Call for Proposals

This Group offers an interdisciplinary forum for ongoing theoretical and methodological work in conversation with concrete ethnographic and historical case studies on religious life and institutions. This year’s themes are:

• Blasphemy and cursing
• Heresy in Islam
• Ethics of ethnographic fieldwork in religion
• The “Frankfurt School” and its diversity of approaches to religion
• Methodological and ideological foundations of the cognitive theory of religion

We strongly encourage the submission of panel proposals relevant to the themes and issues indicated above.

Mission

This Group seeks to provide a forum in which scholars of religion from a wide range of disciplines can examine and question their disciplinary presuppositions. The work of this Program Unit can be placed under three main rubrics:

• The critical investigation of the categories generated and employed by the discourses on religion, such as experience, the sacred, ritual, and the various other “isms” that can be found in classic and contemporary studies of religion
• The analysis of new and neglected theorists and works central to the critical study of religion, including those produced in cognate fields such as anthropology, political science, or literary theory
• Theoretically informed examination of elided and often neglected themes in religious studies, including class, race, gender, violence, legitimation, and the material basis of religion

Anonymity of Review Process

Proposals are anonymous to Chairs and Steering Committee Members until after final acceptance or rejection.

Questions?

Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley
Bowdoin College
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Jens Kreinath
Wichita State University
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Method of Submission