Monthly Archives: August 2011

Routledge Studies in Religion, Travel and Tourism

— NEW SERIES —

Routledge Studies in Religion, Travel and Tourism

Editors

John Eade, University College London, ucfajea@ucl.ac.uk

Alana Harris, Lincoln College, Oxford, alana.harris@lincoln.ox.ac.uk Ian Reader, University of Manchester, ian.reader@manchester.ac.uk

Overview

The public prominence of religion has increased globally in recent years, while places associated with religion, such as pilgrimage centres and famous cathedrals, temples and shrines, have attracted growing numbers of visitors and media attention. Such developments are part of a global process where different forms of travel – physical movement such as labour and lifestyle migration, tourism of various forms, the cultural heritage industry and pilgrimage – have become a major feature of the modern world. These translocal and transnational processes involve flows of not just people but also material objects, ideas, information, images and capital.

The public prominence of religion aligned to the modern growth of tourism (sometimes now claimed as the world’s single largest industry) has created a new dynamic relationship between religion, travel and tourism. It has been mirrored by expanding academic research in these areas over the last twenty years across a variety of disciplinary areas, ranging from anthropology, sociology, geography, history and religious studies to newly emergent areas such as tourism and migration studies.

Such studies have also expanded exponentially in terms of the geographic spread of places, religions and regions being researched.

This series provides a new forum for studies based around these themes, drawing together research on the relationships between religion, travel and tourism. These include studies from global and cross-cultural perspectives of topics, such as:

commoditisation and consumerism; the media-isation and media representations of religion, travel and tourism; heritage, tourism and the cultural politics of religious representation; gender, sexuality and religious movements; religion and travel writing; ideological and violent struggles over religion and resistance to tourist intrusion; inter-religious engagement; religion, tourism, landscape and performance; thanatourism and pilgrimage to sites of suffering.

Books and Proposals

Books should normally be around 95000 words (including notes and references). Proposals should be 10-15 pages in length, provide a statement of aims, preliminary detailed chapter outline, explain how the volume connects to the series theme and identify the target market for the volume. They should also indicate competing books, list several scholars qualified to act as external reviewers, and offer a time schedule for completion.

Readership

This series is aimed at researchers and advanced undergraduate and graduate students in anthropology, sociology, geography, history, and composite studies concerning religion, pilgrimage, tourism, travel writing and migration.

For publication information, please contact Senior Editor Laura Stearns at laura.stearns@taylorandfrancis.com

Multiple Secularities and Global Interconnectedness

Second Annual Conference of the Centre for Area Studies

Multiple Secularities and Global Interconnectedness

University of Leipzig, 13 – 15 October 2011

Jointly organized by the Centre for Area Studies, the Centre for the Study of Religion, and the “Multiple Secularities”-Project of the University of Leipzig

https://www.uni-leipzig.de/~cas/de/annual-conference

Critical examinations of secularism and secularity play a key role in current debates in the social sciences on the predicament of contemporary societies. In this context, scholars have moved beyond the critique of secularization and modernization theories to investigate the multiple reinterpretations of secularity and their normative implications. While it is clear that the transformations and the rethinking of secularity are critically shaped by processes of globalization and civilizational encounters, such issues have to a great extent been unaddressed.

In this conference, we further the debate on secularism and secularity by focusing on the challenges arising from globalization and different forms of interconnectedness. Discussing these challenges from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective, the conference addresses, amongst other topics, path dependencies and their transformations; vernacular secularities and the vexing question of translatability and interculturality; the usefulness of the “Multiple Modernities” approach as well as the complex interfaces between secularism, colonialism and post-colonial culture. Concentrating on European post-communist societies, East Asia, Africa, the Arab World, India and the West, the multiple understandings and interpretations of the secular are explored.

In this context, the conference reflects upon the many ways in which interconnectedness has reshaped the role of major religious traditions as well as the various forms in which they interact in attempts to secularize societies and state.

The conference is based upon the cooperation between the Centre for Area Studies at the University of Leipzig, which brings together the many disciplines examining different world regions under the global condition, and the recently founded Centre for the Study of Religion

(CSR) at the University of Leipzig, which focuses on comparative studies of the role of religions worldwide as well as a project on “Multiple Secularities” funded by the Saxon State Ministry for Science and the Arts.

The conference is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as well as by the Saxon State Ministry for Science and the Arts.

The conference will start with an opening session on Thursday, 13 October, at 18:00.

It will end with a plenary session on Saturday, 15 October, at 17:00.

