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In this issue:
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Seeking Your Help
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Amazon
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Journals
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Books
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Call for papers
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Jobs
SEEKING YOUR HELP
Given that the RSP has been running for nearly 2 years now, and in light of the website redesign, David and Chris thought it was about time to have another major publicity push. The email at the link below has already been circulated around the DOLMEN, BASR, and NSRN lists. If you are a member of any other vaguely relevant mailing list – particularly of academic associations – please considering copying it and circulating among friends, colleagues, and interested parties.
Here’s the link: https://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/october-2013-publicity/
AMAZON
You can help to financially support the RSP simply by shopping on Amazon – and at no additional cost to you!
The Religious Studies Project is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk. We are also a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ref=as_li_tf_mfw?&linkCode=wey&tag=therelistudpr-21
http://www.amazon.com/ref=as_li_tf_mfw?&linkCode=wey&tag=therelistudpr-20
If you click through to Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com through these links, and buy ANY product during your visit, the RSP will earn referral fees. There will be no additional cost. Why not add a shortcut to your bookmarks bar and use these links every time you shop?
JOURNALS
Sociology of Religion, vol 74, no 4 – advance notice. http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/content/74/4?etoc
Review of Religious Studies Research, vol 55, no. 4 http://link.springer.com/journal/13644/55/4?wt_mc=alerts.TOCjournals
Religion and State, vol 41, no 4 http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/crss20/41/4#.UqrCpeL9qBs
BOOKS
Narratives of Sorrow and Dignity: Japanese Women, Pregnancy Loss, and Modern Rituals of Grieving. Oxford University Press, 2013 (Oxford Ritual Studies). ISBN 978-0-19-994215-2 (pbk)
Author: Smith, Bardwell L.
CALLS FOR PAPERS
New Antiquities: Transformations of the Past in the New Age and Beyond
The twentieth century witnessed a surge of fascination with the religious culture of the ancient Mediterranean, whose allure was appropriated in innovative ways by various actors and movements ranging from Rudolf Steiner to Goddess-cult(ure)s, from Neo-Gnostics in Brazil to the Russian New Age. In these diverse interpretations and productive misunderstandings of antiquity, ancient gods, philosophers, religious specialists, sacred institutions, practices, and artifacts were invoked, employed, and even invented in order to legitimize new developments in religious life. Focusing on the contemporary period (from the 1960s to the present day), our goal is to identify and analyze these appropriations and changes of ancient religious life. We seek critical, scientific papers that take an historical, philological, and/or sociological approach towards transformations and constructions of the past in the literature and cultural discourse of the New Age and beyond, extending into movements such as Neo-Paganism and Neo-Gnosticism. Join us for a workshop in Berlin, from 26–28 June 2014!
Selected papers from the workshop will be published in the peer- reviewed Brill series, Metaforms: Studies in the Reception of Classical Antiquity. Participants will need to provide their own funding.
Deadline for the submission of abstracts: 31 January 2014.
Contact info:Please send abstracts together with a CV (both no more than 500 words) to newantiquities [at] yahoo.de; further inquiries can be directed to the co-organizers of the workshop:
CFP: Tombs, Mausoleums, Shrines and Memorials of Religious/Political Leaders of the Contemporary Middle East (1980-2011)
After my recent call for papers regarding “Tombs, Mausoleums, Shrines and Memorials of Religious/Political Leaders of the Contemporary Middle East (1980-2011)” I understood for many reasons this field of study is still undeveloped.
Therefore by this e-mail I invite you for working together on one book publication project regarding above topic but ONLY related to the mentioned leaders (below).
Please send the title of your chapter, your discipline, a 500-word abstract and your full academic affiliation including your e-mail address as an attached file (Office Word) by 30th Feb. 2014 to: (pedram.khosronejad [at] st-andrews.ac.uk)
This edited volume will be published by SeanKingston Publishing House in U.K.
All branches of disciplines are welcome.
