Sixth International Conference on Religion and Spirituality in Society
23-24 May 2016
The Catholic University of America
Washington D.C., USA
Current Submission Deadline*: 18 March 2015
PLEASE NOTE: The Fifth International Conference on Religion and Spirituality in Society is taking place at the University of California at Berkley, 16-17 April 2015. Proposals are still being accepted for a short time. Click here for more details.
The Sacred Journeys: Pilgrimage and Beyond Project: 2nd Global Meeting
Friday 3rd July – Sunday 5th July 2015
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Call for Presentations:
Pilgrimage is a cross-cultural phenomenon that facilitates interaction between and among diverse peoples from countless cultures and walks of life. In the 2nd Global Conference, we will continue to explore the many personal, interpersonal, intercultural, and international dimensions of this profound phenomenon.
Among the key issues that emerged from Sacred Journeys I: Pilgrimage and Beyond, were:
1. Definition of Pilgrimage:
‘Travel for transformation’ embraces the sacred journey as a potential turning point in one’s life. Witness the avalanche of books by pilgrims who have experienced the Camino, or those who have been influenced by the transformation of others, like Malcolm X. After his experience of the Hajj pilgrimage, the activist was stirred to reevaluate his lifelong journey in search of justice and reconciliation as well as his thinking regarding race relations in the United States. Questions arise as to how and when a journey becomes ‘sacred’ and how and when pilgrimage devolves into a mere tourist endeavor. Does tourism merely observe the authentic in others, whereas pilgrimage seeks it for oneself?
2. Reinforcing the Vision of the Ultimate Unity of Humanity:
Pilgrimage scholar George Greenia’s insight that ‘pilgrimages generate the least violent mass public gatherings [that] humankind has designed for itself’ inspires the question: In what ways can the concept of the sacred journey lend itself to envisioning a world united in difference? We can reflect, for instance, on the sacred journey to Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka, a site of interfaith and intercultural pilgrimage interpreted differently by various pilgrim sects. For Buddhists, a sacred footprint in a rock formation is said to belong to Buddha, whereas for Hindus, it is deemed to be Shiva’s footprint, and for Muslims and Christians, it is thought to be Adam’s. This pilgrimage site provides a powerful example of interfaith cooperation.
3. Pilgrimage and Globalization:
The global playing field is leveling and technology is impacting pilgrims in innumerable ways. In Mecca, for instance, telephone ‘apps’ assist Hajj pilgrims searching for animals for sacrifice; in Lourdes, another ‘app’ provides details on miraculous healings, proudly declaring, ‘A miracle could happen’ during the pilgrim’s visit. Infrastructural and support services are also improving, and journeys once thought to be too difficult or challenging, such as that to Amarnath in India, are now within reach of vast numbers of pilgrims. Will modern conveniences alter traditional experiences, create entirely new ones, or both?
4. Modernization and the Global Trend Towards the Dissolution of Traditional Ways:
Pilgrims cling to what they ascertain as familiar and reaffirm what they believe to be ‘true’ at local levels. There may be a growing awareness that ‘the world is one’ and that we must work together to deal with our common ecological, political, and security problems, but in the interest of cultural survival, primordial standard-bearers like nation, tribe, and race have been reified and re-energized; for instance, journeys of all persuasions are now being undertaken along ancient pathways that have been rediscovered and/or redeveloped. What kinds of trends along these lines might we forecast for the future?
5. Secular Pilgrimage:
Major secular pilgrimage sites, such as to Abbey Road in London, or to Elvis Presley’s home ‘Graceland’, or Jim Morrison’s (The Doors) grave site in Paris, attract astonishing numbers of ‘pilgrims’. What are the similarities and differences between sacred and secular pilgrimages? More and more we are living in a ‘global village’ and the ‘pilgrimage in my front room’ phenomenon is facilitated by video and satellite links. These changes raise the question: must pilgrimages, whether sacred or secular, always involve a physical journey ‘in league’ with others? Virtual or alternative pilgrimages are important topics for consideration; so, too, are related online experiences that recreate the pilgrimage or tourism experience in a virtual world.
In light of our broad exploration, and these new directions, we would also welcome proposals that might take into consideration the following:
* New definitions of sacred and secular pilgrimage, and the question of authenticity.
* How historical perspectives on the meaning(s) of pilgrimages and motives for travel are changing over time.
* The metaphor of ‘the journey’ as explored by writers, artists, performers and singers, including humanists, agnostics, atheists and musicians.
