Calls for Papers

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CFP: Religions: Fields of research, methods and perspectives 12-14 September 2012

Call for papers

Religions: Fields of research, methods and perspectives

The First International Krakow Study of Religions Symposium, 12-14 September 2012

Keynote speakers:
Prof. Grace Davie (University of Exeter)
Prof. Ralph W. Hood Jr (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)
Prof. Barnaba Maj (University of Bologna)

Organisers: International Journal “Studia Religiologica” and Institute for the Study of Religions, Jagiellonian University

“Religion is a defining mark of humanity – as emblematic of its bearer as the web for the spider, the dam for the beaver, and the song for the bird,” writes Patrick McNamara in his most recent book. It may seem that such a role and position of religion would require sophisticated reflection, extended methods of scientific analysis and the creative activity of research communities. However, in spite of the clear evidence of the importance of these issues, religious studies is a long way both from the role of the “crown of the humanities” foreseen by Eliade and from agreement on and verification of research tools. For some scholars, religions remain a “by-product” and a “virus of the mind”, while for others they are proof of the existence of “supernatural forces” and the central activity of people on the path to transforming their condition. The conference “Religions: fields of research, methods and perspectives” will present the spectrum of approaches to religious phenomena that are multi-layered and anchored in various ways in cultures, societies and individuals as well as new methods of research and refined versions of previous ones. It will also show the research quandaries and problems to be solved which religious studies scholars come up against in their historical, comparative, sociological, philosophical and psychological studies. The aim of the conference is to demonstrate the potential of religious studies and related fields in solving and comprehending the fundamental problems of humanity.

Conference languages: English, Polish

Registration form (in English, in Polish) please send by e-mail: symposium@iphils.uj.edu.pl
Deadline for registration: 15 June 2012
Full name, academic title, home institution, contact details, address, e mail, telephone, title of paper, abstract (1000-1800 characters)

 

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Event: ESA Research Network 34 – Sociology of Religion

An interesting conference for the network, regarding forms of secularism and trends of believing without belonging.

ESA Research Network 34 – Sociology of Religion

Transformations of the Sacred in Europe and Beyond
First bi-annual conference, 3-5 September 2012 at the University of Potsdam, Campus Griebnitzsee

The thesis of secularization, once sheer uncontested in the social sciences, is increasingly under fire. Secularization is nowadays often deconstructed as an ideology or mere wish dream that is intimately connected to the rationalist ambitions of modern Enlightenment. Such alleged blurring of morality and science, of what ‘is’ and what ‘ought’, informing sociological analysis obviously obscures clear sight on recent developments in the Western world.

Countless empirical and theoretical studies convincingly demonstrate that religion is alive and well in Europe and beyond. Particularly after the attacks of 9/11 in 2001, religious identities have become salient in a situation of cultural polarization and religious pluralization. Moreover, we are witnessing a trend towards ‘believing without belonging’ (Davie, 1994) and – particularly in those European countries that are most secular – a shift from organized religion to ‘spiritualities of life’ (e.g., Heelas and Woodhead, 2005), paganism and ‘popular religion’ (Knoblauch, 2009). And although the thesis of secularization has always been highly problematic from a non-European or global perspective, the rapid globalization of Islam and the Evangelical upsurge – especially in Africa, Latin America and East Asia – fly in the face of the long-held expectation that religion is doomed to be a marginal or socially insignificant phenomenon.

Evidently, then, the focus of sociological analysis has shifted over the last decades from religious decline to religious change. More than that: it is theorized that we are living in a “post-secular society” (Habermas, 2005) where religion is re-vitalized, de-privatized and increasingly influences politics, voting behavior, matters of the state and ethical debates in the public domain (e.g., Casanova, 1994). Motivated by such observations, the mid-term conference calls for papers addressing changes in the field of religion and, more in particular, transformations of the sacred in Europe and beyond. Particularly we welcome studies covering the following topics:

  • Studies on how and why conceptions of the sacred, religious beliefs, doctrines, rituals and organizations of long-standing religious traditions – such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism or Hinduism – transform under the influence of processes of globalization, individualization, mediatization as well as changing gender relations.
  • Studies dealing with trends of believing without belonging, i.e. non-institutionalized beliefs, personal ‘bricolage’ and privatized conceptions of the sacred outside the Churches, Chapels and Mosques. Encouraged are also studies addressing new, more informal ways of ‘belonging’, religious communication and collective effervescence, i.e. in loose social networks, discussion groups or virtual communities on the internet.
  • Studies covering popular religion and post-traditional spirituality, i.e., New Age, esotericism, paganism, occultism, discussing for instance an epistemological turn from belief to experience and emotion; a shifting emphasis from transcendence to immanence; from seriousness to playfulness; or a transition from dualism to monism.
  • Studies dealing with implicit religion, i.e. addressing a re-location of the sacred to seemingly secular domains in society such as self-identity, sports, modern science and technology. This avenue of research may also include the place and meaning of the sacred (i.e., religious narratives, symbols and images) in popular media texts – in novels, films, series on television or computer games.

