Critical Theory and Discourses on Religion Print

Call for Proposals

This Group offers an interdisciplinary and international forum for analytical scholars of religion to engage the intersection of critical theory and methodology with concrete ethnographic and historical case studies on religious life and institutions. Critical theory draws on various methods employed from the fields of sociology, anthropology, history, literary criticism, and political theory in order to bring into scrutiny all kinds of discourses on religion, which span from academic to nonacademic as well as from religious to nonreligious. We invite paper proposals on the following topics:

  • Secularism(s) in Europe — new atheism, multiculturalism, interreligiosity, diversity of State-Church relations in European countries, and professionalization of religion in higher education; e.g., Islam (for a cosponsored session with the Sociology of Religion Group)
  • Periodization of epochs and the temporalization of history — methodological and theoretical issues in the use of historical epochs (e.g., evolution, the Enlightenment, etc.), bias, and problems of lineal concepts of time in modern historiography (for a cosponsored session with the Cultural History of the Study of Religion Group)
  • Theorizing war and violence in religion — religious fundamentalism(s), the role of religion in social, political, and military conflicts, and the violent aspects of religious practices (for a cosponsored session with the Sociology of Religion Group)
  • History and the impact of the University of Chicago Divinity School on the study of religion (for a cosponsored session with the Sociology of Religion Group and the Cultural History of the Study of Religion Group)
  • Political uses and abuses of canonical scriptures — evangelicalism and the role of the Bible in the United States election (for a cosponsored session with the SBL Ideological Criticism Section)

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 Group can be placed under three main rubrics:

  • 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
  • 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 during review, but visible to Chairs prior to final acceptance or rejection.

Questions?

Jacques Berlinerblau
Georgetown University
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Jorunn J. Buckley
Bowdoin College
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Method of Submission

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