The Second ISA Forum of Sociology

Social Justice and Democratization
Buenos Aires, Argentina
August 1-4, 2012

RC 22 -Research Committee for the Sociology of Religion

Call for Papers

Programme coordinator: Eloísa Martín, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, eloisamartin@ufrj.br

I am pleased to let you know that Research Committee for the Sociology of Religion will have 10 regular sessions and a joint session during The Second ISA Forum of Sociology that will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from August 1 to 4, 2012.

Session

Chair:

Affiliation

Regimes of Religious regulation I: Government and social regulation of religion

David Lehmann

Cambridge University, UK

Regimes of Religious regulation II: Multiculturalism and the management of religion

Alejandro Frigerio

FLACSO Argentina/CONICET, Argentina

Religious Pluralism and Struggle for Justice in Secular Democracies

DEEPAK KUMAR VERMA

Babasaheb Ambedkar National Institute of Social Sciences. Mhow BANISS, India

Beliefs in the city. Religious transformations in urban areas

Hugo José Suárez

UNAM, Mexico

Religion and the Rights of Social Minorities

Tânia Mara C. de Almeida

University of Brasília/Brazil

Religion, Rights, Mobility, Migration

Verónica Giménez Béliveau

UBA/ CONICET, Argentina

Alternatives religiosities and beliefs in contemporary world

Felipe Gaytan Alcala

La Salle University-Mexico

Justice, democracy, and religion since the fall of the soviet union

Jualynne Dodson

Michigan State University, USA

Ethnicity, beliefs and religiosities

Daniel Gutiérrez Martínez

El Colegio Mexiquense, Mexico

Asian religions in the era of globalization

Ronan Alves Pereira

University of Brasilia/Brazil

Qualitative methods in the sociology of religion

Joint session with RC33 Logic and Methodology in Sociology

Eloísa Martin

Bernt Schnettler

Regine Herbrik,

IFCS/UFRJ- Brazil

Universität Bayreuth, Germany

Technische Universität Berlin

You can find more information about each session at:

https://www.isa-sociology.org/buenos-aires-2012/rc/rc.php?n=RC22

On-line abstract submission will be open from August 25 to December 15, 2011.

Please submit an abstract online to the centralized conference website created by Congrex. Please note that only abstracts submitted online can be incorporated in the sessions.

All Forum participants (presenters, chairs, discussants, etc.) need to pay the early registration fee by April 10, 2012, in order to be included in the programme. If not registered, their names will not appear in the Programme or Abstracts Book.

On-line registration will open August 25, 2011

Further Information

On the Conference: https://www.isa-sociology.org/buenos-aires-2012/

On Grants for this conference: //www.isa-sociology.org/buenos-aires-2012/guidelines-for-grant-application-submission.htm

On RC 22: https://www.isa-sociology.org/rc22.htm & https://www.isa-rc22.org

On ISA: https://www.isa-sociology.org/

BASR ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Annual Conference at Durham University

2011 September 5-7th

Ritual Knowledge

https://www.basr.ac.uk/conference.htm

The theme of ritual has long played a part in Religious Studies and allied disciplines, and has taken a variety of new turns in recent years in relation to cognitive, evolutionary, embodiment, emotions, and other studies. Accordingly, this conference invites papers dealing with a spectrum of interest, whether theoretical, descriptive and participatory in papers that might deal with, anthropological-sociological, architectural, artistic, gendered, historical, literary-textual, musical, psychological, philosophical or theological approaches to ritual whether that of traditional ‘religious’ or more ‘secular’ forms of rite. Some might want to question the ‘ritual’ category itself, along with the designations ‘religious’ or ‘secular’ that frequently qualify it.

From the walking of pilgrimage to the sonority of bells; from pressing cremator buttons to the willowy shrouds of natural burial by priest or civil celebrant; From Eucharistic eating to Charismatic speaking; from the Coronation and Royal Weddings to Soap opera birthday parties ritual knowing arises.

Among the Conference papers, two international plenary papers will engage in different ways with cognitive scientific -evolutionary biological aspects of ritual, with a Durham speaker asking how language may replace action in ritual, exemplified through Crypto-Judaism.

Armin Geertz Aarhus University, Denmark. “New approaches to the cognitive science of religious ritual”.

Loyal Rue- Luther College, Iowa, USA. “Rite Makes Right”.

Seth Kunin Durham Pro-Vice Chancellor for Arts and Humanities. “The Telling of Ritual”.