* The notion of journeying toward ‘salvation’.
* Pilgrimage and ‘miracles’ and the related topic of thanksgiving.
* The post-pilgrimage experience (which can be non-religious and/or secular, involving, for instance devotional exercises, meditation practices, mental journeys, etc).
* ‘Dark’ pilgrimages to sites of remembrance and commemoration (i.e., the Hiroshima Peace Museum, the Irish National Famine Museum, Rwanda genocide memorials, etc.).
The Steering Group welcomes the submission of proposals for short workshops, practitioner-based activities, performances, and pre-formed panels. We particularly welcome short film screenings; photographic essays; installations; interactive talks and alternative presentation styles that encourage engagement.
What to Send:
Proposals will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word proposals should be submitted by Friday 13th March 2015. If a proposal is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 22nd May 2015. Proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; proposals may be in Word or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of proposal, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Sacred Journeys 2 Proposal Submission.
All abstracts will be at least double blind peer reviewed. Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs:
Ian McIntosh: imcintos@iupui.edu
Eileen Moore Quinn: quinne@cofc.edu
Rob Fisher: sj2@inter-disciplinary.net
The conference is part of the Persons series of ongoing research and publications projects conferences, run within the Probing the Boundaries domain which aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore innovative and challenging routes of intellectual and academic exploration. All proposals accepted for and presented at the conference must be in English and will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected proposals may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s). All publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from interested delegates from the conference.
Inter-Disciplinary.Net believes it is a mark of personal courtesy and professional respect to your colleagues that all delegates should attend for the full duration of the meeting. If you are unable to make this commitment, please do not submit an abstract for presentation.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
After a long hiatus, 289 new items have been added to the NSRN bibliography. These new items can be viewed here:
http://nsrn.net/bibliography/bibliography-additions/
The bibliography can also be viewed in a list organised by author surname or publication date.
As ever, the bibliography is a collaborative enterprise and we cannot claim that it is comprehensive of all relevant NSRN related publications. If you spot any gaps, at any point, you can let us know via this comment form on the website and we will add the publication at our next update.
The Journal for Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe (RASCEE) invites the submission of original research articles dealing with the topic of Unchurched Religion in Central and Eastern Europe.
There is an ongoing debate in sociology of religion whether new forms of religious beliefs supplement or substitute conventional forms of religiosity or not. Most of the evidence for the proliferation of alternative beliefs stems from Western countries. Although some important contributions about unchurched religion in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) exist, more research is needed about the emergence and proliferation of alternative beliefs.
The European Conference on Ethics, Religion and Philosophy 2015
Thistle Brighton, Brighton, East Sussex, United Kingdom
Monday, July 6, 2015 – Wednesday, July 8, 2015 (All Day)
Abstract Submission Deadline: March 1, 2015
Registration Deadline for Presenters: June 1, 2015
Abstract Submission Process: In order to present at the conference, your abstract must first pass a double blind peer review. Upon payment of registration fees, your presentation will be confirmed.
How to Submit
Ways to Present
Individual Presenter (30 minutes)The standard format for presentation — oral presentations are thirty minutes in length.Poster Presenter (90 minutes)Posters allow presenters to reach a large audience and engage interested participants directly. These sessions give participants a chance to network with other delegates who may be interested in similar research or other disciplines.Virtual Presenter. Some presenters will be unable to make the trip to the UK to present their paper, mainly due to financial and/or political restrictions on travel. Virtual presentations allow authors the same publication opportunities as regular presenters.
Workshop (60 to 90 minutes) A workshop is a brief intensive course lasting 60 to 90 minutes led by an experienced practitioner, usually someone with a PhD. It emphasises group interaction and the exchange of information usually amongst a smaller number of participants than at a plenary session.Often a workshop involves problem solving, skills training, or the dissemination of new content or disciplinary approaches. Conference workshops are typically more instructional and interactive in nature than oral presentations and involve participants working with the workshop leader on a particular topical issue.Panel (90 minutes) As the organiser of a proposed panel, submit a proposal for the panel through the online system.
Conference Theme and Streams
Conference Theme: “Power”
The conference theme is “Power” and the organizers encourage submissions that approach this theme from a variety of perspectives. However, the submission of other topics for consideration is welcome and we also encourage sessions within and across a variety of disciplines and fields related to Ethics, Religion and Philosophy, including the following streams:
Philosophy:
Ethics:
Religion:
Interdisciplinary:
For further information – please see the ECERP2015: Call For Papers website.
