Dear Colleagues,
We have carried out a large-scale ethnographic survey on Muslim-Christian relations in Southwest Nigeria. For those who are interested, a first blog post (on views on inter-religious marriage is published at:
Best wishes, Insa
Dr Insa Nolte, M.I.Nolte@bham.ac.uk
Department of African Studies and Anthropology
University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
“Knowing Each Other: Everyday religious encounters, social identities and tolerance in SW Nigeria”
Centre for Trust, Peace & Social Relations, Coventry University, UK, June 30 – July 1st 2015
This workshop is the second of a series of international workshops on the theme “Is secularism bad for women? Women, Religion and Multiculturalism in contemporary Europe” focusing on the relation between the role of religion in women’s lives and gender equality (https://womenreligionandsecularism.wordpress.com ). This is an important question to debate, given the increased visibility of religion in the globalized world of the 21st century. While some scholars and political actors argue that a form of political secularism is the best way to ensure gender equality, others consider secularism a bad political arrangement for religious people, because it excludes them from the political and public sphere. Taking forward discussions initiated by Susan Moller Okin’s controversial 1997 essay ‘Is multiculturalism bad for women?’ and continued recently in works of
scholars including Saba Mahmood, Joan Scott, Nilüfer Göle, Nadje Al-Ali, Linell Cady and Tracy Fessenden, these workshops address the following questions:
This workshop will approach these issues by focusing on the organisational or group level; the first workshop at Uppsala University (May 2015) examines the individual or everyday level, and the third at University of Coimbra, Lisbon (November 2015), will address the public and political context. In the Coventry workshop we will investigate what women’s and religious organisations are doing to address issues of secularism and multiculturalism. How do these differ by geography or faith group? To what extent do faith-based organisations working for religious inclusion in civil society press for gender equality too? How do women’s organisations approach religion, and do they consider religion to be an equality issue alongside ethnicity, gender, sexuality or disability? How are women’s faith-based organisations’ working across secular/religious spheres and with other civil society organisations?
How do theological/hermeneutical approaches inform religious organisations’ work on gender and women’s issues?
Keynote speakers: Dr Line Nyhagen (Loughborough University) and Dr Niamh Reilly (National University of Ireland, Galway)
We invite papers that discuss these questions. Abstracts should be sent by 10th April, written in English and not exceed 300 words. Notification of acceptance will be given by April 30th. Please send abstracts to: wrsworkshops2015@gmail.com
The workshop will run from 4 pm on 30th June to 5 pm on 1st July. Papers will be presented in thematic, parallel sessions. Participation fee is £15 per participant or £10 for PhD, post-doc or civil society organizations, which includes refreshments. The workshop is funded by the International Society for the Sociology of Religion and organized by Dr Kristin Aune (Coventry University), Prof Mia Lӧvheim (Uppsala University), Dr Terhi Utriainen (University of Helsinki), Dr Alberta Giorgi (Centre of Social Studies, University of Coimbra; GRASSROOTSMOBILISE, Eliamep) & Dr Teresa Toldy (Fernando Pessoa
University, Porto; Centre of Social Studies, University of Coimbra). A book publication featuring some of the papers is planned.
114th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association
Denver CO
November 18-22, 2015
PANEL: RELIGION, ART, AND CREATIVITY IN THE GLOBAL CITY
Contemporary cities pride themselves about being havens of cutting edge creativity. They celebrate art, culture, and innovation with highly publicized festivals, glossy brochures, and clever slogans. Religiously inspired creativity, lived religious arts, and their vernacular expressions play no role in such celebrations of urban originality. Secular fashionable definitions, dominant intellectual and artistic networks, and political and economic contingencies define some features of social and cultural innovation and artistic expression as relevant, and others, like religious ones, as insignificant.
This panel examines manifestations of social, cultural, artistic, and aesthetic innovation produced by pious individuals and their communities in global cities. Papers analyze the complex and largely neglected role of faith-based urban art and creativity. They explore exemplary contexts of pious creativity and cultural innovation. Analyzing contemporary artistic production (e.g. visual arts, music), aesthetic creativity (e.g. places of worship), social and spatial configurations (e.g. places of worship as innovative cultural centers), social innovations (e.g. faith-based associations/activities), and novel cultural formats (e.g. religious events), panelists illustrate that pious individuals are artistic and creative contributors to globalized cityscapes. Religious communities are rarely seen as havens of urban art and creativity. Instead, especially, minority communities (e.g. Muslims in Europe) are often viewed with suspicion, and their creative contributions remain contentious.