These topics are rough guidelines; papers dealing with religious change and the transformation of the sacred in Europe and beyond other than these outlined above are also very welcome. Furthermore we invite PhD and post-doc candidates to contribute to a poster session, including work in progress; the best poster will get a – small, but nice – prize.

Contact details

University of Potsdam

PD Dr. Heidemarie Winkel

esa-2012@uni-potsdam.de

Postal Address:

August-Bebel-Straße 89

D-14482 Potsdam

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CFP: Alternative Salvations conference 18 September 2012

Alternative Salvations

University of Chester, 18 September 2012, 10:30-4:30

CFP DEADLINE 18 May 2012

The Conference
To speak of salvation is, broadly, to speak about transformation from one present reality into a new, transformed and better reality. While the language of salvation itself is not necessarily found in every religious tradition, the hope of, or incentive to work towards, such transformation is a widespread characteristic of many religious traditions. In Christianity, there are a number of dominant perspectives on salvation associated with particular traditions, usually expressed in grand future eschatological narratives. But what of alternative approaches to salvation that have developed outside of established religious orthodoxies? The conference will explore how ‘unorthodox’ readings of sacred texts inform salvation experience; how life transformations outside of religious contexts might be considered spiritual; how  ideas of this-worldly salvation are politicised; how ideas of salvation are simultaneously secularised and infused with new power; what alternative salvations can be discovered within Christianity and how might they be practised. In particular, we are seeking to explore the ways that alternative religious, spiritual and secular understandings of the notion of salvation already shape, and have the potential to shape, how people live and act in Christian and post-Christian contexts.

Call for Papers
This exciting conference breaks new ground in exploring alternative approaches to salvation. Proposals for short papers are invited on any aspect of the theme of ‘alternative salvations’ as outlined here. Papers will normally be 20 minutes in length with an additional 10 minutes for discussion. Applications to submit a short paper should include:
·         Proposer’s name and affiliation
·         a title for the paper
·         a 200 word abstract
·         Details of any audio-visual equipment you will need to deliver your paper

Short paper proposals should be submitted to alternativesalvations@chester.ac.uk by no later than 4:00pm on 8th May 2012. Applicants should know the outcome of
their proposal by 18th May 2012.

Conference costs: £28 (£18 for unwaged and students) inclusive of lunch and refreshments.

More details about the conference and a booking form can be found at:http://www.chester.ac.uk/sites/files/chester/salvation%20conference.pdf

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CFP: Religion, Value, and a Secular Culture 5 & 6 November 2012

Religion, Value, and a Secular Culture

Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (CRVP)

University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban (South Africa)
5 & 6 November 2012

By the term “secular culture” is meant one which problematizes the foundations for the various religious beliefs that make up the traditions of that society, though the public order may not be
founded on any particular expression in those traditions, of the ethical framing of life together. The shift from a premodern culture is characterized by two central changes: (i) the greater degree of individual freedom. This is recognized as a key value in changing societies and is given expression in the democratic institution of universal suffrage; and (ii) the emergence and prestige of the sciences and of scientific method as the default paradigm of human knowledge.

As the major religious traditions acquired their canonical expression in premodern culture, they do not to any great extent deal with a thought-out response to the major factors or key values which characterize contemporary culture. Thus the first factor challenges the traditions to re-think attitudes to women, to moral rules and values, and to hierarchy; the second factor calls upon religious thinkers and leaders to be involved in dialogue with the sciences and knowledge acquired thereby.

One response to these changed conditions of society has been to remove religion and religious beliefs altogether from public debate. This is then framed solely in terms of individual human rights and the values of equality and tolerance. However, in the absence of any foundation for these rights and values, this framework might itself seem arbitrary and imposed, in particular in a global situation of the interaction of more developed with still developing cultures and economies. A purely procedural democracy and ethical framework might disallow real dialogue on substantive values or with persons.

