News and Events

Posted on by katieaston News and Events

Event: Pilgrimage and Sacred Places in Central and Eastern Europe: Place, Politics and Religious Tourism

During the NSRN Annual conference (details to follow) there was much debate around the usage of the word sacred. This conference may be of interest for that general purpose, but more specifically the stream Secular pilgrimage and tourism

Pilgrimage and Sacred Places in Central and Eastern Europe: Place, Politics and Religious Tourism
University of Zadar, 27-30 September 2012

With the global expansion of travel and tourism more and more people are engaged in what can be broadly described as religious tourism. According to the UNWTO, for example, in 2008 300 million tourists claimed that their trips were motivated in one way or another by religion. Pilgrimage plays a key role in such religious tourism and it is now attracting the attention of a wide variety of experts, e.g. religious leaders, those involved in the travel and tourism industry and academic researchers. Theoretical debates are moving beyond earlier communitas and contestation models and a more global reach is emerging as researchers explore beyond W. Europe and the Americas, examine the increasing religious diversity caused by global migration and investigate the

intimate, historic links between pilgrimage, sacred places, politics and tourism. In this conference we want to contribute to this widening focus by bringing together academics from different disciplines and travel and tourism professionals to explore pilgrimage across Eastern Europe broadly conceived as extending beyond W. Europe. In this way we seek to look at different religious traditions, e.g. Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim, and territorial ties (local, national, transnational, global).

We invite papers which will explore:

– Construction and deconstruction of sacred places
– Embodied spaces and body as a mediator
– Pilgrimage as a form of religious tourism
– Relationship between pilgrimage and travel and tourism industry
– Pilgrimage and territorial boundaries
– Politics and Pilgrimage in the past and today
– Pilgrimage in memories and narratives
– Tourist ab/use of pilgrimage and sacred places
– Tourist perspectives on the pilgrimage journey
– Secular pilgrimage and tourism
– The realm of pilgrimage / tourism experience

Registration fee

On or before July 15, 2012: € 50
Co-authors or accompanying person: € 50
Please note: All bank transaction costs are to be paid by the author

Registration fee covers:
– Conference proceedings (backpack with book of abstracts)
– Welcome cocktail
– Refreshments during breaks
– Excursions to the Croatian royal city and a pilgrimage place of Nin
– Tourist guidance through Zadar

Payments (in EURO) to be made to the following account number:

SWIFT CODE: SOGEHR22
held with SPLITSKA BANKA SOCIETE GENERALE GROUP
IBAN NUMBER: HR53 2330 0031 1001 6324 3

Payments (in HRK) to be made to the following account number (according to CNB central exchange rate for EURO on date of payment):

2330003-1100163243
*we kindly ask you to put N. 37300 in your payment description

Posted on by katieaston News and Events

Event: Radical Secularization ?

September 20-22nd 2012
Conference – The Centre Pieter Gillis of the University of Antwerp

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. The list of keynote speakers, including theologian John Milbank and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, program director of the Social Science Research Council, testifies to this ambition.

The extensive conference schedule can be downloaded in the separate flyer on the right hand side.

ORGANIZING BOARD

This conference is the result of an inter-university co-operation between the University of Antwerp (Centre Pieter Gillis; Department of Philosophy of Culture) and the Catholic University of Leuven.

The organizing committee consists of profs. Guido Vanheeswijck and Walter Van Herck (University of Antwerp), dr. Stijn Latré (University of Antwerp), and prof. André Cloots (Catholic University of Leuven, Higher Institute for Philosophy).

A conference schedule can be found on the website
Registration fees

Thursday 09-20th 30 €
Friday 09-21st 30 €
Saturday 09-22nd free of charge
Whole conference
60 €
Free of charge for Belgian undergraduate and graduate students

Fees include coffee breaks and sandwich lunch(es).

Registration due before September 3rd, 2012. For registration, click here.
Registration becomes only official after receipt of payment on this account

Number : IBAN BE98 7350 2990 5993 / BIC KREDBEBB.
Name : Universiteit Antwerpen.
Address : Prinsstraat 13, 2000 ANTWERPEN – BELGIUM
Reference : SC201158

Lodging suggestions

4 stars hotel near conference location: Hotel Prinse,
Prices for conference participants: 108 €/night single room; 128 € double room.
Please mention the conference title while booking.