Theoretically the panel engages debates about urban art and creativity, and cultural production (engaging among others Richard Florida’s concept of the “Creative City”), which understand urban innovation as originating in small circles of creative actors and neglect religiously inspired vernacular contributions to urban creative transformations. Using examples of religiously inspired art and social and cultural creativity, panelists illustrate that only a more inclusive focus on all urban constituencies can produce a thorough understanding of urban creativity and creative processes. The challenge in trying to understand urban creativity is not to applaud the usual “creative suspects,” but to examine the creative contributions of all urbanites regardless of class, ethnicity, religion, and (desired) outcomes.
Panel Organizer: Petra Kuppinger
Discussant: James Bielo
For questions and inquiries send emails to petra@monm.edu<mailto:petra@monm.edu> .
Please submit abstracts (250 words) by April 4, 2015 to petra@monm.edu<mailto:petra@monm.edu>
Petra Kuppinger
Professor of Anthropology
Department of Sociology/Anthropology
Monmouth College
Monmouth IL 61462
West African ʿulamāʾ and Salafism in Mecca and Medina: Jawāb al-Ifrῑqῑ - The Response of the African
Chanfi Ahmed
Brill, March 2015
https://www.brill.com/products/book/west-african-ulama-and-salafism-mecca-and-medina
Chanfi Ahmed shows how West African ʿulamāʾ, who fled the European colonization of their region to settle in Mecca and Medina, helped the regime of King Ibn Sa’ud at its beginnings in the field of teaching and spreading the Salafῑ-Wahhabῑ’s Islam both inside and outside Saudi Arabia. This is against the widespread idea of considering the spread of the Salafῑ-Wahhābῑ doctrine as being the work of ʿulamāʾ from Najd (Central Arabia) only. We learn here that the diffusion of this doctrine after 1926 was much more the work of ʿulamāʾ from other parts of the Muslim World who had already acquired this doctrine and spread it in their countries by teaching and publishing books related to it. In addition Chanfi Ahmed demonstrates that concerning Islamic reform and mission (daʿwa), Africans are not just consumers, but also thinkers and designers.
The Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt (Max-Weber-Kolleg) invites applications for:
Joint Fellowships for Doctoral Students/ Postdoctoral Scholars for research projects in the fields of Sociology, Religious Studies, History, Philosophy, Economics, Law, Political Sciences or Theology within the framework of the Research Group “Ordering Dynamics” directed by Prof. Dr. Jörg Rüpke, Prof. Dr. André Brodocz and Prof. Dr. Hartmut Rosa and located at Erfurt and Jena. The fellowships start either on 1 September or on 1 October 2015 and are granted for 3 to 12 months. Stipend of 1.100 EUR/month are granted for doctoral students. Financial arrangements for postdoctoral scholars take into account the individual situation of the awardees of the fellowships and are based on the principle “no loss, no gain”. [Editorial question: Is this a neoliberal euphemism for pay-your-own-way? Or does it mean that if it costs you something to take the post, you’ll get reimbursed? The meaning is not immediately obvious.]
Requirements
• Excellent academic degree
• Relevant PhD Thesis or PhD Thesis project
• Outstanding Academic Record
• Knowledge of German (at least reading skills), English and other relevant languages
• Willingness to cooperate within the interdisciplinary context of the
Research Group “Ordering Dynamics” with partners in Erfurt and Jena
Further information about the Research Group and the Max-Weber-Kolleg Erfurt are available at: https://www.uni-erfurt.de/max-weber-kolleg/projekte/kooperative-projekte/ordnung-durch-bewegung/ and www.uni-erfurt.de/maxwe
Application/Deadline:
Please submit your application with CV, copies of your last university degrees, MA- or PhD-Thesis, list of publications, and an outline of the research project you would like to pursue (5-10 pages)
with a stringent discussion of your research questions, the state of research on the topic, the methodological approach and the leading hypotheses as well as a working schedule and projected date
of completion as pdf-files (maximum of 10 MB) by 15 April 2015 to:
University of Erfurt • Max-Weber-Kolleg • maren.wuerfel@uni-erfurt.de
Direct informal enquiries may be made to Dr. Bettina Hollstein (bettina.hollstein@uni-erfurt.
Dear colleagues,
We would like to invite you to join our 2-day seminar on religious transnationalism on Thursday 16 and Friday 17 April 2015 at VU University Amsterdam.
