In addition to the regular plenary lectures, the AAR is pleased to offer the following sessions highlighting this year's Annual Meeting international focus on Australia and Oceania.
A30–112 Critical Theory and Discourses on Religion Group Saturday, 9:00 AM–11:30 AM
Terry Godlove, Hofstra University, Presiding
Theme: Emile Durkheim and Australian Aboriginal Religions
The work of Emile Durkheim has been highly criticized or misrepresented within the fields of religion and the anthropology of religion. This panel’s aim is to clarify the writings on Durkheim in general and the writings on the Aranda of Alice Springs in particular. Taking into account the unique and various practices of the Aboriginal religions of central Australia, the means through which Durkheim was able to assemble information by way of secondary sources and his commitment to scientific discovery, the objective of this panel is to shed new light on the writings of Durkheim in regard to his theories of religion and the ways in which Durkheim contributes to an understanding of religion more than 100 years later.
Panelists:
Jens Kreinath, Wichita State University Ethnographic Traces and Visual Devices in the Les Formes Élémentaires de la Vie Religieuse: Emile Durkheim and the Aboriginal Aranda in Alice Springs
Ian Keen, Australian National University Warner’s Durkheimian Analysis of Yolngu ("Murngin") Religion and Society: A Reassessment
Stephanie Frank, University of Chicago The Limits of Rationality and Transparency: "Australian Totemism" and Moral Authority in Durkheim's Elementary Forms
Marion Maddox, Macquarie University Breaking the Great Australian Silence: How Durkheim Makes Room for Indigenous Religious Life
Responding:
Jonathan Z. Smith, University of Chicago
A30–123 Religion and Migration Consultation and Buddhism in the West Consultation Saturday, 9:00 AM–11:30 AM
Wakoh Shannon Hickey, Alfred University, Presiding
Theme: Buddhist Women Migrants, Migrating Women’s Buddhism: The Complexities and Challenges for Buddhist Women in Oceania
The story of Oceania’s religious women is often told as a simple dialectic between European colonization and Indigenous resistance. But this presentation ignores the significant presence and influence in the region — both historically and contemporarily — of Asian people and religions. In this regard, Buddhism — which has had a presence in the region for over a thousand years, is now Australia’s second biggest and fastest growing religion, is New Zealand’s third largest religion, and boasts a female majority — cannot be ignored. In their contribution to new, hybrid forms of Buddhism, Oceanic Buddhist women must negotiate a complex of intersecting cultural influences – from Asia, the West, and Indigenous cultures. As Oceania increasingly allies itself with Asia politically and economically, these exchanges will only increase. The papers on this panel represent a beginning for the exploration of women’s experiences in the development of this emerging, Oceanic Buddhism.
Panelists:
Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, University of Alabama Genealogies of Nonviolent Resistance between Oceania and the Himalayas: Women as Participants and Symbols in the Parihaka Community and the Tibetan Satyagraha Protest Movement
Bante Sujato, Santi Forest Monastery The Trials of Ordination for Buddhist Nuns in Contemporary Australia and Ancient India
Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia, University of Alabama Evoking Buddhist Landscape in Aotearoa: Women as Agents of the Adaptation of Buddhism to New Zealand Soil Ruth Gamble, Australian National University Laying out the Dead: The Shifting Traditions of Tibetan Women's Role in the Disposal of the Dead, from Tibet, to Exile, to Australia
Business Meeting: Marie Marquardt, Agnes Scott College
A30–201 Special Topics Forum Saturday, 1:00 PM–3:30 PM
Tim Jensen, University of Southern Denmark, Presiding
Theme: Beyond the Rainbow Generation?: Religion and Pluralism in a Globalized World
Sponsored by the International Connections Committee
Religious and cultural diversity has evolved from, at times, parochial efforts to encourage members of the majority culture in the world to move beyond their comfort zone to face new challenges, as we struggle to forge a world community out of disparate individuals connected by globalization and commodification. What are the challenges we face as a world community and how might we meaningfully rethink our new roles and collective responsibilities as global citizens? In what ways have religions helped and/or hindered these idea(l)s of and efforts for a world community? How do people of faith seeking to participate as responsible global citizens evoke their faith traditions as inspiration in this quest and, conversely, how might loyalty of and commitment to respective faith tradition inhibit our quest for global citizenship? In addition to religious pluralism, what about pluralisms that exist within a religious tradition? What might these intrareligious pluralisms signify in terms of possibilities and limitations for community?
Panelists:
Diana L. Eck, Harvard University
Mike Grimshaw, University of Canterbury
Changgang Guo, Shanghai University
Simeon O. Ilesanmi, Wake Forest University
Marion Maddox, Macquarie University
Paul Morris, University of Wellington
A31–101 Special Topics Forum Sunday, 9:00 AM–11:30 AM
Edward Phillip Antonio, Iliff School of Theology, Presiding
Theme: Rethinking Indigeneity in the Age of Globalization
Sponsored by the International Connections Committee
The construction of the category of “indigeneity” is inextricably connected with colonialism and imperialism. Conquerors, settlers, missionaries, and capitalist entrepreneurs saw “the indigenous” in opposition to their universal and developed civilizations and religions. Whether the indigenous was understood as the decadent or noble savage, “indigeneity” always carried what Johannes Fabian calls “a denial of coevalness;” that is, an othering of the indigenous in time and space. Today, globalization exacerbates the symbolic violence and power asymmetries generated by colonialism. The local knowledge and religions of indigenous peoples are often expropriated to become the raw material for deterritorialized and heavily commodified religious movements that circulate through global electronic media. At the same time, ancestral lands and livelihoods of indigenous peoples are threatened by rapid economic change and ecological degradation. Globalization’s “time-space compression” has also put various peoples in each other’s backyards, challenging the colonial denial of coevalness. Thus, indigenous actors can now have access to global media to build transnational networks of resistance and solidarity on the basis of emerging pan-indigenous identities. Panelists on this forum will explore critically the genealogy of and contradictions within the category of “indigeneity,” as well as religion’s changing role in the articulation and (de)construction of this category.
Panelists:
Frank Brennan, Australian Catholic University
Roger C. A. Maaka, Eastern Institute of Technology
Mary N. MacDonald, Le Moyne College
Anne Pattel-Gray, Tauondi College
Lynda Newland, University of the South Pacific
Jace Weaver, University of Georgia
A1–115 Bible in Racial, Ethnic, and Indigenous Communities Group Monday, 9:00 AM–11:30 AM
Tat-siong Benny Liew, Pacific School of Religion, Presiding
Theme: Bible and Colonization: Asia/Oceania
This, the first phase of a three-year project, focuses on how the biblical texts have been invoked in the context of imperial-colonial frameworks, whether in support of or in resistance to such frameworks, whether in historical or contemporary perspective. The first phase is devoted to Asia and Oceania.
Panelists:
Eleazar S. Fernandez, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities
Nami Kim, Spelman College
Peter C. Phan, Georgetown University
J. Jayakiran Sebastian, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia
Jenny Te Paa, College of Saint John the Evangelist, Auckland
Changgang Guo, Shanghai University
Hisako Kinukawa, Tokyo, Japan
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