Low budget hotels

Youth hostel

Posted on by katieaston Calls for Papers, News and Events

CFP: Post-Atheism: Religion, Society and Culture in Post-communist Eastern Europe and Eurasia

Deadline for abstracts is 1st August 2012 for more details please visit the Melikian Center website

Post-Atheism: Religion, Society and Culture in Post-communist Eastern Europe and Eurasia

Start Time: February 7, 2013 (All day)
End time: February 9, 2013 (All day)
ASU Tempe campus
As of May 12, 2012:

“Post-Atheism”:
Religion, Society, and Culture in Post-Communist
Eastern Europe and Eurasia

The Melikian Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at Arizona State University is pleased to announce an international symposium on “Post-Atheism” in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, to be held on the ASU campus in Tempe, Arizona, February 7-9, 2013. The symposium will feature presentations by international visiting scholars from Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, and elsewhere from the region. Professor Jose Casanova (Georgetown University), author of Public Religions in the Modern World, will keynote the symposium on Thursday, February 7.

The symposium is designed to address one of the most fascinating and controversial issues of the post-communist world—namely, the new public role of religion in East European and Eurasian society. Is there separation of church and state in today’s Eastern Europe, Russia or Eurasia? Are Iranian-like theocracies a possibility in some regions? Is the forceful entry of religion into the public sphere a fleeting fashion or a deeper phenomenon of lasting importance? How does this recovery of religious identity intersect with prevailing theory on secularization? How has religion been reintroduced into the Academy and public education? How are the relationships between dominant religious faith traditions and minority confessions (often stigmatized as “destructive sects”) affected in the region?

The conference is intended to generate sustained debate and discussion on a variety of perspectives relating to all the major faith traditions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism) of the region, from Central and Southeastern Europe to Russia, Ukraine, Transcaucasia, Central Asia, and Mongolia. We will also welcome panels/roundtables/individual presentations dealing with non-traditional religious movements and transnational religious currents. Conference lodging will be provided, and limited funding will be available to support international travel.

While we are open to other topics, we specifically invite individual and panel proposals on the following themes:

• Religion, National Identity and Conflict: The Role of Religious Actors in Framing Ideologies of Nationalism and Transnational Globalization; Ethno-religious Conflict and Peacemaking.
• Religion and Policymaking: Clerics and Religious Institutions in the Public Arena.
• Religion and Education: Theology vs. Religious Studies in the Academy; Religion in Public Education.
• Religion, Sexuality, and Gender: Patriarchy, Gender Equality, and LGBT Issues in Modern Religious Culture.
• Religion and Culture: Popular Culture, Literature, TV/Film, Folklore.

Please send us a brief (250-word limit) abstract of your individual paper/panel proposal and a one-page bio or CV.

Deadline for Proposal Submission: August 1, 2012

Contact: Alexei Lalo, Research Administrator, ASU Melikian Center (alalo@asu.edu)
Stephen Batalden, Director, ASU Melikian Center (stephen.batalden@asu.edu)
Web page: http://melikian.asu.edu/events

Posted on by katieaston Calls for Papers, News and Events

CFP: Oppositions: An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference

A conference of potential interesting for the network investigating the usefulness of opposition in the religious/nonreligious binary.

CFP: Oppositions Postgraduate Conference. University of Salford, 28-29 September 2012
Oppositions: An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference

28th and 29th September 2012
University of Salford

This conference seeks to explore ideas of opposition through the full range of disciplines in the arts, media, and social sciences.

In the context of the current crisis of capitalism, there are many examples of the forms ‘opposition’ can take: the Tea Party in the United States, the rise of fascist groups, campaigns run via new technologies and social media, religious fundamentalisms, and general strikes in Greece. Though it carries radical overtones, ‘opposition’ in itself is not tied to any particular dogma, left or right. We invite papers that explore the value and values of opposition as a position to be adopted by individuals or groups.

