam, Germany

Religion has often been understood as a response to personal, social or cultural crisis. Classical scholars, such as Peter L. Berger and Max Weber, pointed out that it provides a theodicy of good and evil – an account that gives ultimate meaning in a meaningless world. Religions, Stark and Bainbridge (1985) contend, are other-worldly compensators for individuals in crisis – for those who are deprived from this-worldly rewards. Even advocates of the secularization thesis often acknowledge that crisis and rapid social change in society temporarily motivate the popularity of religion (Bruce 1997).

But religion, once considered to be in crisis under the secularizing powers of modernity, is alive and well in Europe. More than that: religion seems to thrive on what can now be called the crisis of modernity. Modern science, the nation state, capitalism, unrestricted consumption and the globalizing economy, have lost much of their credibility and plausibility in many European countries. In this cultural climate, the voices of traditional religious groups grow louder whereas, some say, we are witnessing a massive turn to holistic forms of spirituality (e.g., Campbell 2007). The atheist-secular worldview is more than ever contested by a fraction of Muslims, Christian creationists, Buddhists and other religious groups while a mirror-like process of anti-identification gives rise to alarmist discourses about the return of religions and particularly on the danger of the “islamization of Europe”. Religion has once again become salient in the re-formation of identity and the construction of imagined communities: uprooted from tradition, modern individuals in identity crisis search for new (religious) values and meanings whereas some European nation states align themselves with their Christian heritage, long-standing traditions and religious pasts. Religion, then, can not easily be understood as the ‘irrational’ Other of modernity – it is instead a common and valid response to the growing crisis of modernity. Jurgen Habermas (2005), once a furious critic of religion, argued from this perspective that intellectuals should include religious partners in the ‘rational’ conversation about modernity since both share a growing critique on the maladies of modernity.

Motivated by these observations, the Research Network Sociology of Religion calls for papers on crisis, critique and change in relation to religion.

Particularly papers are welcomed that discuss the following topics:

01RN34.          Studies dealing with religion in crisis,  i.e. the way religious traditions such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and the like – re-structure their organizations, beliefs, and practices and adopt, negotiate or resist processes of modernization, secularization and disenchantment.

02RN34.          Studies dealing with the ways religion provides answers to existential crisis and, particularly, the crisis of modernity  – i.e. how and why Islam, Christianity and other religious-spiritual groups formulate a critique of and alternative to modern science, capitalism, mass-consumption and individualism.

03RN34.          Studies dealing with the way crisis increases the salience of religious identities and cultural polarization,  i.e., in what particular ways religion gives meaning in everyday life and if, how and why religious identity-formations induce processes of inclusion and exclusion; social cohesion and religious conflict.

04RN34.          Studies focusing on the way religion changes the modern world in Europe and beyond,  i.e., how rapid social changes motivate the appeal and popularity of religion and if, how and why such religions transform private and public domains in Europe.

05RN34.          Sociology of religion (open)

07JS28JS34.     RN34 Joint session with RN07 Sociology of Culture and RN28 Society and Sports.

Sport and religion/spirituality

(Chairs: Davide Sterchele; Stef Aupers & Hubert Knoblauch)

Whereas the analogy between sport and religion has been criticized by many scholars mainly because of the lack (or low relevance) of the transcendent dimension in traditional sport practices, the recent sociological elaborations of the concept of spirituality seems to provide new interesting tools for interpreting the emerging forms of bodily movement. At the same time, the study of the analogies between traditional sports and institutionalized religions still generates relevant sociological insights.

In order to contribute to these streams of analysis and to open new horizons for further studies, the ESA research networks ‘Sociology of Culture’, ‘Society and Sports’, and ‘Sociology of Religion’, invite potential contributors to submit abstracts to the joint session on ‘Sport and religion/spirituality’. The session will thus provide a forum for exchange and sharing among sociologists of culture, sport and religion, who deal with these themes from different but overlapping perspectives.

RN34 web-page : http://www.esareligion.org/

07JS34.            RN34 Joint session with RN07 Sociology of Culture

Cultures of Religion – Religious Cultures

(Chairs: Hubert Knoblauch & Regine Herbrik)

“Religious Culture is quite frequently used, particularly in the French context (“culture religieuse”) relating both, to the general as well as to the specific religious patterns of culture. It may serve well not only to address empirical questions concerning the increasing cultural significance of religion within Europe as well as globally; it may also connect recent theoretical approaches in the sociology of culture on the one hand with approaches in the sociology of religion. For the joint session we invite, therefore, contributions addressing both empirical as well as theoretical issues concerning “religious cultures”.

11JS34.            RN34 Joint session with RN11 Sociology of emotions

Affects and Emotions in the Field of Religion

(Chairs: Stef Aupers  & Cécile Vermot)

Generations of scholars of theology and religious studies have viewed affects, emotions, and religion as closely related issues. What can be said about the certain shapes, characteristics and forms of this relationship in present times? How far is the research on emotions especially crucial for the understanding of religious life in Europe and for the coexistence, or even living together, of different confessions? What role do “emotional regimes” (Riis/Woodhead) or “feeling rules” (Hochschild) play with regard to the formation of emotional cultures both in religious groups and communities and with regard to the quest for salvation or spirituality of individual persons?

