Home Annual Meeting Call for Papers Groups Cultural History of the Study of Religion
January 2013

Cultural History of the Study of Religion 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 seeks papers that examine the formation and transformation of “religion” (together with other related categories) in historical context as a discursive apparatus both in social, cultural, and political practice and in relation to the scholarly study of religion. We aim to represent diverse geographical areas and historical moments. We particularly welcome proposals exploring:

  • The complex dynamics at work when theories that arise in one historical and cultural matrix are used to analyze religious phenomena that arise in different historical and cultural matrices

  • The use of sex and sexuality as categories of inquiry in empirical approaches to the study of religion, including such themes as reading or misreading sex and desire in representations of religion or analyzing ways in which the varied meanings of sex and sexuality have shaped classificatory categories and comparative models across “world religions” and its “others”)

  • Various components of a genealogy of pluralism

  • The emergence of human rights and humanitarianism as a “secular” category of “the sacred”

  • In light of the Annual Meeting location in Baltimore, Catholic perspectives on the category of “religion” and its study within the academy

  • For a potential cosponsored session with the Religion and the Social Sciences Section and the Religion and Sexuality Group, critical analysis and/or methodological reflection on sex and sexuality as categories of inquiry in empirical approaches to the study of religion. Possible themes include reading or misreading sex and desire in representations of religion and analyzing ways in which constructed meanings of sex and sexuality have shaped classificatory categories and comparative models across religious studies

We will use our sessions to develop new models for conference conversation. Toward that end, we ask that participants write shorter papers, which we will circulate mid-October in order to focus our discussions in a more collaborative and interactive way. We welcome further suggestions for new conversational models (please e-mail the co-Chairs with your ideas).

Mission

This Group is devoted to historical inquiry into the social and cultural contexts of the study of religion and into the constructions of “religion” as an object of scholarly inquiry.

Anonymity of Review Process

Proposer names are anonymous to Chairs and Steering Committee members until after final acceptance or rejection.

Questions?

Ann M. Burlein
Hofstra University
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Randall Styers
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Method of Submission

 

This website contains archived issues of Religious Studies News published online from March 2010 to May 2013, and PDF versions of print editions published from Winter 2001 to October 2009.

This site also contains archived issues of Spotlight on Teaching (May 1999 to May 2013) and Spotlight on Theological Education (March 2007 to March 2013).

For current issues of RSN, beginning with the October 2013 issue, please see here.


Banner