Christian Spirituality Print

Call for Proposals

This Group welcomes proposals that explore the relationship between the academic study of Christian spirituality and its practice as well as proposals that employ multidisciplinary perspectives. We especially invite proposals on the following themes:

  • For a cosponsored session with the Practical Theology Group — trauma, oppression, and spiritual formation. How does the experience of trauma — from war, relational violence, refugee experience, poverty, discrimination, etc. — affect human subjectivity and the experience of God? How might healing be conceived and fostered in such contexts? Further, is PTSD a Western construction of trauma “exported” to other contexts?
  • Spirituality, hope, and global climate change — how does the phenomenon of climate change affect communities around the world? We especially welcome proposals engaging contexts in the global South. What shapes a Christian spirituality of hope in these contexts?
  • The spiritual “self” in a religiously plural world — how are constructions of the self and of meaning and identity shifting in contexts where religions overlap, embrace, or collide in personal or communal praxis?
  • Music, the arts, and experience of God — how does the practice of creating or listening to music, or participating and engagement in other art forms, mediate the experience of God?
  • Spiritual bodies and political bodies — how does embodied spiritual practice take form in public spaces, among public bodies, political bodies, and structures and spaces? We welcome proposals engaging the spirituality of activism in a variety of forms, including (but not limited to) the legacy of Chicago’s Saul Alinsky

Mission

This Group serves as a forum for scholars working in the interdisciplinary field of Christian spirituality. It is committed to the following:

  • Developing, refining, and demonstrating appropriate methodologies for the academic study of spirituality
  • Exploring models for describing and facilitating interdisciplinary conversation on the nature of spirituality among religion scholars of all perspectives and religions
  • Initiating discussion in the field of global spirituality, both religious and secular
  • Articulating the connections between scholarship and spiritual practice
  • Insuring diversity in denominational affiliation, gender, race, and ethnic backgrounds
  • Focusing on the retrieval and contemporary assimilation of issues of central interest to the field itself

Our AAR sessions and panels are intended to expand dialogue, understanding, research, writing, and teaching in the area of spirituality in general, and of Christian spirituality in particular.

Anonymity of Review Process

Proposer names are visible to Chairs but anonymous to steering committee members.

Questions?

Lisa Dahill
Trinity Lutheran Seminary
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Tim Hessel-Robinson
Brite Divinity School
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Method of Submission