Not amenable to scientific inquiry strictly speaking. Religious fundamentalism, for its part, sees no possibility of such dialogue, and can be seen, as does Karen Armstrong, rather as a reaction
thereto.

Papers are invited from any discipline whether philosophical, theological-religious, sociological, psychological, legal, political, and on any issue arising out of these intellectual challenges:

– Developments within religious traditions in response to secularity

– Conflicts and divisions within religious traditions in meeting the new conditions for religious beliefs

– Differing political frameworks for regulating interaction between state and religion

– Legal matters arising from separation of church and state

– Religious traditions as challenging dominant models of secular ethics, in particular a possible bias towards individualism

– The problems of building human community and countering fragmentation in conditions of a secular culture

– Fundamentalism as response and resistance to secularity; recourse to violence

– Secularisation in relation to neo-colonialism

– Responses of particular countries in the face of secularism – South Africa, Turkey, United States, and others

– Secularism depicted and problematized in fiction – Pamuk’s Snow, Dastgir’s A Small Fortune, for example

– Secularism and particular religious traditions – Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, for example

– Romantic love as a theme in religious responses to secular changes – Pamuk, Dastgir, Shutte’s Conversion, for example

– Transcendence in a framework of immanence in the religious traditions

– African traditional thought and response to secularism

– Debates between science and religion – open and closed versions of neo-Darwinism

– Studies of a contemporary writer on these theological themes: Karen Armstrong; Keith Ward; Mustafa Akyol; Mark Johnston; for example; or on the ethical themes: Alisdair MacIntyre, Herbert
McCabe, Marilynn Robinson, for example

– Philosophical frameworks for fruitful dialogue between secular culture and religious traditions: B. Lonergan; Charles Taylor; and others

For more details please contact:

Professor John Patrick Giddy
University of Kwazulu-Natal
Durban
South Africa
Email: Giddyj [at] ukzn.ac.za
Web: http://www.crvp.org/conf/2012/durban.htm

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Call for Papers – New Forms of Public Religion 5-7 September 2012


Please see below, details of CFP for a conference on New Forms of Public Religion organised as part of the  AHRC/ESRC funded Religion and Society Programme. The conference will take place at the Divinity School, St John’s College, Cambridge, CB2 1TW

Call for Papers

The fact that religion has not privatised, but remains an important aspect of public life, is now well recognised.  But talk of ‘public religion’ can be vague and unfocused. The aim of this conference is to explore – with new findings – the forms which public religion is taking today, not only in the West, but elsewhere in an increasingly connected world.

The conference streams indicate the main arenas in relation to which public religion will be discussed, and on which papers are invited. Additional suggestions are also welcome:

  • The Market and Religion
  • Politics and Religion
  • Law and Religion
  • Religion, Media and Civil Society
  • Violence (State and Non-state) and Religion
  • Religion in Public Places and Spaces
  • Religion, Health and Welfare
  • Religion and Education
  • Religion and Migration

Speakers include:

Lori Beaman

José Casanova

The Rt Hon Charles Clarke

Grace Davie

Pamela Dickey-Young

Stewart Hoover

The Rt Revd Graham James

Meredith McGuire

Nancy Nason-Clark

Jim Spickard

Linda Woodhead

The conference will showcase thirty or so projects funded by the Religion and Society Programme which have new findings in this area. These will be supplemented by the papers received through this open call.

Individual paper proposals (max. 200 words) should be submitted to:  Peta Ainsworth:  p.ainsworth@lancaster.ac.uk by 30th April 2012.

The conference is subsidised by the sponsors and costs £100 per delegate, £50 for postgraduates/unwaged (for the entire conference) or £50 per day, £25 for postgraduates/unwaged.  The conference fee excludes accommodation and evening meals.  For further details and registration go to:http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/events/programme_events/show/new_forms_of_public_religion

A limited number of bursaries are available for postgraduates in the UK who need to travel some distance to Cambridge.  Please send an email with your registration form to Peta Ainsworth stating in one paragraph why you require assistance and how much your travel costs will be.

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Deadline reminder 27 April 2012 and Updated CFP for the NSRN Annual Conference

NONRELIGION AND SECULARITY RESEARCH NETWORK 

CONFERENCE 2012

Call for Papers| 4-6 July 2012, Goldsmiths, University of London

 Nonreligion and the Secular: New Horizons for Multidisciplinary Research

Registration now open!