We welcome proposals for papers from postgraduates that engage with any aspect of opposition. These could include, but are by no means limited to: the ‘culture industry’ and alternative youth cultures; opposition parties within parliamentary politics; grass-roots activism; the history and future of the labour movement; hegemony; Foucauldian ‘resistance’ and its limits; radical pedagogies and the role of the University; community and class; the aesthetic value of non-mainstream or outsider art; aesthetic oppositions such as contrapuntal music or bricolage; and the formation of creole or pidgin languages.

Papers are welcome from fields such as politics, literature, philosophy, anthropology, religions and theology, geography, sociology, history, classics, translation studies, linguistics and social linguistics, visual and screen studies, new media and communication studies, and the performing arts. Interdisciplinary papers are very welcome.

Keynote speakers TBC.
Abstracts of 250 words are invited for presentations of 20 minutes. Proposals for performances, screenings etc. are also accepted. The conference intends to publish an edited volume of the best papers presented.
Send abstracts to oppositionsconference[at]gmail.com by 6 July 2012.

Posted on by Chris News

The conference is here… we have a hashtag! #nsrn

Who would have thought that we would finally get here? In just a couple of hours we will be kicking off the NSRN Conference in a damp and dreary London. For those of you who know what a hashtag is, I just wanted to let you know that we will be using the tag #nsrn throughout the conference.

If you want to follow official and unofficial comments on what is happening ‘live’ in the room at Goldsmiths University, if you want to see some pictures or ask questions or just have a bit of entertainment in the background, then set up a search on Twitter for #nsrn and start using the tag in your own tweets. I will be doing my best to keep the feed as up-to-date as possible throughout the next three days… we then hope that this will be a lasting archived legacy of the event that is about to ensue.

All that we ask is that you treat what people say during discussion sessions, at the meal, in the bar etc as private… but general themes and what people say in presentations is fair game. And, of course, I shouldn’t need to ask everyone to be civil 🙂

I’ll also be doing my best to keep the Facebook page up-to-date… amongst other things.

So – for those of you in the room, I hope that you will do your best to keep the rest of the NSRN world informed about this fabulous conference… and for those of you who couldn’t make it, I hope that this and some of the other planned outputs over the coming months mean that you have missed out entirely.

Posted on by Chris News

New ‘NSRN in the News’ Page

Just in time for the NSRN Conference, Lorna Mumford – one of the new members of the NSRN Online Team – has added a new page to the website which provides links to press articles relating to the NSRN or the work of network members. It is available here: http://nsrn.net/news/nsrn-in-the-news-2/

We hope that you enjoy have the opportunity to check out the latest ‘splashes’ that the NSRN has been making in the popular press, and that you will join us in thanking Lorna very much for her hard work.

Posted on by katieaston News and Events

Event: TOMORROW – ‘Ethics as Piety’, Webb Keane‏

Speaker: Webb Keane (University of Michigan)
Chair: Charles Stafford (London School of Economics)

Date: 27 June 2012, 18.00-19.30

Venue: London School of Economics, New Academic Building Room LG.09 (off Lincoln’s Inn Fields)

Sponsored by the Anthropology Department and the Programme for the Study of Religion and Non-Religion.

Assuming that what we call “religion” and “ethics” are in principle distinct from each other, what is the conceptual relationship between them? What are the historical pathways along which the two often seem to converge? What are the social implications of that convergence where it occurs? And when they converge, what remainder escapes the conflation of these two? These are, of course, very large questions, whose investigation requires substantial empirical and conceptual work. In the interests of carrying out a preliminary ground-clearing, this talk is confined to reflections on a limited number of texts. Discussion of these texts will centre on how certain traditions within Islam and Protestant Christianity objectify ethics in ways that render them cognitively explicit and thus expose them to pressures toward rationalisation, generalisation, and abstraction. But these traditions also expect ethics to guide everyday life, in all its concrete particularity, with potentially paradoxical consequences.

The event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis.

See www2.lse.ac.uk/anthropology/research/PRNR/Events/events.aspx for more details

If you have any queries regarding this event, please contact Dr Matthew Engelke (m.engelke@lse.ac.uk)

Posted on by katieaston News, Uncategorized

News: Three Doctoral Fellowships in non-religiosity open for applications

ENP_PhD

Three Doctoral Research Fellows (E13 TV-G-U, 75% part-time) are sought by the Emmy Noether “Diversity of Non-Religiosity” Research Group at Goethe-University Frankfurt  based at the Institut für Ethnologie (Social Anthropology, Faculty of Philosophy und History). The start date is 01.11.2012 and the positions are limited to a period of three years.

