Call for Paper

International Conference

 

Where: KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Date: 28-29 November 2013

Organiser: KU Leuven Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies (GCIS)

Keynote Speakers:

Emma Tarlo, Goldsmith, University of London Ali Mangera, MYAA Mangera Yvars Architects (to be confirmed)

Key words: Muslims in Europe, Consumption, Everyday life practices, leisure time, Aesthetics, Muslims Artists, Architecture, Muslim Self, Body, Memory

Muslims have a longer and deeper socio-economic and cultural experience in Europe and this presence requires a deeper understanding of the ways Muslims have become a part of Europe. In this vein, everyday practices (reading, talking, walking, dwelling, cooking, eating, clothing, consuming, shopping) are considered significant because they are not the “obscure background of social activity”, rather, they are the “investigation of ways in which users operate” (de Certeau). The socio-religious practices are obscure and not familiar with a non-Muslim, and the everyday practices are necessary to discover and penetrate this deeper experience of Muslims. The practices concern a mode of operation, a logic of doing, a way of being and a meaning. They do not link only to the question of personal choice and liberties. The content of the practice is to “make explicit the system of operational combination… to bring to light the models of action characteristic of users…” (de Certeau). The everyday practices create free areas through hobbies, games, art, clothes to the users in which one can see an essential formation of the self. We would need to discuss the increased sense that Muslims have of their distinctive-similar spatial locations that serve a free area or refuge to realize him or herself.

This workshop sets out to understand the everyday practices of Muslims living in Europe. The diverse and various (non)-religious daily life practices indicate the non-defined boundaries of Muslims whose practices can be a part of the stigmatised-open spaces in public discourses.

Examining the relationship between Islam and liberal democratic values, it is important to note what kind of practices and daily life experiences are exercised in private-public areas, which also determine the views and public perception of Muslims. The identification of Muslims with one or another practice is not a simply neutral matter; this entails also an attachment to liberal, communitarian and civil meanings. Regardless of the daily life activities, these perceptions of Muslims face the challenge that Muslims are not a fixed group, but they share the same practices that others have and do. Food and eating practices, consumer way of life, marriage, salutations; these banal practices of everyday life are central to discover the subjectivity of Muslims, or in other terms, a sense of the self, a way of embodiment.

These daily practices are inextricably linked to the problematic of subjectivity. The meaning, discourses, argumentations and reasoning behind the daily life practices are detailed experiences of the self.

This workshop seeks to explain the daily life choices and preferences in the context of subjectivity and self, looking at the questions concerning the religious-cultural-ethnic constructions of practices in which different perceptions are mediated on Muslims. The daily life practices and habits are not simply a matter of realising the self, taking enjoyment. They are in articulation with manifold cultural-religious-social meanings and discourses which serve to mark boundaries, to share some common values, to distinguish rituals, to strengthen social ties, and to symbolize a distinctive group awareness.

Each of these functions and constructions concretise a kind of belief in everyday life, support a choice, and contribute to the construction of a self.

However, the daily life practices and rituals have received little serious scholarly attention because of their “normal” nature and their link with ordinary subjects rather than with polemical and controversial issues such as integration, citizenship, security and sharia. Devoting attention to daily life practices needs to disrupt and disturb these debates about Muslims in Europe.

A particular focus will be on the impact of daily life on two areas and

aspects: consumption and artistic performances.

Muslim consumerism and leisure time

Many such debates dealt with the integration and the compatibility of Muslims with western values indicating how Muslims should be. At the level of consumerism, there is little attention through the lens of religious rituals and everyday practices in Europe. Muslims’ relation with eating, leisure times, clothing, fashion, shopping etc. are interesting topics to look closely the transformative processes in public and private life. At these micro levels of analyses, the consumption practices offer a valuable route to understand relations between memory, body, space, culture, ethnicity, and gender among Muslims living in Europe. The on-going processes of transnationalism put in forward these daily practices as means of change and assume the creation of new religious combinations, hyphenated performances as seen in Muslim fashion. The daily life practices reveal the conceptualization of individuality, modernity and indicate how these (in)differences are produced between Muslims and non-Muslims. The complex socio-economic, religious and cultural elements that are involved in the construction of Muslim self through consumerism surface the question of modesty, secularism, and bodily prescriptions, public-private borders. Do the daily consumerist practices unsettle some of the established normativity in social codes in Europe or continuity with the local-existing culture?

Around this question, this part of conference will look at a possible way of convergences between Muslims and non-Muslims to point the social-cultural mobility.