Conveners: Lois Lee (ll317@cam.ac.uk), Stacey Gutkowski (stacey.gutkowski@kcl.ac.uk), and Stephen Bullivant (stephen.bullivant@smuc.ac.uk)

Conference Coordinator: Katie Aston (k.aston@gold.ac.uk)

There is an urgent need to bring discussions of micro-level nonreligion, atheism and secularity into contact with treatments of political and institutional secularism – a pressing and vibrant area of academic discussion which has so far focused on the protection and constraining of religion, and not sufficiently considered nonreligious and atheist actors.

This conference welcomes which engage with this core problem, or with nonreligion, atheism and/or secularism in isolation. Topics include:

  • The relationship between nonreligion, atheism, and/or humanism and secular polities and secularist ideologies.
  • The nature of secularity, secularism and postsecularism
  • The nature of nonreligion, atheism and/or humanism in contemporary society and in global context
  • The representation of secularism, nonreligion etc in law and policy / treatment of nonreligion and atheism in theories of multiculturalism, religious pluralism and postsecularism
  • The role of New Atheism is society, culture and politics – and its relationship to ‘lay atheisms’ or other nonreligious and secularist discourses
  • The psychology of secularism or nonreligion, atheism, etc.
  • Secularism, nonreligion and atheism in material culture
  • Conceptual and empirical relationships between religionand nonreligion and/or secularism
  • Research development, methodological issues and teaching in these subject areas

Following decades of neglect, the academic study of nonreligion has grown rapidly in the past five years. The primary aim of this conference is to bring together scholars across a range of academic disciplines (sociology, anthropology, theology, political science, psychology, history, international relations, area studies) to begin to untangle the confused and individually contested concepts of nonreligion and the secular. Is nonreligion a subcategory of the secular or vice versa? How do the two terms structure one another? What are the practical and theoretical implications of the concepts, such as they are and/or in alternative formulations? The aim of this international conference is to contribute to addressing this lacuna. While discussions of nonreligion and the secular have been running largely in parallel, they are potentially mutually enriching topics with significant bearing outside of the academy. This conference will consolidate the achievements already made over the past five years by nonreligion scholars and forge new, multidisciplinary dialogue between these researchers and those primarily working with the concept of the secular. This conference will bring together a range of internationally renowned scholars, including keynote speakers Gracie Davie (Exeter), Callum Brown (Dundee), Monika Wohlrab-Sahr (Leipzig), and Humeira Iqtidar (King’s College London).

This conference will interrogate three dimensions and welcomes both empirically- and theoretically-based paper contributions which address the following:

1) Nonreligion as a concept in its own right

2) The nonreligious in relation to notions of the secular

3) The implications of nonreligion research for pressing social and political issues associated with discussions of the secular

Publication Outcome: We are planning to publish a selection of the papers presented at the conference in an edited volume.

 The deadline for abstract submission (250 words max) is 27 April 2012. Please send your abstract together with a short biographical note to Katie Aston at k.aston@gold.ac.uk

In collaboration with:

_____________________________________________________________________________

Registration is now open!

Full conference (exc. accommodation and evening meals): £145 (£110 unwaged); day rate: £65 (£45 unwaged).

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CFP: Radical Secularization? Deadline 1 May 2012

20-22 September  2012, Universiteit Antwerpen will host a conference on secularization theory. Conference organizers are currently accepting abstracts and will do so through May 1

“This three day international conference tries to frame a status quaestionis of secularization theory in the field of contemporary philosophy. It starts off with an assessment of the classic Löwith-Blumenberg debate. This debate centers around the relationship between monotheism and Christianity on one hand, and Modernity on the other. The focus of the conference then shifts to contemporary debates, with Charles Taylor and Marcel Gauchet as exemplary protagonists. The debate will revolve around ‘transcendent’ versus ‘immanent’ readings of Christianity. On its last day, the question of religion in the public sphere comes to the fore.

Though the conference is philosophical in nature, it hopes to explore interdisciplinary crossroads with theology, sociology, and the social sciences in general.”