CFP: Transformations: A Journal of Myth and Fairy Tale Studies – Proposals January 8 th, 2013
full name / name of organization:
EMMA, Université Montpellier 3, France
contact email:
julie.sauvage<@>univ-montp3.fr, weeksj<@>iupui.edu
We are in the process of establishing a brand new web-based, peer-reviewed journal in English, in the field of myth and fairy tale studies. We are currently accepting proposals for the first two issues.
DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: Wednesday, January 8th, 2014
Journal Description:
Transformations is designed to explore myth and fairy tale adaptations published after 1870. The journal’s coverage includes modern adaptations of myths and fairy tales in a variety of print and cinematic media, regional myths and fairy tales, colonial and postcolonial interpretations of fairy tale adaptations, myths and fairy tales as a forum for gender exploration, and comparative studies of myths and fairy tales. Transformations features English-language scholarship; however, the scope of the journal is broadly international and multidisciplinary. Individual papers do not have to address both myths and fairy tales, although we are interested in the interpretive intersections between these genre categorizations.
The journal will be published semi-annually in December and June. Each submitted article will be peer-reviewed by two academic experts selected from relevant fields of research. Articles should be 5,000-8,000 words in length, including notes and works cited.
The first two issues of the journal will be open submission for any topic related to myths and fairy tales. Thereafter, the journal will alternate between an open topic issue in the winter, and a special issue focused around a particular theme, tale, author, or sub-genre in the summer. Future special issue topics will include (“Little Red Riding Hood,” Late Victorian Political Myths and Fairy Tales, Myths and Fairy Tales from India, and Neil Gaiman)
Possible topics for general issues may include, but are not limited to:
– relationships between myths and fairy tales
– literary or film genres in myth and fairy tale revisions
– the politics of myth and fairy tale revisions
– gender in myths and fairy tales
– post-colonial perspectives on myths and fairy tales
– translation and displacement of myths and fairy tales
– history in myth and fairy tale revisions
– myths and fairy tales and modernism/post-modernism
– orality in the rewriting of myths and fairy tales
– narrative patterns in myths and fairy tales
– redefining the subject through myth and fairy tale revisions
– narrative technique and voice
– performing myths and fairy tales
– myths and fairy tales on screen
– myths and fairy tales in new media
– intermedial approaches to myths and fairy tales
500-word proposals should be sent by January 8th 2014 as e-mail attachments. Please include your full name and institutional affiliation. Address submissions to the editors:
VI INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES: “IMAGES OF DEATH”
Venue: National University of Salta
Salta, Argentina Republic – 13 al August 16, 2014
We are sending the First Circular concerning the VI INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES: “IMAGES OF DEATH” with schedule information, inscriptions, as well as the subject areas.
SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES
Date and sending proposals – by e-mail: until 20 February 2014.
Response on acceptance of proposals (sending the acceptance letter) –
E-mail: March 20, 2014.
Off of the full texts of the paper – by e-mail: until 20 May 2014.
Realization of Congress 13 to August 16, 2014.<cavucacordeiro [at] gmail.com>
REGISTRATION
1) FORMAT: Single or double registrations (each participant must make payment for your registration) with proposals for free topics. The presentations will be organized in co-ordinated by the Organizing Committee, according to thematic criteria and / or chronological sessions.
2) DELIVERY OF THE PROPOSAL / PRE-REGISTRATION: Send file attached to a mail message to the following address:6imagenesdelamuerte@gmail.com ,
containing:
a) name;
b) Institution;
c) Country;
d) Curriculum summarized (with area of training, professional action, major publications);
e) Title of the presentation;
f) extended summary of 2 pages, Times New Roman 12, line spacing 1.5. It should record the subject, research problem, hypothesis or orientations of meaning, sources, references and brief conceptual conclusions as above. The summary should be accompanied by five key words that refer to the main concepts that articulate the proposal.
g) The selection and approval criteria will be the quality and relevance of the proposal sent through the summary.
3) TARIFFS:
Professional speakers: $ 800
Professional attendees: $ 400
Students post-graduation speakers: $ 800 students attending
post-graduation: $ 400 Exhibitors grade students: No Tariff assistants grade students: No Fee
4) THEME: sessions will be organized by the Organizing Committee according to two cutouts: chronological / procedural and thematic. Encompassing a broad interdisciplinary range to provide opportunities to identify complexities and riches in the analysis and discussion of theoretical, methodological and conceptual explanatory theory of the social aspects are provided. Discussions will allow also advance studies at local, regional, national and / or global.
