January 2013

African Religions PDF-NOTE: Internet Explorer Users, right click the PDF Icon and choose [save target as] if you are experiencing problems with clicking. Print

Call for Proposals

This Group encourages critical inquiry about religions originating in Africa as well as all those practiced there. Proposals should go beyond description — analyzing conceptual tools and methods employed. We invite individual papers, papers session, and roundtable proposals on the following themes:

  • Dealing with difference — disability and discrimination in Africa (from the deaf to albinos)

  • Beyond corruption? — religion, leadership, and accountability in Africa

  • For a possible cosponsored session with the Lesbian–Feminist Issues and Religion Group and the Gay Men and Religion Group, homosexuality in Africa beyond public discourse — real life negotiations. Vociferous political and religious leaders in Africa frame homosexuality as a Western imported lifestyle and gay rights as a new colonial imposition. Those who dare to identify as LGBT risk ostracism, even death. What is the “on the ground” reality of life under these conditions?

  • For a cosponsored session with the Teaching Religion Section and African Diaspora Religions Group, rethinking paradigms and methods in religious studies through African and African diaspora religions. Contesting logocentricity, representing innovation and dynamism of oral traditions, using visual media, familiarizing the exotic, redefining “religion” — these are among the challenges and opportunities of teaching African/African diaspora traditions in religious studies. We seek dynamic presentations that exemplify ideas that should be reshaping the discipline as a whole

Mission

This Group provides a forum for the discussion of research on the multiple religious traditions of Africa, methodological issues in the study of the religions of Africa, and African religious responses to ethical and social issues affecting the continent. The Group encourages the participation of Africans and non-African scholars in the leadership of the Group and in participation in its programs.

Anonymity of Review Process

Proposer names are visible to Chairs but anonymous to Steering Committee members.

Questions?

Joseph Hellweg
Florida State University
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Tapiwa Mucherera
Asbury Theological Seminary
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Method of Submission

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