Liz Lutgendorff, Phd student at Oxford Brookes and Chair of Conway Hall Ethical Society, has provided the NSRN with an informative overview of the archive facilities offered by Conway Hall in London which may be helpful to researchers of secularism and nonreligion.
As part of my research into the history of atheism and secularism in the UK, I’ve become involved with Conway Hall Ethical Society (CHES) and I am currently the chair of Trustees. CHES may be better known to some as the South Place Ethical Society or South Place Chapel. It started as a radical Unitarian church in the eighteenth century and gradually evolved into a secular, ethical society in the late nineteenth century. It is now the only Ethical Society remaining in the UK and only one of two freethought and secular organisations in the UK with a hall purposely built for the promotion of ethical, secular, or humanist principles in the UK (the other being Leicester Secular Hall). Continue reading
The journal Secularism & Nonreligion is planning to propose a symposium of 3-4 individual papers for the upcoming 2015 International Association for the Psychology of Religion (IAPR) World Congress. We invite you to submit proposals falling under the broad theme of psychological perspectives on atheism for consideration as part of the proposed symposia. Some topics and perspectives include, but are not limited to: cognitive science, qualitative/quantitative methods, psychological-anthropology, phenomenology, ethnography, cultural psychology, and philosophy of science. We are particularly interested in papers covering atheism outside of the Western context. Continue reading
Research group of religious studies of the Centre of Excellence in Cultural Theory (Estonia) announces a call for papers for its conference:
Old religion and new spirituality: continuity and changes in the background of secularization
University of Tartu, Estonia
26-29 May 2015
Estonia is an extremely secularized European country, characterized by the diminishing institutionalization of religion (de-institutionalization) and the decline of the Christian practices and beliefs (de-Christianization). In order to investigate the historical roots of the situation and clarify the characteristics of the current picture, the research project about religiosity in Estonia was started in 2011. The staff of the project welcomes the researchers dealing with the religious situation in various regions and countries of Europe in order to make comparisons of certain features of the changing religious landscape. Papers that address contemporary developments or provide a historical perspective will be accepted.
Particularly interesting aspects may include:
– historical process of secularization, its specific features in different countries;
– combinations of religion and nationalism, effects of nationalism on public religion;
– changes in the traditional religious groups and churches in 21st century;
– atheism and nonreligion, their organized and individual manifestations;
– new spirituality, “New Age” and individual religiousness, mixed forms of organized and individual religion.
Invited speakers include: Stephen Bullivant (St Mary’s University, Twickenham), Abby Day (University of Kent), Paul Heelas (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Detlef Pollack (University of Münster).
The language of the conference is English. The length of papers: 20 minutes. A conference fee €80 will be applied for meals and materials, the participants are expected to pay for their travel and accommodation. The organizers plan to publish a selection of papers.
Please send abstracts of papers of 250-300 words to the conference e-mail: orns@ut.ee before 01.01.2015.
Pre-arranged panels are to be considered as well.
Notification of acceptance and opening of the registration: 01.02.2015.
For further inquiries you may also contact Riho Altnurme: riho.altnurme@ut.ee
Constantly updated information about the conference can be found at: http://orns.ut.ee/
American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting
22-25 November 2014
San Diego, CA, USA
The American Academy of Religion brings thousands of professors and students, authors and publishers, religious leaders and interested laypersons to its Annual Meeting each year. Co-hosted with the Society of Biblical Literature, the Annual Meetings are the largest events of the year in the fields of religious studies and theology. More than 1,000 events—academic sessions, additional meetings, receptions, tours, and workshops—will be offered.
Most sessions will take place at the San Diego Convention Center located at 111 W Harbor Drive, San Diego, CA 92101. Conference hotels are located within easy walking distance of the Convention Center. San Diego is just 120 miles south of Claremont, CA, where the 2014 NSRN Conference takes place 19-20 November. Several NSRN presenters and attendees will also be present at the AAR Annual Meeting.
34th World Religions Conference
28 September 2014
River Run Centre, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
The World Religions Conference (WRC) is a multi-faith event which brings together well-known scholars from the world’s major religions and philosophical traditions (including Aboriginal Spirituality, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and Humanism/Atheism) to speak on a common topic from the point of view of their respective religious traditions. While this is not an academic conference or a call for academic papers, this event may be of interest to those working in nonreligion and secularity. Continue reading