The Doctoral Fellows will develop their research projects under the supervision of the Principal Investigator. Their main task will be to complete individual research projects in collaboration with the other participants. They will have an independent budget for research and travel expenses. The Research Group further offers interdisciplinary and international collaborations and comprehensive supervision by the Principle Investigator who is also teaching and conducting research on this topic.

The Research Group is organized around the assumption that a comprehensive understanding of the role of religion(s) within contemporary societies has to take the “diversity of non-religiosity” into consideration. The aim of the Doctoral Fellowships is to conduct empirical research on non-religious individuals, groups or phenomena – preferably in different countries. For example topics may include but are not limited to indifference towards religion(s), worldviews alternative to religion(s), or criticism of religion(s) made in relation to atheist, humanist or skepticist thought or identity. The specific object of inquiry, methodology and theoretical approach will depend on the Doctoral Fellows’ training, interest, and research focus. Curiosity about the research topic, intellectual creativity, and an enjoyment of academic collaboration are crucial for the success of the project.

All applicants must hold a master’s degree (M.A.) or an equivalent qualification in anthropology, religious studies, sociology, or a related discipline. The University is an equal opportunities employer and supports women’s career development. Applications from women are thus explicitly welcome. Disabled applicants will be considered preferentially in case of equivalent qualifications.

Please send the electronic version of your application (including cover letter, Curriculum Vitae, university transcript/degree, two letters of recommendation, and a synopsis of the intended research project of approx. 5000 words) to: quack@em.uni-frankfurt.de by 31.07.2012. Please do not hesitate to contact Johannes Quack for further information concerning the research project and the application process.

Posted on by katieaston News and Events

Event: “Ethics as Piety” Webb Keane hosted by LSE – All Welcome

Please see below for the upcoming Forum on Religion event.

“Ethics as Piety”

Speaker: Webb Keane (University of Michigan)
Chair: Charles Stafford (London School of Economics)

Date: 27 June 2012, 18.00-19.30

Venue: London School of Economics, New Academic Building Room LG.09 (off Lincoln’s Inn Fields)

Sponsored by the Anthropology Department and the Programme for the Study of Religion and Non-Religion.

Assuming that what we call “religion” and “ethics” are in principle distinct from each other, what is the conceptual relationship between them? What are the historical pathways along which the two often seem to converge? What are the social implications of that convergence where it occurs? And when they converge, what remainder escapes the conflation of these two? These are, of course, very large questions, whose investigation requires substantial empirical and conceptual work. In the interests of carrying out a preliminary ground-clearing, this talk is confined to reflections on a limited number of texts. Discussion of these texts will centre on how certain traditions within Islam and Protestant Christianity objectify ethics in ways that render them cognitively explicit and thus expose them to pressures toward rationalisation, generalisation, and abstraction. But these traditions also expect ethics to guide everyday life, in all its concrete particularity, with potentially paradoxical consequences.

The event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis.

See here for more details

If you have any queries regarding this event, please contact Dr Matthew Engelke (m.engelke@lse.ac.uk)


Posted on by katieaston News, Publications

Publication: Approaching Religion Vol 2/1‏ The New Visibility of Atheism in Europe

A new publication has been announced of interest to the NSRN. Contributors below include the NSRN director Stephen Bullivant and other contributors to our upcoming annual conference.

Approaching Religion

Vol. 2/ 1 (June, 2011)

Theme: The New Visibility of Atheism in Europe

Contributors:

Grace Davie, Phil Zuckerman, Teemu Taira, Thomas Zenk, Teuvo Laitila, Tiina Mahlamäki, Gavin Hyman, Mattias Martinson, Stuart McAnulla, Stephen Bullivant, Lise Kanckos, Mikko Sillfors.

AR is published by the Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History in Åbo, Finland. Its purpose is to publish current research on religion and to offer a platform for scholarly co-operation and debate within the field. The journal appears twice a year and consists of articles and book reviews. It addresses an international readership and, as the title suggests, approaches the field of religion from a broad perspective, engaging contributors from different theoretical and methodological traditions.