**********

Conference Organiser Prof. Douglas J. Davies. President of the BASR & Professor in the Study of Religion at Durham University douglas.davies@durham.ac.uk

Mr Daniel Smith is helping to administer the conference papers and

programme: daniel.smith@durham.ac.uk

All Registration and Accommodation details are available on the Registration Form that needs to be posted to BASR Conference 2011, St Chad’s College, 18 North Bailey, Durham, DH1 3RH.

Arab Detroit 9/11: Life in the Terror Decade

Edited by Nabeel Abraham, Sally Howell, and Andrew Shryock
Contributors explore the trauma, unexpected political gains, and moral ambiguities faced by Arab Detroiters in post-9/11 America.

FORTHCOMING Wayne State University Press
Pub Date: September 2011
6 x 9, 424 Pages, 20 Illus, Paper: $24.95
SBN 978-0-8143-3500-0

“Arab Detroit 9/11 offers a balanced, engaging, and comprehensive account of how the
post-9/11 backlash has transformed ‘the capital of Arab America.’ This interdisciplinary
volume examines how a vibrant and highly diverse ethnic community has confronted the
unique challenges of the ‘Terror Decade’ and occasionally even turned them into new opportunities.”
— Mehdi Bozorgmehr, City University of New York

“Major shifts in populations and politics are documented in this follow-up to the earlier
classic, Arab Detroit. The editors and contributors make Detroit’s Arabs visible in new ways, many of them as Muslim Arabs linked to other Muslims and all of them as citizens struggling for respect and recognition. The volume argues compellingly that, for Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. today, the discipline imposed by inclusion is as significant as the challenge posed by
exclusion from full citizenship.”
— Karen Leonard, professor and chair of anthropology, University of California–Irvine

“Arab Detroit 9/11 makes a superior contribution to the field of Arab American studies. The volume is timely and necessary and fills an enormous gap in the literature of how Arab Americans react to, live with, and are perceived because of the horror of 9/11. It is a primer on ethnogenesis, identity development, and the effects that changing sociohistorical circumstances have on ethnic group continuity, acceptance, and social integration.”
— Philip M. Kayal, professor and director of the interdisciplinary Social and Behavioral Sciences program at Seton Hall University

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Detroit’s large and nationally prominent Arab and Muslim communities have faced heightened prejudice, government surveillance, and political scapegoating, yet they have also enjoyed unexpected gains in economic, political, and cultural influence. In Arab Detroit 9/11: Life in the Terror Decade, a follow-up to their volume Arab Detroit: From Margin to Mainstream, editors Nabeel Abraham, Sally Howell, and Andrew Shryock present accounts of how life in post-9/11 Detroit has changed over the last ten years. Abraham, Howell, and Shryock have assembled a diverse group of contributors whose essays range from the scholarly to the artistic and include voices that are Palestinian, Iraqi, Yemeni, and Lebanese; Muslim and Christian; American born and immigrant. The book is divided into six sections and begins with wide-angle views of Arab Detroit, looking first at how the community fits within greater Detroit as a whole, then presenting closer portraits of Arab Detroit’s key ethnonational and
religious subgroups. More personal, everyday accounts of life in the Terror Decade follow as focus shifts to practical matters such as family life, neighborhood interactions, going to school, traveling domestically, and visiting home countries. Finally, contributors consider the interface between Arab Detroit and the larger society, how this relationship is maintained, how the War on Terror has distorted it, and what lessons might be drawn about citizenship, inclusion, and exclusion by situating Arab Detroit in broader and deeper historical contexts. In Detroit, new realities of political marginalization and empowerment are evolving side by side. As they explore the complex demands of life in the Terror Decade, the contributors to this volume create vivid portraits of a community that has fought back successfully against attempts to deny its national identity and diminish its civil rights. Readers interested in Arab studies, Detroit culture and history, transnational politics, and the changing dynamics of race and ethnicity in America will enjoy
the personal reflection and analytical insight of Arab Detroit 9/11.

Contributors: Nabeel Abraham, Kristine J. Ajrouch, Khadigah Alasry, Hayan Charara, Yasmeen Hanoosh, Sally Howell, Amaney Jamal, Lawrence Joseph, Kim Schopmeyer, Mujan Seif, Andrew Shryock, Abdulkader H. Sinno, Matthew W. Stiffler, Eren Tatari, Rachel Yezbick, William Youmans

“RELIGION, CONFLICT, VIOLENCE AND TOLERANCE IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES”

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p align=”left”>EXTENSION OF ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE XXX AUGUST 30, 2011 xxx

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p align=”left”>”RELIGION, CONFLICT, VIOLENCE AND TOLERANCE IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES”

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p align=”left”>An ISA/RC22 mid-term International Conference (in collaboration with

