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In this issue:
- Journals
- New books
- Calls for Papers
- Conference Announcements
- Jobs
- Useful resources
JOURNALS
Journal of Hindu Services – advance access, 4 July 2012 http://jhs.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/recent?etoc
NEW BOOKS
Divine Production in Late Medieval Trinitarian Theology – JT Paasch
Further information: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199646371.001.0001/acprof-9780199646371
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published in print: 2012
Published online: May 2012
CALL FOR PAPERS
Religion in Cyberspace 2012
10th international conference Cyberspace 2012 held in Brno, Czech Republic, 30 November – 1 December 2012
Illustrative topics:
Religious normative frameworks in cyberspace, networking diasporas, religious collaborative environments, on-line counseling, on-line fatwas and cyber muftis, new religious movements, religious discourses in cyberspace, methodology of online-religion research, rituals in cyberspace etc.
Note: Authors of accepted papers will be invited to submit their papers for peer review to Masaryk University Journal of Law and Technology (MUJLT – mujlt.law.muni.cz) or Cyberpsychology (http://www.cyberpsychology.eu).
Important dates
Abstract submission deadline: 31 July 2012
Notice on acceptance deadline: 31 August 2012
Conference dates: 30 November – 1 December 2012
Papers for publication deadline: 11 January 2013
CFP: Journal of International and Advanced Japanese Studies
Date: 2012-08-31
The editorial board of Journal of International and Advanced Japanese Studies is currently seeking manuscripts for the next issue to be published in spring 2013. The deadline for submissions is August 31st, 2012. Journal of International and Advanced Japanese Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal
Contact: office@japan.tsukuba.ac.jp
www.journal-japanesestudies-tsukuba.jp/en/index.html
Announcement ID: 195454
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=195454
Practical Matters a transdisciplinary multimedia journal of religious practices and practical theology
www.practicalmattersjournal.org
Call for Submissions: Engaging Religious Experience: A Return to Ethnography and Theology
Practical Matters is now seeking submissions on the theme of Engaging Religious Experience: A Return to Ethnography and Theology. Practical Matters is an online, multimedia, transdisciplinary journal designed to ask and provoke questions about religious practice and practical theology. Practical Matters is funded by a grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc. and published out of the Emory University Graduate Division of Religion. The journal contains both peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed content.
The sixth issue of Practical Matters will return to themes that emerged in our Spring 2010 issue, which explored why theologians are turning to ethnographic methods and how an interdisciplinary conversation among anthropologists, scholars of religion, and theologians contributes new insights into the doing and creating of both ethnography and theology. This new issue will focus on the description of religious experience as a theologically relevant and persistently elusive phenomenon. It will reflect on the possibilities and limitations of ethnography for translating communal embodied experience into different communities and contexts. Finally, this issue will continue to explore intersections and interferences of descriptive and normative modes of scholarship on religious experience. We welcome submissions from theologians, anthropologists, scholars and practitioners of religion broadly defined.
We are interested in featuring work that engages a broad spectrum of questions and themes, such as…
- How does attention to human embodiment inform our understandings of religious experience? Can ethnographic methods provide access to certain kinds of experience that other methods sometimes overlook or obscure, such as bodily experience, interiority, and experiences of suffering? In what ways do these experiences escape the ethnographic interpreter? How does ethnography provide attentiveness to practices and experiences of exclusion?
- How can scholars and practitioners move between the descriptive work of ethnography and theological or normative claims? Why are these moves sometimes experienced as problematic? Do moral, theological, scholarly, or activist commitments obscure the ethnographer’s ability to represent religious experience? Does the ethnographer need to be an “insider” to make theological claims or norm religious practice?
- How does incorporating ethnography into a theological or ethical project affect the epistemological assumptions of that project? Does ethnography bring more ambiguity? More clarity? Or does using ethnography in theological projects limit the theologian’s ability to make general or normative claims? How does ethnographic study redefine the role of a theologian or ethicist?
- How can teaching the ethnographic method in the undergraduate or seminary classrooms enrich or disrupt the study of religion and theology? How do “experiential learning” and “engaged learning” pedagogies shift students’ perspectives on religious experience? How might the use of digital media facilitate or hinder the study of religious experience in the classroom setting?
- Can the work of ethnography itself constitute a kind of “religious experience”? Should it? And for whom?