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CFP: Nonreligion and the Secular: New Horizons for Multidisciplinary Research 4-6 July 2012

The call for papers for the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network conference is here! The conference is being held at Goldsmiths University, from 4-6 July 2012

Registration details can be found here

Nonreligion and the Secular: New Horizons for Multidisciplinary Research

               

Conveners: Lois Lee (ll317@cam.ac.uk), Stacey Gutkowski (stacey.gutkowski@kcl.ac.uk), and Stephen Bullivant (stephen.bullivant@smuc.ac.uk)

Conference Coordinator: Katie Aston (k.aston@gold.ac.uk)

Following decades of neglect, the academic study of nonreligion has grown rapidly in the past five years. The primary aim of this conference is to bring together scholars across a range of academic disciplines (sociology, anthropology, theology, political science, psychology, history, international relations, area studies) to begin to untangle the confused and individually contested concepts of nonreligion and the secular. Is nonreligion a subcategory of the secular or vice versa? How do the two terms structure one another? What are the practical and theoretical implications of the concepts, such as they are and/or in alternative formulations? The aim of this international conference is to contribute to addressing this lacuna.  While discussions of nonreligion and the secular have been running largely in parallel, they are potentially mutually enriching topics with significant bearing outside of the academy. This conference will consolidate the achievements already made over the past five years by nonreligion scholars and forge new, multidisciplinary dialogue between these researchers and those primarily working with the concept of the secular. This conference will bring together a range of internationally renowned scholars, including keynote speakers Gracie Davie (Exeter), Callum Brown (Dundee), Monika Wohlrab-Sahr (Leipzig), and Humeira Iqtidar (King’s College London).

The conference engages with a historical moment in which forms of religion and nonreligion have increasingly asserted themselves in the public sphere, in non-Western as well as Western settings. In the case of radical Islamism and New Atheism, such assertions have had powerful, sometimes inflammatory and divisive affect. This urgent wider social and political context demonstrates the urgency of a reasoned, global, scholarly contribution, aimed at further theorising and conceptualising nonreligion and the secular, individually and in relation to each other.

 This conference will interrogate three dimensions and welcomes both empirically- and theoretically-based paper contributions which address the following:

 1) Nonreligion as a concept in its own right

What is meant by the term “nonreligion”? How does it manifest itself in the lives of individuals and in collective social activity and identity? Is it the most appropriate term to encompass a range of phenomena and where may its parameters lie? What is the relationship between nonreligion and modernity? Is nonreligion a resonant category outside of Western contexts? 

 2) The nonreligious in relation to notions of the secular

How do nonreligion and the secular mutually constitute one another? Under what historical social and political conditions did the rise of secularism and secularity facilitate the appearance of the nonreligious? Does the emergence of the nonreligious indicate a new phase of modernity?

 3) The implications of nonreligion research for pressing social and political issues associated with discussions of the secular

What bearing does nonreligiosity have on social, political and legal questions about social cohesion and multiculturalism? To what extent do the “harder” forms on nonreligion breed intolerance and fundamentalism? What are the implications of nonreligion for the possibility of democratic consensus and governance? To what extent do secular political landscapes outside of the West involve or even require the presence of nonreligious phenomena?

Publication Outcome: We are planning to publish a selection of the papers presented at the conference in an edited volume.

 The deadline for abstract submission (250 words max) is 27 April 2012. Please send your abstract together with a short biographical note to Katie Aston at k.aston@gold.ac.uk

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CFP: The International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture 8-12 July 2012

Please see details below of  The International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture of particular interest to the network is the thread Media and The Boundaries of the Religious and the Secular

 

Call for papers deadline: April 15th,2012

There has been great interest to the conference and there are still requests for submitting abstracts.

Local committee decided to extend the deadline for abstract submissions until April 15, 2012.

There will be a great religious sites tour all around Turkey after the conference.

Please use nezihorhon@gmail.com for abstract submissions.

 

 

The International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture, organized every two years by the International Society for Media, Religion, and Culture, invites papers for its July 8-12, 2012 conference to be held in Eskisehir, Turkey (outside of Istanbul), at Anadolu University.

In contemporary societies, electronic media such as smart mobile phones, satellite television, radio, and laptop computers have become ubiquitous. Although historians point out that world religions have always been mediated by culture in some way, people have incorporated these electronic media into everyday practices, and industries and state organizations have arisen to profit from those practices, in ways that are unprecedented. Today’s media can connect people and ideas with one another, but they also foster misunderstandings and reinforce societal divisions. They may provide the means for the centralization of religious authority, or the means to undermine it. Scholars of religion, as well as scholars of media and of culture, must consider how these various societal institutions of the media interact with one another and with systems of religion, governance, and cultural practices, as our societies demand better means by which to understand emergent concerns in an increasingly interconnected, globalized context.