Venue: VU University (Metropolitan building, room Z009 and Z007)
Time: 9.30 a.m. till 5.00 p.m. (the programme is attached)
Conveners:
Prof. Dr. Thijl Sunier, department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, VU University
Prof. Dr. Nina Glick Schiller, University of Manchester
General theme
The seminar deals with the contemporary dynamics of transnational religious fields across the world by addressing the shifting configurations between new modes of transnational religious practices on the one hand and evolving forms of nation-building and national domestication of religious communities in a time of growing nationalism en exclusion. Transnational activity of religious communities and social actors is certainly not new, nor is the paradox between people living religious lives, locally and transnationally and states domesticating religions (Glick Schiller et al. 1994). However, emerging new forms of regulatory regimes both at a national and a local level have engendered new forms of transnational activity. The ever changing character of the ‘cosmologistical problem’ (Vasquez et al. 2003) informs and shapes new modes of transnational religious activity.
Keynote address: Prof. Dr. Manuel Vasquez (University of Florida, USA), Thursday morning, 16 April, entitled “Seeng Transnationally: Religion and the Emergence of New Regimes of Visibility and Discipline.”
Four panels
Transnational religious activism
Pilgrimage
Secular intolerance
Cosmopolitanism and religion
Entrance: free, and open to everyone! Registration: h.l.e.vander.linden@vu.nl
Please find the programme attached. We would appreciate it if you could distribute this invitation among your network and/or students.
We hope to welcome you on 16 and 17 April!
Best regards, on behalf of the conveners,
Heleen van der Linden
Please find details below of an exciting new funded PhD post, with an associated follow-on post-doctoral position, at Newman University, Birmingham. The PhD project will explore contemporary debates surrounding ‘science and religion’. Applications are welcome from psychological, historical or sociological perspectives:
https://www.newman.ac.uk/studentships/867
Please note that the timescale for the application process is tight; the closing date for application is 10th April. Do circulate to your networks, and email Dr Fern Elsdon-Baker (Fern.Elsdon-Baker@coventry.ac.uk) with any informal queries.
With best wishes,
Stephen
Stephen H. Jones
Research Fellow
Newman University, Genners Lane, Bartley Green, Birmingham B32 3NT
Please find details below of an exciting new fixed-term (2yrs 5 mnths) Research Associate position in the psychology of religion at Newman University, Birmingham:
https://www.newman.ac.uk/jobs/4205/research-associate-in-psychology-of-religion?1=m
Please note that the timescale for the application process is tight; the closing date for application is 13th April. Do circulate to your networks, and email Dr Fern Elsdon-Baker (Fern.Elsdon-Baker@coventry.ac.uk) with any queries.
With best wishes,
Stephen
Stephen H. Jones
Research Fellow
Newman University, Genners Lane, Bartley Green, Birmingham B32 3NT
to our members.
The Arab Revolution of 2011: A Comparative Perspective is just out:
https://www.sunypress.edu/p-5978-the-arab-revolution-of-2011.aspx
—
Said Amir Arjomand
Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology
Director of the Stony Brook Institute for Global Studies
Editor, Journal of Persianate Studies
State University of New York
Stony Brook, NY 11794
We would like to draw your attention to the call for applications for the 2015 UCSIA summer school on “Religion, Culture and Society: Entanglement and Confrontation”. This summer school is a one-week course taking place from Sunday 23rd of August until Sunday 30th of August 2015 (dates of arrival and departure). This year the programme will focus on the topic of Is Faith-based Violence Religious?
Topic:
Despite the predicted secularization process that would make religion less salient in the global world, the topic of faith biased violence remains hugely relevant, both from a societal and an academic perspective. Whether the movements are pro-democracy or pro-theocracy, religious movements are often instrumental in political change. Political tensions mapped onto religious discourse may also de-contextualize historical events, mythologize agendas and transform neighbours into ‘others’ while the struggle for ‘Truth’ renders defence into an act of aggression. Given UCSIA’s mission to delve into academically timely and challenging topics we will approach this phenomenon from an interdisciplinary perspective. More specifically, the UCSIA summer school will investigate both sides of the subject matter: Is religion inductive of or instrumental for violence?
Guest lecturers are Jonathan Fox (Religion and State Project, Faculty of the Political Studies, Bar-Ilan University); Peter Neumann (Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation); Marat Shterin (Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London); & Thijl Sunier (Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, VU University Amsterdam).
Practical details:
Participation and stay for young scholars and researchers are free of charge. Participants should pay for their own travel expenses to Antwerp.
You can submit your application via the electronic submission on the summer school website. The completed file as well as all other required application documents must be submitted to the UCSIA Selection Committee not later than Sunday 19 April 2015.
For further information regarding the programme and application procedure, please have a look at our website: https://www.ucsia.org/summerschool.
Please help us to distribute this call for application among PhD students and postdoctoral scholars who might be interested in applying for this summer school.
For all further information, do not hesitate to contact us on the address below.
Best regards,
Sara Mels
Project coordinator