Artistic performances

Arts and religion are nowadays in controversial turns. Often debates about how art approaches a religious matter illustrate some social phenomena and crises linked with sacred-profane relations. Controversies between religion and art become a sort of parameter to re-think what contemporary Muslims in Europe do, know and believe. Examining artistic performances of Islamic patterns and visual expression of faith provides new elements on how Muslim cultures are translated and concretized in European public life. Certain kind of artistic creativities, including popular culture, traditional art, painting, cinema, theatre, hip-hop, new sufi groups, architecture; this theme of the conference would like to align the circulation of daily life practices with the artistic expressions of Muslims in Europe according to the title of this conference. How can an artistic expression of Islam be analysed in terms of everyday practices? In which way artistic productions transcend the existing boundaries creating new forms of practices and introducing these new daily practices in public spaces? What are the new socio-cultural and political contexts of artistic practices? How these contexts influence on Muslim aesthetics? Is there a kind of Muslim aesthetics? This theme of conference will not be only an analysis of the production of ‘Islamic art’, including the architectural side. The aim is to cover the performative and architectural expressions of Islam, the emerging of new styles, and of compositions from Muslims in Europe. The circulation of these new styles, expressions between performers and the public encompass new theoretical debates on boundaries, space, and body, transculturality.

Authors are invited to send abstracts (maximum 500 words) of their papers on themes of their own choice, which include at least one of these two aspects that the conference wants to treat.

Programme

A detailed schedule will follow in due course.

Tuition Fees and Scholarships

There is no tuition fee for participants in the conference programme.

However, presenters and participants are expected to pay the costs of their travel and accommodation. The organizers have a reduced prize from ‘Irish College’ in Leuven. The GCIS covers the meals and transportation in Belgium during the conference.

Outcome

Within six months of the event, a book will be produced and published by the GCIS with Leuven University Press, comprising some or all of the papers presented at the Workshop. The papers will be arranged and introduced, and to the extent appropriate, edited, by scholar(s) to be appointed by the Editorial Board.

Copyright of the papers accepted to the Workshop will be vested in the GCIS, and printed in the conference proceedings book.

Selection Criteria

The workshop will accept up to 20 participants, each of whom must meet the following requirements:

- have a professional and/or research background in related topics of the conference;

- be able to attend the entire programme.

Since the Workshop expects to address a broad range of topics while the number of participants has to be limited, writers submitting abstracts are requested to bear in mind the need to ensure that their language is technical only where it is absolutely necessary and the language should be intelligible to non-specialists and specialists in disciplines other than their own; and present clear, coherent arguments in a rational way and in accordance with the usual standards and format for publishable work.

Timetable

1. Abstracts (300–500 words maximum) and CVs (maximum 1 page) to be received by 1stJune 2013.

2. Abstracts to be short-listed by the Editorial Board and papers invited by 7th June 2013.

3. Papers (3,000 words minimum – 5,500 words maximum, excluding

bibliography) to be received by 1st September 2013.

4. Papers reviewed by the Editorial Board and classed as: Accepted – No Recommendations; Accepted – See Recommendations; Conditional Acceptance – See Recommendations; Not Accepted, by 30th September 2013.

5. Final papers to be received by 1st November 2013.

Conference Editorial Board

Johan Leman, KU Leuven

Erkan Toguslu, KU Leuven

Saliha Özdemir, KU Leuven

Conference Co-ordinator

ErkanToguslu

Venue

KU Leuven University

The international workshop will be entirely conducted in English and will be hosted by KU Leuven.

Papers and abstract should be sent to SalihaÖzdemir saliha.ozdemir@soc.kuleuven.be

For more information plz contact:

Erkan Toguslu and Saliha Özdemir

KU Leuven Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies

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p align=”center”>West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, 1-2 November, 2013 The importance of Pentecostal-charismatic movements in the “Global South” has been well established. We would like to call for a scholarly reorientation toward the “Global East” where economic miracles go hand in hand with rapid growths of Christianity. This symposium particularly focuses on Chinese Pentecostalism in Asian societies. With its innovative styles of experiential spirituality, female leadership, and powerful communication strategies, Chinese Pentecostalism is challenging the dominance of conventional Christianity. This symposium seeks to assess the status and characteristics of Chinese Pentecostal-charismatic movements worldwide, with a special focus on East and Southeast Asia but also including Chinese diasporic communities in other parts of the world. We hope to bring together scholars from Asia, Europe and North America for a comparative understanding of global Chinese Pentecostalism. We are especially interested in papers reporting historical and empirical research on the following topics:

· Studies of a congregation, a sect, a network of such congregations, or a movement of Chinese Pentecostals or charismatics anywhere in the world

· Studies of Chinese Pentecostals or charismatics in their social and cultural contexts

· Transnational connections of Chinese Pentecostals and charismatics

· Experiential spirituality and female leadership of Chinese Pentecostal movements

· The development and distinctiveness of Chinese Pentecostalism

· The relationship of Chinese Pentecostals and charismatics with other Chinese Christians

The confirmed plenary speakers include:

Allan Anderson (Keynote), University of Birmingham, UK

Donald Miller (Keynote), University of Southern California, USA

Kim-Kwong Chan, Hong Kong Christian Council, Hong Kong

Hsing-Kuang Chao, Tung Hai University, Taiwan

Gordon Melton, Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University, USA

John Cheong, Sabah Theological Seminary, Malaysia

Deadline for the submission of abstracts (max 200 words, with a brief biographical note):

20^th April, 2013. Submissions and questions send to Joy Tong at joy_tong@ymail.com.

We intend to edit a special issue of a journal out of the papers presented. We will also provide accommodations and meals for presenters. The conference is organized by The Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University, and co-sponsored by International Programs, Asian Studies Program, and Religious Studies Program at Purdue University.

European Association for the Sociology of Religion (EASR) EASR Annual Conference LIVERPOOL 3-6 SEPTEMBER 2012 https://easr.org/conferences/upcoming-conference.html?PHPSESSID=1effd4f4088c59cd7d55f2946539bd7e

1. Orthodoxy beyond the Orthodox World

Eastern Orthodoxy has only recently emerged as a discrete research area in the study of religions, anthropology and sociology of religion. The historical conditions that give rise to renewed interest in and access to Eastern European Orthodoxy, namely the fall of the communism and the break-up of the Soviet Union, have also facilitated, and necessitated, Orthodoxy’s renewed migration and dispersal around the globe, especially to Western Europe and America. In this context, the study of Eastern Orthodoxy in migration has become an important, if understudied, aspect of the anthropology and sociology of Orthodoxy. This panel invites papers based on empirical studies of Orthodox Churches and communities outside of majority Orthodox states.

2. Orthodoxy, Nationalism and De-territorialized Communities

Whilst there is a considerable body of literature on Orthodox Churches and their relationship to local nationalisms in Eastern Europe there has been little focus on what happens to the strong bond between ethnic/national identity and Orthodoxy once the national setting recedes or is no longer present. ‘Ethnic’ Orthodox parishes are commonly represented as being ‘nationally’ orientated towards co-ethnics and the national homeland. This panel invites papers that explore ideas of the ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’ as applied to Central and East European states and re-examines them in the light of the experience of de-territorialized Orthodox communities.

Deadline for paper proposals: May 15, 2013

Please send a short abstract (about 500 words) to Maria Hämmerli:

maria.haemmerli@unine.ch

Monday June 17th, Open University (Camden), London

Keynote Speaker: Professor Heidi A Campbell (Texas A&M University)

The first attempts to use computers to analyse sacred texts began in the 1950s. Over subsequent decades, religious believers have developed their own handheld e-readers, mobile apps, sophisticated software analysis tools, libraries of old and new commentary, and online discussion communities. Groups from many different religious traditions have been forced to consider new norms for the digital storage of sacred texts and for the appropriate use of e-readers in places of worship.

The academic study of digital religion has grown into a thriving field, but we still know very little about the impact of digital media on sacred text and audiences. This one-day conference will bring together academics interested in the study of digital sacred text from a wide range of religious traditions, including sociologists, ethnographers, media scholars, computer scientists, digital humanists and theologians.

We also welcome religious practitioners and publishers engaged in creating digital sacred texts.

Possible topics include:

- How can digital media affect the relationship between a religious reader and their sacred text?

- Does digitisation influence the interpretation of a text?

- What norms are emerging to guide the use of digital sacred texts, and how are those norms being negotiated?

- How can digital sacred texts be designed to meet the needs of religious readers?

- What challenges does the process of digitizing sacred text raise for religious communities?

If you would like to present a paper at this event, please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words by April 15th to Tim Hutchings (tim.hutchings@open.ac.uk).

Thanks to generous funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, we are able to offer a small number of bursaries to cover travel expenses for PhD students. Contact Dr Hutchings for further details.