- We welcome “notes from the field” (in multiple forms including audio, video, and photos) in which those doing ethnography describe unexpected challenges in their work as well as explorations into the craft of ethnographic writing and the steps between field notes and manuscript. What is required to practice ethnography as an interpretive art and what is the role of religious or theological imagination in ethnographic practice?
Specifically, we are looking for submissions intended for peer review in Analyzing Matters, as well as for the non-peer reviewed categories of Practicing and Teaching Matters:
- Submissions for Analyzing Matters on the theme of Engaging Religious Experience: A Return to Ethnography and Theology will be submitted for peer review;
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Submissions for Practicing and Teaching Matters on the theme of Engaging Religious Experience: A Return to Ethnography and Theology will be reviewed by the editors. We welcome reflections of practitioners, essays, pedagogical reflections, or field notes concerning religious practices, rituals, or other issues of concern for scholars, theologians, teachers and practitioners;
Practical Matters is an academic journal with a diverse audience. We encourage those considering submission to think broadly, creatively, and experimentally about form and content. Submissions in any form (i.e., film, text, audio, images) may be eligible for peer review; however, the peer review process is not mandatory for all submissions. We especially encourage non-U.S. submissions as well as multimedia and interdisciplinary pieces of original scholarship.
The submission deadline is November 1, 2012. For more specific instructions on possible forms of submissions, more information on our peer review process, or to read current and past issues of Practical Matters, visit our web site: http://www.practicalmattersjournal.org/
Evolving Humanity, Emerging Worlds: The 17th World Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences
University of Manchester (U.K.), August 5th-10th, 2013
Call for Papers/Presentations (Panel number V07)
Deadline 13th July 2012
Representing the non-representable: Visual Representations of Extraordinary Creatures in Ethnographic Films
Convenor:
Dr. P. Khosronejad, Department of Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews
Anthropologists have long struggled with the problem of how best to conceptualize and account for the observable diversity of religious belief and practice in various societies. Also recently there has been interest among ethnographic filmmakers who survey healing and spirit possession rituals, exorcism ceremonies or religious gatherings among which supernatural forces (djinns, demons and spirits) are the main topic of the ceremonies.
The aim of this panel is to investigate and discuss how such non-representable supernatural creatures could be studied and captured visually and ethnographically via documentary films. We invite anthropologists, visual anthropologists, ethnographic and documentary filmmakers to participate in our panel and to present a paper/presentation about their visual experiences in this regard.
We are especially interested in presentations which are based on film projects or ethnographic film research, even if they are in their early stages.
Please submit your abstract by 13th July 2012 directly to the convenor of panel, Dr. P. Khosronejad, via the official website of the congress:
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/iuaes/iuaes2013/panels.php5?PanelID=1713
Main page of the congress:
http://www.iuaes2013.org/index.html
For any inquiries regarding this panel, please contact the convenor:
Dr. Pedram Khosronejad
Department of Social Anthropology
71 North Street
University of St. Andrews
St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland KY16 9AL
Tel: +44 (1334) 461968
Fax: +44 (1334) 462985
Email: pedram.khosronejad@st-andrews.ac.uk
Graduate Conference
“Charming Intentions: Occultism, Magic and the History of Art” 3-4 December 2012, Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge
This two-day graduate conference will investigate the intersections between visual culture and the occult tradition, ranging from the material culture of ‘primitive’ animism, through medieval and Renaissance depictions of witchcraft and demonology, to the contemporary fascination with the supernatural in popular culture.
The conference aims to provide a stimulating arena for the presentation of innovative research in this field as well as to offer a vibrant and thought-provoking forum for scholarly discussion and exchange.
We welcome papers from current and recent graduate students from all disciplines, provided their research engages with material, visual or symbolic aspects of magic and occultism.
Acceptable topics include, but are by no means limited to, the following areas:
- The sacred and the profane;
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The material culture of magic, ritual and sacrifice;
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Objects of totemic, apotropaeic or fetishistic character;
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Aspects of mysticism in Jewish, Christian and Islamic art and architecture;
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Satanism, witchcraft and demonology;
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Sacred geometry, numerology and cosmology;
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The arcane sciences (including astrology, alchemy and the tarot game);
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Art-theoretical discussions of the spiritual, the sublime, the marvellous, the numinous and the uncanny;
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Artistic investigations of myth, fantasy and utopia;
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Visual aspects of occult movements such as Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Theosophy, Mesmerism, Spiritism and New Age Spirituality;
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The supernatural and the spiritual in modern and contemporary art;
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Occultism and magic in contemporary popular culture.