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p align=”left”>PANAFSTRAG: Pan-African Strategic and Policy Research Group)

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p align=”left”>ABUJA, NIGERIA. 27-30 JANUARY 2012

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p align=”left”>Increasing cross-disciplinary discourses are focusing on the

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p align=”left”>traditions, in varied historical epochs within local and global

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p align=”left”>contexts. Theorizing about religion, conflict and violence have been

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p align=”left”>theoretical perspectives, case studies to generate more nuanced

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p align=”left”>conflict/violence and tolerance in contemporary societies. The

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p align=”left”>conference aims to foster social scientific expertise on religion,

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p align=”left”>conflict and violence at multiple levels of analysis, ranging from

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p align=”left”>interpersonal forms of violence to ethnic, class and civil conflicts.

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p align=”left”>It will explore ways in which religion is, and is not, implicated in

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p align=”left”>conflict/violence commissioned by State or non-State actors, the ways

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p align=”left”>Individual paper and panel abstracts are invited on any aspect of

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p align=”left”>religion, conflict, violence and tolerance in local-global contexts.

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p align=”left”>Paper/panel abstract submissions of not more than 300 words should be

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p align=”left”>submitted electronically (as email attachment) to:

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p align=”left”>Afe Adogame [a.adogame@ed.ac.uk] and;

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p align=”left”>Olufunke Adeboye [funks29adeboye@yahoo.co.uk]

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p align=”left”>- The NEW deadline for abstract proposals is AUGUST 30, 2011

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p align=”left”>- NEW Notification of acceptance by SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

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p align=”left”>- Online registration commence on SEPTEMBER 20 and close on DECEMBER 15, 2011

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p align=”left”>Proposals should include: Name(s) and affiliation(s) of the author(s);

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p align=”left”>institutional details (contact address, telephone, email address);

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p align=”left”>title of proposed presentation; body of abstract.

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p align=”left”>For general queries about the conference, please contact ISA/RC22

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p align=”left”>General Secretary/Treasurer: Afe Adogame [a.adogame@ed.ac.uk]

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p align=”left”>Further details of the conference is available on the ISA-RC22

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p align=”left”>website: [https://isarc22.org/Conferences/Conferences.htm]

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p align=”left”>Afe Adogame, PhD

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p align=”left”>CSWC

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p align=”left”>School of Divinity

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p align=”left”>The University of Edinburgh

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p align=”left”>New College

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p align=”left”>Mound Place

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p align=”left”>Edinburgh EH1 2LX

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p align=”left”>UK.

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p align=”left”>Tel. +44 (0)131 650 8928

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p align=”left”>Mob. +44 (0)7784 118 732

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p align=”left”>Fax. +44 (0)131 650 7952

https://www.div.ed.ac.uk/aadogame.html

Religion and (In)Equalities

Sociology of Religion Study Group (SOCREL) Annual Conference
University of Chester, UK
28 – 30 March 2012
Plenary Speakers:
Professor Tariq Modood (University of Bristol)
Professor Elaine Graham (University of Chester)
Professor Sean McCloud (University of North Carolina)
Also featuring:
•       A roundtable discussion with Professor Linda Woodhead and Dr Rebecca Catto (Lancaster University), and Professor Kim Knott (University of Leeds), Professor Hugh McLeod (University of Birmingham), Professor Gordon Lynch (University of Kent) and Dr Shuruq Naguib (Lancaster University) on the forthcoming volume Religion and Change in Modern Britain (Routledge)
•     Dr Karen Jochelson and Dr David Perfect (Equality and Human Rights Commission)
This interdisciplinary conference gathers academics and practitioners to discuss the complex ways religion interacts with systems of power and/or categories of difference that affect experiences of equality and/or inequality in individuals, groups and spaces. The intersections of gender, race and class are typically part of the mutually constitutive ‘matrix’ of social categories that contribute to identities and power relations, however religion is often overlooked. Such oversight can only result in limited analyses and leaves pathways to social inclusion and exclusion concealed. Through this conference we seek to bring together research that explores the ways religious beliefs, identities, practices, communities and institutions can contribute to both experiences of belonging and marginalization.
Abstracts are invited on the conference theme, especially on the interaction of religious beliefs, traditions, practices and identities with:
Class                                         
Gender                
Economics
Multicultural politics                
Education                     
Social justice
Race                                          
Dis/abilities                 
Public policy
Healthcare and Well-being                     
Sexuality                             
Please submit abstracts by 28 October 2011 to Dr Dawn Llewellyn (University of Chester) and Dr Sonya Sharma (Durham University) at: religionandinequalities@gmail.com
Abstracts for 20 minute papers (300 words max.), panel proposals (750 words max.) and alternative formats (750 words max.) are welcomed.
SOCREL is the British Sociological Association’s study group on Religion. For more details about the study group and conference please visit www.socrel.org.uk.