4.1) chronological CLIPPING:
a) Death, dying and the post-mortem between different cultures of the period Pre- Columbian / pre-European;
b) Death, dying and the post-mortem in the process of European conquest:
catechesis,
appropriations and cultural relationships in situations of conquest and settlement European;
c) Death, dying and the post-mortem in situations of colonial Christianity and
implemented: burials ad and apud sanctos ecclesian, places of death and the dead, funeral rituals and customs covering different cultures (the Catholic death / baroque death among different indigenous and African races), the Catholic / Protestant hegemony over different attitudes and representations; prescribed and lived;
d) Crisis of Colonialism, wars of independence, assertion of Independent States (imperial or republican), ruptures and continuities before death:
alteration of mortality patterns and habits, hygiene and medicalization of death, creating processes extramural cemeteries, new places of the dead, transformations and cultural traditions;
e) Transformations and continuities in the context of challenge to the hegemony of death, dying and the afterlife and the construction of new religious (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc.).;
f) Death in contemporary societies, ruptures and continuities: the loneliness of the dying, euthanasia, cremation, violent deaths.
4.2) THEME CUTS:
a) Rituals and attitudes towards death;
b) Representations, sensibilities, conceptions, philosophical aspects of death, death and the afterlife;
c) Spatiality and places to death;
d) secularization and sacralization;
e) Planning, health, public cemeteries;
f) Funerary art, art cemeterial;
g) Studies and bioarchaeology paleoepidemiologia;
h) Morbidity and mortality;
i) Death and violence: murder, crime, suicide, genocide, death penalty;
j) Death and power: state funerals.
k) Psychological aspects, medicine, medicalization, euthanasia, palliative care;
l) literature, visual arts, theater, music, photographs, film;
m) Different social practices against pain: Judicialization, organizations demand collective struggles.
2014 Postgraduate Conference: Bodies: Bridges and Boundaries
Monday 6–Tuesday 7 January 2014, Christ Church, University of Oxford
Wendell Berry suggests that ‘when we say the word “body” theologically, we cannot distinguish in an absolute way whether we mean our own human bodies, Jesus’ human body, Christ’s bodily presence in the elements of the Eucharist, or the social body called the church’. Our experience of life, salvation and sanctification is an embodied experience, but what this means is far from clear given that bodies have a liminal character as both a defining boundary of the self and a communicative bridge to the outside world, both immanent and transcendent. This conference seeks to explore the interaction between theological and religious conceptions of the body, both individual and corporate, and the lived experience and praxis of those bodies in the world.
Speakers
Gerard Loughlin, University of Durham
Graham Ward, University of Oxford
Pamela Sue Anderson, University of Oxford
Werner G. Jeanrond, University of Oxford
Call for Papers
This conference aims to gather postgraduate students. We invite critical and constructive papers of 20 minutes in length from all disciplines concerned with theology and religion. Topics of interest may include, but are not limited to, theological approaches to:
Mind as embodied and environmentally embedded
Doctrines such as incarnation, resurrection and ascension
Soteriology and sanctification of the body
Bodies, passions and emotions
Sexuality and gender
The body in sacrament and ritual
Church as the body of Christ
Changing conceptions of the body in history
Bodily language and metaphors in scripture and theology
Ethical considerations of technology and the body
Communion and communication
Negotiating social, political and cultural bodies
Please submit your abstract (500 words maximum) to tobias.tan@theology.ox.ac.uk. The deadline for submissions is 25 October 2013.
Registration
To register your attendance at the conference, please complete the following form.
There is no registration fee for the conference. Please register by 9 December 2013.
Accommodation
In general, delegates will need to organise their own accommodation. The organising committee is attempting to make various affordable accommodation options available for postgraduate students. The following options may be of interest:
1. We are currently searching for local Oxford based students and faculty who may be willing to host a student. Accommodation will vary depending on what the host can offer. You may indicate your interest in being hosted on the registration form.