N.B.: Presentations should not exceed a maximum of 20 minutes and will be followed by a 10-minute Q&A session. The sessions will be chaired by senior scholars within the University of Cambridge’s History of Art Department. We also hope to publish selected conference papers in a book of proceedings.
Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be sent to charming.intentions@gmail.com alongside a CV of 1-2 pages. Deadline for submission is the 30th of September 2012. All abstracts will be peer-reviewed and successful applicants will be notified about acceptance of their papers before the 15th of October 2012.
Early applications are strongly encouraged.
The Conference Committee
Josefine Baark, PhD Candidate, Homerton College
Gabriel Byng, PhD Candidate, Clare College
Imma Ramos, PhD Candidate, Pembroke College
Daniel Zamani, PhD Candidate, Trinity College
Daniel Zamani
Trinity College
CB2 1TQ
Cambridge, UK
+447840290882
Email: dcjz2@cam.ac.uk
Visit the website at http://www.hoart.cam.ac.uk
Call for Papers – ‘Second Sight and Prophecy’
University of Aberdeen on 14-16 June 2013
Conference organised by the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy, and the Elphinstone Institute at the University of Aberdeen; sponsored by the Folklore Society
This interdisciplinary conference welcomes participants from a range of academic disciplines including History, Folklore, Anthropology, Divinity and Sociology whose research interests cover a wide range of topics exploring varying methods used by different cultures (both now and in the past) to look into the future and the rationale for so doing. The future has always held a fascination for humankind especially in times of tribulation and this is worthy of academic discussion in light of the changes affecting so many of us in our current global context. The role in culture of seers and prophets, by whatever name they are known, and the use of rituals, drugs and sacred sites, etc. will be examined.
Abstracts of 300 words are invited on any of the following or related topics. These should be submitted by 15 November 2012 to the conference convenor, Dr Alex Sutherland, History Department, University of Aberdeen; a.m.sutherland@abdn.ac.uk<mailto:a.m.sutherland@abdn.ac.uk>
Papers might address:
Astrology and its rationale(s) for predicting the future.
Biblical prophecy as depicted in the arts.
Divination in any form.
English attitudes to second sight.
Healing wells.
How modern scientists have appropriated the persona of the prophet or visionary seer.
Landscape and prophecy in art.
Old Norse and later Scandinavian sources on prophecy.
Popular Catholic belief in prophecy before and after the Reformation.
Prophecy in Native American tribes.
Prophetic utterances by the courts, commoners, and the church.
Reading the future in the landscape of settlements.
Renaissance science and astrology.
Sami shamanism.
Second sight and prophecy in Scottish Gaeldom.
Second sight and prophecy in the Viking world.
Second sight in Gaelic traditions as they survived and evolved in Nova Scotian communities.
Seers and seeresses in medieval Icelandic saga literature.
The early Islamic world & its connections with astrology.
The role of prophecies, visions and dreams in poetry and allegorical tales.
The role of prophecy in the origins of Islam, in the pre-Islamic Arabian environment
The use of sites, dreams and ancestors for prophecies by indigenous peoples.
Visual and verbal imagery of natural objects as coded language for the use of entheogens to attain divine / prophetic knowledge.
Welsh prophetic poetry.
When prophecy fails.
Dr Alex Sutherland
School of Divinity, History and Philosophy
History Department
Crombie Annexe
Meston Walk
Aberdeen AB24 3FX
Tel: 01224 273051
Email: a.m.sutherland@abdn.ac.uk
CONFERENCES
Conference on Sacred Places:Cosmological Power & Environmental Issues, Kumbha Mela 2013, Allahabad, India
Date: 2013-02-05
Description: Themes: Religion-environment interaction; Theories and approaches to pilgrimage studies; Cosmic geometry and power of sacred places; Pilgrim circulation and economy; Pilgrimage archetype, hierarchy and pattern; Spatiality of time and temporality of space; Rituals, functionaries and festivities;
Contact: dpdpdubey123@rediffmail.com
Announcement ID: 195548
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=195548
JOBS
ISLAMIC HISTORY / STUDIES
University of Georgia – Temporary Assistant Professor, Middle Eastern History
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=44700
St. Thomas University – Limited-Term Position in Sociology
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=44712
University of San Diego – Assistant Professor of Sociology
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=44701
USEFUL RESOURCES
Critical Religion
Critical Religion is an initiative at the University of Stirling which seeks to understand what the category “religion” actually means, and provides an informative blog on the side.