Monthly Archives: March 2018

New Book: Asian Migrants and Religious Experience

Dear Colleagues,

I am happy to announce the publication of our edited volume, Asian Migrants and Religious Experience. From Missionary Journeys to Labor Mobility, by Amsterdam University Press.

Bernardo Brown & Brenda Yeoh
Contributions by:
Arkotong Longkumer
Amanda Lucia
Kenneth Dean
Silvia Vignato
Bubbles Asor
Ester Gallo
Alexander Horstmann
Bernardo Brown
Brenda Yeoh
Jagath Pathirage
Weishan Huang
Janet Hoskins

Asian Migrants and Religious Experience

FROM MISSIONARY JOURNEYS TO LABOR MOBILIT

EDITED BY BERNARDO BROWN AND BRENDA S.A. YEOH

Distributed for Amsterdam University Press

312 pages | 21 halftones | 6 x 9 | © 2018
Typically, scholars approach migrants’ religions as a safeguard of cultural identity, something that connects migrants to their communities of origin. This ethnographic anthology challenges that position by reframing the religious experiences of migrants as a transformative force capable of refashioning narratives of displacement into journeys of spiritual awakening and missionary calling. These essays explore migrants’ motivations in support of an argument that to travel inspires a search for new meaning in religion.


—

Bernardo E. Brown, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Department of Society, Culture and Media
International Christian University

The Future of Salafism (5-6 December 2018), University of Oxford

Call for Papers

Future of Salafism

Conference, University of Oxford, 5-6 December 2018

(Jointly hosted by Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford, and the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies)

Like all ideologies and movements, Salafism— one of the most influential Islamic movement of the last century— is not monolithic. Not only have Salafi inspired groups evolved in different ways across different countries and contexts, in the same space Salafi reasoning can find multiple expressions or one mode of Salafi reasoning can give way to another in response to the changing context. Scholars widely recognise four visible expressions of Salafism: scholastic Salafis (those who focus on the scholarship); Salafi jihadis (those who use aspects of Salafi thought to justify militant Islam); political Salafis (those who use the Salafi thought to justify political action such as Surooris or Sahawis in Saudi Arabia or Al-Nour Party in Egypt), and Madkhalis (the quietest Salafis who accept the secular form of government). Right now, however, all these multiple expressions of Salafism are exposed to new pressures due to changing contexts. We have seen the impact of the Arab Spring on Salafi groups in the Middle East and Gulf regions especially Yemen, Libya and Syria; in the first two the Madkhalis have adopted a more jihadist approach and developments in the latter have created a space for merging of Salafi jihadists of different orientation. Juxtaposed against the recent shifts in Saudi Arabia1 — which along with Qatar is the only state to officially endorse Salafism — the future of Salafism is unpredictable. This conference isaimed at bringing together established scholars, post-doctoral researchers, as well as doctoral students who can offer original insights into how Salafi thought, and the diverse set of groups inspired by it, are evolving in different contexts in light of the post-Arab Spring developments and the changes unfolding within Saudi Arabia. This conference thus welcomes empirically rich case studies from different country contexts, which can shed light on any of the following questions:

- What changes has the Arab Spring triggered within different categories of Salafi groups in the Arab world? What lines of reasoning have different groups adopted to justify change in their approach or strategies? Have Salafi groups in one country context been influenced by groups in another country or region or have their responses to the Arab Spring been very localised?

- What is the Saudi state’s conception of ‘moderate Islam’? How does this conception of moderate Islam relate to Salafi and Wahhabi teachings? How are the leading Salafi and Wahhabi scholars within Saudi Arabia and beyond responding to the Saudi state’s call for a ‘return to moderate Islam’? Papers that can draw on detailed interviews with leading Salafi scholars in different contexts or on their writings or speeches to analyse how Salafi scholars and other Salafi movements are responding to changes within Saudi Arabia are very welcome.

The conference is being jointly hosted by the Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford and the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies and will result in an edited volume.

Those interested to participate in the conference are requested to submit a 500 word abstract to Professor Masooda Bano, Associate Professor, Oxford Department of International Development (masooda.bano@qeh.ox.ac.uk) and cc Dr Abdullah Bin Khalid Al-Saud, Director of Research, King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (a.alsaud@kfcris.com) by 15th June 2018. Selected participants will be informed of the outcome by the end of June 2018.