2. We have been able to arrange for 39 places at The Vines at £35 for Monday the 6th of January (only). The Vines is a large house on Pullens Lane owned by Scholarship and Christianity in Oxford, a visiting student program. It is a 5-10 minute bus-ride from city centre. Rooms will be allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. Please be advised that should you secure a place, you will most likely be sharing a room with 1-3 other delegates. You may include roommate requests when you book. The kitchen will not be available for use. If you are interested in accommodation at the Vines please express your interest on the registration form by Monday 9 December. You will then be contacted to confirm whether you have place and given details about how to make a formal booking.
3. List of other accommodation options in Oxford
Meals
Lunch will be provided free of charge on Tuesday 7 January (please indicate your dietary requirements on the registration form). Breakfasts, dinners and lunch on Monday 6 January will not be provided.
Bursaries
We are attempting to secure funding to make travel bursaries available to those who require assistance to attend. Please note the following information about bursaries:
Bursaries will only be available to those giving papers.
Bursaries will only be available for domestic train/bus travel within the UK. We are unable to cover flights, international travel or accommodation.
Depending on funding and demand, we may only be able to subsidise a percentage of your travel expenses.
Original receipts will need to be provided before bursaries are paid.
Bursary payments will be made after the conference and may take several weeks. We aim to inform those who are awarded bursaries when abstracts are accepted (approx. mid-November).
Where possible, participants are encouraged to apply for other funding so that we are able to maximise access to the conference.
To apply for a bursary, please complete the relevant section of the registration form. For any inquiries relating to Bursaries, please contact ulrich.schmiedel@theology.ox.ac.uk
A full conference programme will be available at a later date. The conference will begin at 13:00 on Monday 6 January and conclude at 17:00 on Tuesday 7 January.
For general enquiries, please contact tobias.tan [at] theology.ox.ac.uk.
CFP: The Leeds Postgraduate Monasticism Conference has opened a cal for papers which could be of interest to many of you: Monastic Myths: Origins, Identities, Legacies, 16-17 May, deadline 28 February.
More information: http://leedsmonasticismconference.wordpress.com/call-for-papers-2014/
Those involved in shaping forms of religious expression in the Middle Ages had recourse to a powerful tool: the creation of origin narratives. Monastic, mendicant, canonical and semi-regular congregations self-consciously looked to the past for models to emulate, appropriated traditions to present to contemporaries, and established precedents to edify future generations. Within communities, origin stories were crafted by male and female religious to strengthen their position as the spiritual vanguard of Christendom, as well as to legitimise certain forms of religious life. Similarly, external factors played their role in myth formation, either through wider ecclesiastical policy or through the active participation of interested lay people. These stories can be seen in a variety of media, and were expressed as easily by depictions on the walls of religious houses and in paintings as they were through written works such as hagiography and chronicles.
Oslo International Graduate Students Conference: Space, Culture, and Religion: Considering Implications of The ‘Spatial Turn’
Time and place: May 19, 2014 – May 21, 2014, University of Oslo
Call for papers
In recent years, the humanities and social sciences have seen a renewed interest in spatiality. Scholars have increasingly considered ways in which texts, history and cultural practices are physically embodied – and, hence, spatially embedded. Notions of ‘space’, ‘place’ and ‘landscape’ are no longer the exclusive domain of geographers, but have been appropriated by social anthropologists, scholars of religion, historians and literary scholars. Following a number of other ‘turns’ in the humanities, this development has been called ‘the spatial turn’ (e.g., Warf & Arias 2009). Scholars are studying aspects of space from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, drawing on theories not only from geography but also from philosophy and sociology. Thinkers whose work has been rediscovered, or reinterpreted from a spatial perspective, include Mikhail Bakhtin (‘chronotope’), Pierre Bourdieu (‘social space’), Michel de Certeau (‘spatial stories’), Michel Foucault (‘heterotopia’) and Henri Lefebvre (‘the production of space’). In this conference, we would like to examine implications of the ‘spatial turn’ for the humanities. In particular, we look at the possible impact of new considerations of space on the disciplines represented at our institute: Asian studies, Middle Eastern studies, cultural studies, and the study of religion(s). We welcome papers on a variety of topics, as long as they relate to our central topic. We particularly would like to invite (post)graduate students and young (postdoc) researchers to present papers on the spatial aspects of their own research.