Dr Dawn Llewellyn
Researcher in Women in Contemporary Christianity
Visiting Lecturer
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Chester
Parkgate Rd
Chester
CH1 4BJ
(+44) 01244 511031
https://www.chester.ac.uk/departments/trs/staff/llewellyn

Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies: Visiting Fellowships Programmes

I write to inform you that Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) is now advertising its Visiting Fellowships and Visiting Research Fellowships for 2012 – 2013. I would be grateful if you might circulate this email around your institution. Further information can be found at the Centre’s website. https://www.oxcis.ac.uk/ and at https://www.oxcis.ac.uk/fellowships.html

Please do not hesitate to contact the Centre if you require any further information or clarification. Email fellowships@oxcis.ac.uk

Thank you.                                     

Kate Mertens

Academic Administrator

__________________________________________________
Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, George Street, Oxford OX1 2AR
Tel: +44 1865 278730; Fax: +44 1865 248942
Web: www.oxcis.ac.uk
__________________________________________________

First Academic Journal Dedicated to Secular Studies to be Launched International Publication will be titled “Secularism and Nonreligion”

HARTFORD, CT, July 25, 2011 – The world’s first journal dedicated to the

exploration of secularism and nonreligion will begin publication in

January 2012. The new journal is a partnership of the Institute for the

Study of Secularism in Society and Culture (ISSSC) at Trinity College in

Hartford, Conn., and the Non-religion and Secularity Research Network

(NSRN), an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers

founded in 2008.

The journal will be co-edited by Ryan T. Cragun, Assistant Professor of

Sociology at the University of Tampa, and Barry A. Kosmin, Research

Professor of Public Policy & Law and director of the ISSSC at Trinity

College. Lois Lee of NSRN and the University of Cambridge, England will

be Associate Editor.

The scope of the international academic journal, to be called Secularism

and Nonreligion, will be interdisciplinary. Its aim is to advance

research regarding all of the various aspects of “the secular” across

societies and cultures.

Articles, written in English, will be accepted from experts in the

social science disciplines of psychology, sociology, political science,

women’s studies, economics, geography, demography, anthropology, public

health, public policy, law and religious studies. However, contributions

also will be considered from researchers in the fields of history,

neuroscience, computer science, biology, philosophy and medicine.

Articles published in the new journal will focus on the secular at one

of three levels: the micro or individual level, the meso or

institutional level, or the macro or national and international level.

Submissions should explore all aspects of what it means to be secular at

any of the above-cited levels, what the lives of nonreligious

individuals are like, and the interaction between secularity,

nonreligion and other aspects of the world. Articles will explore the

ideology and philosophy of the secular, secularism, nonreligion and atheism.

Although Secularism and Nonreligion will adhere to a traditional blind,

peer-review referee process, it will be an open-access journal, meaning

all articles will be freely available and able to be downloaded on the

journal’s Web site: www.secularismandnonreligion.org.

The editors are now accepting submissions of academic articles and book

reviews, with the first volume of the journal to be published in 2012.

Additional information about how to submit papers and publication

procedures can be found on the Web site.

Members of the journal’s international editorial board include Kada

Akacem at the University of Algiers in Algeria; Andrew Singleton at

Monash University in Australia; Nathalie Caron at the Universite de

Paris-Est Creteil in France; Stacey Gutkowski at the King’s College,

London in the UK; Stephen Bullivant at St. Mary’s University College,

Twickenham in the UK; David Voas at the University of Manchester in the

UK; Will Gervais at the University of British Columbia in Canada; and

Guy Ben-Porat at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.

The editorial board members from the United States are John Alcorn at

Trinity College; Daniel Blackburn at Trinity College; Deborah Cragun at

the University of South Florida; Joseph Hugh Hammer at Iowa State

University; Karen Hwang Center for Atheist Research; Ariela Keysar at

Trinity College; Juhem Navarro-Rivera at the University of Connecticut;

Terry Parssinen at the University of Tampa; Frank Pasquale at the

Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture; Darren

Sherkat at Southern Illinois University; Donald Westbrook at Claremont

Graduate University; David Wulff at Wheaton College; and Phil Zuckerman

at Pitzer College.

For more information, contact Barry Kosmin at:

barry.kosmin@trincoll.edu, or Ryan Cragun at: ryantcragun@gmail.com