Symposium: Religion as Political Communication

Religion as Political Communication: A Symposium

10:00 - 16:00, 7th June 2018

Religion is communicated politically in multiple ways: by religious institutions and individuals, by governments with different approaches to religion, via various artistic and cultural expressions, by secular news media, and via digital platforms and communities (Lundby 2017). The types and contents of politically communicated religion are diverse and complex, ranging from the Church of England’s conservative stance on marriage as reserved for heterosexual couples, French lawmakers interpreting religious symbols such as the veil as ‘too political’, the West-End musical success ‘The Book of Mormon’, terrorist acts of violence committed in the name of religion, to representations of ‘Muslims’ as a non-diversified group. Religion can communicate political stances in both direct and indirect ways, such as when drawings of the Prophet Mohammad are considered as unacceptably irreverent expressions of free speech, or when specific positions on abortion, creationism, stem-cell research and euthanasia are inferred when someone declares their stance as ‘religious’. In this symposium, internationally leading scholars on religion and politics are invited to address and debate religion as political communication.

Programme

10:00 Welcome and introductions

10:15 Dr Elizabeth Poole (Keele University): Contesting #stopislam: Political frictions and appropriation in online spaces

10:45 Professor Jolyon Mitchell ((University of Edinburg): The Ambivalent Role of Religion and the Media Arts as Political Communication in Israel /Palestine

11:15 Q & A session

11:45 Lunch and networking

13:00 Dr Jasjit Singh (University of Leeds): The construction of ‘Sikh radicalisation’ in Britain

13:30 Professor Mia Løvheim (Uppsala University, Sweden): Religion, mediatization and a changing political landscape

14:00 Q & A

14:30 Coffee break and networking

15:00 Roundtable discussion

15:45 End of programme

Symposium organisers: Dr Line Nyhagen (Social Sciences), Dr Alexandre Christoyannopoulos (Politics, History and International Relations), PhD student Xinan Li (Social Sciences), Loughborough University.

For speakers’ abstracts, please see:

https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/crcc/events/eventslist/religion-as-political-communication.html

Thank you.

Best wishes

Line, Alex and Xinan

Loughborough University

Epinal Way

Loughborough

Leicestershire, UK

LE11 3TU

New book: Exploring the Multitude of Muslims in Europe - Essays in Honour of Jørgen S. Nielsen, Muslim Minorities, Volume 27, Brill Publishers

Dear friends and colleagues,

Allow me to share with you the news of the publication of Exploring the Multitude of Muslims in Europe - Essays in Honour of Jørgen S. Nielsen, Muslim Minorities Series, Volume 27, Brill Publishers.

In Exploring the Multitude of Muslims in Europe a number of friends and colleagues of Jørgen S. Nielsen’s have joined together to celebrate his life and work by reflecting his more than forty years of scholarly contributions to the study of Islam and Muslims in Europe. The fourteen articles move through conceptualisations, productions and explorations of the multitudes of Muslims in Europe, and the authors draw on Jørgen S. Nielsen’s own work on the history and challenges of the Muslim community in Europe, critical thinking, ethnicities and theologies of Muslims in Europe, Muslim minorities, Muslim-Christian relations, and on Islamic legal challenges in Europe. Contributors are: Samim Akgönül, Ahmet Alibašić, Naveed Baig, Safet Bektovic, Mohammed Hashas, Thomas Hoffmann, Hans Raun Iversen, Göran Larsson, Werner Menski, Egdūnas Račius, Lissi Rasmussen, Mathias Rohe, Emil B. H. Saggau, Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen, Thijl Sunier, and Niels Valdemar Vinding.

Brill have the Editor’s introductions available as a download from their website, as well with more information on the book:

https://brill.com/abstract/title/35678?rskey=hkypVm&result=1

And I have here a draft of my own chapter on ’Churchification of Islam in Europe,’ which Nielsen and others have considered from a number of perspectives:

https://www.academia.edu/36019922/Churchification_of_Islam_in_Europe

All the best,

Niels Valdemar Vinding <lbm993@hum.ku.dk>

7th GESIS Summer School in Survey Methodology

Dear colleagues,

The 7th GESIS Summer School in Survey Methodology takes place 02-24 August at GESIS in Cologne, Germany. The program is online, and registration is open at www.gesis.org/summerschool
15 scholarships by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) via CDSS as well as the European Survey Research Association (ESRA) are available. For more information on scholarships please visit www.gesis.org/summerschool.
15 courses are scheduled, among them 5 short courses and 10 one-week courses. Below is a list of all courses – including three new courses [NEW] and two courses that are back [BACK] to our program.