The conference will be divided into the following four subtopics: politics of space; imaginations of space; history of space; writing space, crafting space. Participants are requested to relate their presentation to one of these four topics. For more information on these subtopics, please see the conference website: http://www.hf.uio.no/ikos/english/research/network/ikos-austin-collaboration/Graduate-Conference/ Those who wish to participate in the conference and present a paper are requested to submit an abstract (max. 500 words) before December 20, 2013.
Please indicate which of the four subthemes your paper relates to. Abstracts can be sent to Aike Rots: a.p.rots [at] ikos.uio.no
JOBS
Auburn University – Assistant Professor, visual and material culture of the Mediterranean and/or Near Eastern World (ancient or early medieval) <http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=48185>
Brown University – Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Italian Studies and Middle East Studies, <http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=48161>
Ripon College – Assistant Professor of U.S. History/African or Asian Diaspora <http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=48148>
University of Zurich – Professorship for Global History (18th-20th Century) <http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=48165>
School of Oriental and African Studies – Lecturer in the History of Iran since c. 1500
<http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=48182>
Case Western Reserve University – The Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan Professorship in Catholic Studies <http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=48154>
McGill University – Barbara and Patrick Keenan Chair in Interfaith Studies <http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=48122>
Mount Allison University – Assistant Professor, East Asian Religions <http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=48172>
Old Dominion University – Assistant Professor of Religious Studies – Jewish Traditions <http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=48166>
York University – Assistant Professor, Classical Judaica; Modern Religious Thought and/or Modern Comparative Religion <http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=48187>
College of Arts and Social Sciences
University of Dundee
College of Arts and Social Sciences
University of Dundee
The Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University wishes to appoint a Postdoctoral fellow studying New Atheism for a period of two years, beginning as soon as possible and April 1, 2014 at the latest. Application is due on January 15, 2014.
The Faculty is looking for a project with a critical scientific focus on New Atheism/contemporary atheistic positions or groups. What characterizes the phenomenon in question? What historical roots does it have? How does it relate to earlier forms of atheism and critique of religion? What understanding of religion and which ideological assumptions does it presuppose? Towards which forms of religions and ideologies is the atheistic criticism directed? What are the arguments for atheism and against religion, and what weight should be awarded to these arguments? How does the phenomenon relate to the contemporary criticism of secularization theses and secularism? What normative grounds and political ambitions does it have? What role does the phenomenon play in today’s society and politics?
http://www.uu.se/en/jobs/?positionId=29394#
The Department of Performance Studies at Texas A&M University is accepting applications for the Master of Arts degree in Performance Studies. Graduate Assistantships, which include tuition, healthcare benefits, and a monthly stipend, are available for qualified students.
Our students and faculty are committed to the ethnographic study of vernacular culture and the integration of practice and research.
As an M.A.-only program, we focus on preparing students for professional careers in research, performance creation, and public outreach; for teaching at the high school and community-college level; and for admission to top-tier, research-intensive Ph.D. programs. Many of our students conduct ethnographic fieldwork and include performance as components of their M.A.
theses. As they’re writing and researching, they’re also delivering papers at national and regional conferences, publishing book reviews, and winning
university- and college-wide fellowships for their research and professional development.
Performance Studies scholars examine relationships between performance and culture. The department has research strengths in Africana studies, dance and ritual studies, ethnomusicology, folklore, performance ethnography, popular music studies, religious studies, theatre history, media studies, and women’s studies.
Information on the application process, courses, and the degree plan can be found at http://perf.tamu.edu/ Please contact Dr. Kirsten Pullen, Director of Graduate Studies (kpullen [at] tamu.edu <mailto:kpullen [at] tamu.edu>) with any questions.
For full funding consideration for Fall 2014, students should apply by January 15, 2014. Applications will be reviewed until February 15, 2014 or until all assistantships are filled.