The contemporary location of Turkey has long been the meeting place between Eastern and Western culture, religion, trade, and communication. This conference provides a crossroads for scholars, doctoral students, media professionals, and religious leaders from a variety of religious and secular traditions to meet and exchange ideas. Interdisciplinary scholarship is welcome, as is comparative work, theoretical development, and in-depth ethnographic studies that shed light on contemporary phenomena at the intersection of media, religion, and culture.

Papers, panels, workshops, and roundtable proposals could address, but should not be limited to:

 

* Global and Glocal Media and Religion(s)

* Mediation and Mediatization of Religion

* Media and The Boundaries of the Religious and the Secular

* Media, Power, Religion and Democracy

* Religion and Visual Expression

* Crossroads of Old/New Media and Religion

* Religion, Gender and Media

* Dialogue/Conflict: Media and Religion

* Islam and Media/ Islamic Media

* Social Media, Religion and Cultures

 

Presentation Formats

This year we will be accepting proposals in four formats: papers, panels, workshops and roundtables.

Panels bring together in discussion four participants or presentations representing a range of ideas and projects. Roundtables may include more individuals who comment on a common theme in briefer formats.

Panels and roundtables are scheduled for 90 minutes and should include a mix of individuals working in areas of research, theory, and practice. We also encourage the use of discussants.

Workshops provide an opportunity for hands-on exploration and/or project development. They can be organized around a core challenge that participants come together to work on or around a tool, platform, or concept. Workshops are scheduled for 90 minutes and should be highly participatory.

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CFP: Journal for the Academic Study of Religion: Special Postgraduate Issue

Religion and Rethinking the Human

The ‘human,’ like that of ‘religion,’ is a category always under contestation. In current Euro-American scholarship and public culture, there is an acute anxiety about humans’ excessive reliance on technology, its environmental costs, and the ominous prospect of a post-human dystopia. These anxieties have been recognised, theorised, and allayed by a number of academic sub-disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. It is therefore noteworthy that the study of ‘religion,’ ultimately concerned with the consideration of one of the most enduring products of the ‘human,’ has yet to wholeheartedly embrace a deconstruction of this seemingly transparent category.

Although ‘humans’ are credited with creating ‘religion,’ ‘religion’ itself has played a central role in constructing the ‘human’ as we understand it today. This symbiotic relationship is multifaceted, multivalent, and under-theorised within much of the current field of the contemporary study of religion. In order to bridge this gap between the study of religion and the plethora of recent ‘turns’ in academic scholarship that trouble the ‘human,’ the Journal for the Academic Study of Religion (formerly the Australian Religion Studies Review) seeks papers that provide a valuable insight into this issue of endurance and relevance from a variety of interdisciplinary and methodological perspectives.

Articles may present viewpoints, arguments, and analyses on broad delineations of religion, religiosity, and any of the following, or other and divergent, topics:

  • The historical construction of the human
  • The human and the non-human, super-human, or post-human
  •  Anthropocentrism and the biopolitical processes that bring about the centrality of the human and of certain humans
  • Notions of sentience, identity, and individualism
  • Human rights, law, governance, politics, media, and relations with ‘nature,’ climate, and the environment
  • Interspecies relations, especially between the human, the animal, the plant, the microbial, and the technological
  • Human evolution and cognition
  • The politics and governance of death, dying, and decomposition

This issue of the Journal for the Academic Study of Religion is a special issue that will be edited by postgraduate students featuring contributions from national and international postgraduate students. We are hoping that this will provide students not only with an important platform from which to share their research interests and efforts, but also an invaluable opportunity for the academic community at large to sample the high quality work and the innovation of scholars at a postgraduate level. We are seeking unique essays on the subject of Religion and Rethinking the Human that showcase the original research of students, and we welcome a variety of submissions that provide a unique insight into this highly pertinent issue.

If you would like to contribute to this Special Issue, please send your abstract to the guest postgraduate editors: George Ioannides (george.ioannides@sydney.edu.au) and Venetia Robertson (venetia.robertson@sydney.edu.au) by 1 July 2012. Abstracts should be no longer than 500 words and accompanied by a brief author biographical statement. Authors will be notified by the end of July, and the deadline for submission of complete articles (6000 words) will be 1 December 2012. Papers will be published subject to peer review. This special issue of the Journal for the Academic Study of Religion will be published in December 2013.