20JS34.            RN34 Joint session with RN20 Qualitative Methods

Qualitative Research on Religion

(Chairs: Regine Herbrik & Bernt Schnettler)

We also encourage participants to present papers concerned with methodological questions related to the specific problems of empirical research in the Study of Religions. Can we transfer methods from other fields of research to the sociology of religion or do we need special, field-specific methods? What can we learn from methods used in neighbouring disciplines? Which sets of methods can be recommended for empirical analyses targeting micro-macro issues in understanding religion? What role does the gender issue play in this? We are especially interested in papers reporting empirical research finding in the sociology of religion using qualitative research methods in combination with methodological reflections.

34JS35.            RN34 Joint session with RN35 Sociology of Migration

Migrant religions as a challenge to European identities

(Chairs: Berta Alvarez-Miranda & Heidemarie Winkel)

Already in classical sociological theory, religion functioned as a looking glass of change in times of crisis. At present, migrant religions are challenging and contributing to a critique of European identities. How do various European contexts accommodate migrant religions? What are the experiences, attitu­des and demands of their followers? How does the treatment of matters related to Islam inform on European identities and their current transformations? What conceptual and empirical tools does socio­logical analysis offer for the understanding of the varieties of internal and external religious critique?

ANNUAL APPLICATION DEADLINE: February 1

The Dissertation Fellowship program is designed to support the final year Ph.D. or Th.D. dissertation writing for students engaged in research pertaining to North American Christianity, especially projects with the potential to strengthen the religious life of North American Christians and their institutions, including seminaries, while simultaneously advancing American religious and theological scholarship.

Learn more about the fellowships at:  http://www.louisville-institute.org/grants/programs/dfdetail.aspx

Religion on the Move: Movement, Migration, Missions and new Media across Religious Traditions

Columbia University Department of Religion

Graduate Conference

Friday, April 26, 2013

Keynote Speaker: Michael D. Jackson, Distinguished Visiting Professor of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School

The history of religion is a history of movement.  But what happens when religion is on the move?

In this conference, we are interested in examining how an interdisciplinary approach to migratory experiences might illuminate the dynamic interplay between the limited possibilities in which people find themselves and the capabilities they nonetheless possess for creating viable, even vibrant, forms of social life.  By treating religion as an embodied and spatial phenomenon that intersects with political and economic structures in complex and often unexpected ways, this conference aims not only to contribute to the nascent field of religion and migration but also to broaden its theoretical and methodological repertoire for future studies of religion on the move inclusive of movement, migration, missions and new media.

A spatial analytics of movement as pilgrimage might draw our attention to the intertwining routes believers trace as they undertake the hajj to Mecca.  Historical attention to the making of regional/national migrations might shed new light on, for example, the unique urban sacred order built by millions of black southerners moving north in the decades of the United States Great Migration, or on the intergenerational histories of peoples displaced because of their religion.  An anthropology of the diffusion of missionaries to far-flung lands might include studies of their roles as evangelists moving along trading routes (Buddhists in Southeast Asia), active participants in colonial expansion (Jesuits in the Americas), or ambivalent resisters to imperial power (Protestant sympathizers with Indian independence).  And a cultural study of new media forms can help map patterns of religious mobility through the emergence of portable devotional materials carried by journeying practitioners.  Whatever our approach, studying religion on the move attunes us to how mobility is not only an aspect of religious experience across traditions, times and spaces, but is also constitutive of religious beliefs, practices and communities.

We encourage submissions from those in all fields with interests in the study of religion.  Our discussion will address, but is by no means limited to, the following questions:

·  How have religious institutions been related to migration through colonial bonds, missionary proselytization, and/or the transnational bridges created by new technologies and media?

·  How have the movements of religious traditions been facilitated by economic links such as medieval mercantile and maritime routes or modern globalized flows of capital?

·  How has religious movement affected material culture, both in the creation of new media forms by people on the move and in the transformation or hybridization of existing cultural forms in their places of destination?

·  How have community practices of transmission been affected by regional and, in the modern period, national migrations, as well as the translation of sacred texts into new languages?

·  How has movement reconstituted the boundaries of religious and ethnic identities? How have these boundaries been inscribed on landscapes through the establishment of new neighborhood enclaves and architectural forms?

·  Has religion been inflected differently in migrations that are forced (expulsion; evacuation; defection) rather than voluntary?

·  Could attention to the embodied nature of migratory experiences shed new light on the study of otherworldly journeys and altered states of consciousness?

Please send a 500-word abstract, along with your name, institution, specialization, and year of study to columbiareligion@gmail.com by December 28, 2012.

All proposals will receive a response by early-February 2013.