  • _Short courses (02 - 03 August)
    Pretesting Survey Questions (Meitinger/Lenzner) | NEW
    Introduction to Data Analysis Using Mplus (Blümke/Lechner/Danner)
    Research Designs and Causal Inference (Eifler/Leitgöb)
    Introduction to Data Analysis Using Stata (Schunck/Pforr)
  • _Week 1 (06 - 10 August)
    Introduction to Survey Design (Lugtig/Struminskaya)
    Introduction to Structural Equation Modeling (Reinecke/Kessler)
    Introduction to Data Analysis Using R (Kolb/Murray-Waters)
    Applied Multiple Imputation (Geißler/Heisig) | NEW
  • _Week 2 (13 - 17 August)
    Questionnaire Design (Fuchs/Metzler)
    Mixed-Mode and Mixed-Device Surveys (Toepoel/de Leeuw/Klausch) | BACK
    Web Survey Design (Couper/Schaurer) | BACK
  • _Week 3 (20 - 24 August)
    Meta-Analysis in Social Research and Survey Methodology (Weiß/Daikeler)
    Sampling, Weighting, and Estimation (Eckman)
    Designing, Implementing, and Analyzing of Longitudinal Surveys (Al Baghal/Cernat)
  • [20-21 Aug] Open Science and Open Data (Netscher/Perry/Schwickerath) | NEW

Thanks to our cooperation with the Center for Doctoral Studies in Social and Behavioral Sciences (CDSS) at the University of Mannheim, participants can obtain up to 4 ECTS credit points per one-week course.
Participants are invited to attend several plenary and social events including evening talks by experts in Survey Methodology, weekly welcome receptions as well as cultural and social excursions.

There is no registration deadline, but to secure a place in the course(s) of your choice and to book affordable accommodation, we strongly recommend that you register as soon as possible.

We would be very happy if you could forward this announcement to other potentially interested parties.

Thank you and best wishes,
Your GESIS Summer School team
—
GESIS – Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences
GESIS Summer School in Survey Methodology
email: summerschool@gesis.org
web: www.gesis.org/summerschool
fb: www.facebook.com/GESISTraining

Call for Manuscripts from Academica Press

Dear all, please take note:

Academica Press, a leading independent non-fiction publisher, is proud to call for manuscripts from dynamic scholars at all levels seeking to publish cutting edge work that challenges traditional disciplinary boundaries and provocatively revisits conventional topics. New publications will ideally be devoted to eclectic and under-explored issues and make imaginative uses of theory and method. Academica publishes actively in political science, international relations, history, literature, linguistics, religion, philosophy, cultural and regional studies, the arts, anthropology, law, and other fields.

The editorial director will gladly consider proposals for complete or nearly complete unpublished manuscripts.
Please direct all proposals and related inquiries via e-mail to:

The Editorial Director
Academica Press
editorial@academicapress.com

Call for Applications: Summer School “Religion in Cities”

Dear colleagues,

This is a reminder of the invitation to apply for the summer school “Religion in Cities: ContestedPresences, Contested Regulations” that I am organising, with the support of CRCG and ISOR-UAB, at the University of Groningen (Netherlands) on August 20-24 2018.

The summer school addresses a topic that generates heated political debates and that is increasingly discussed in the social sciences. It will provide undergraduate studentsin their last year of studies, as well as Master and PhD students in different disciplines with the means to reflect upon religious issues in cities from the perspective of sociology, geography, urban studies and religious studies.

The topic will be addressed from three different stand-points: a) theoretical perspectives to understand the presence, visibility and regulation of religious diversity in cities; b) methodological insights into how to research these topics and conduct fieldwork in concrete urban settings; and c) discussions about the political relevance and policy responses offered at the level of cities.

The deadline for applications is June 1, 2018.

Confirmed guest lecturers are: Dr. Avi Astor (Autonomous University of Barcelona), Dr. Marian Burchardt (University of Leipzig), Dr. Mar Griera (Autonomous University of Barcelona), Dr. Alexander-Kenneth Nagel (University of Göttingen), Dr. Joram Tarusarira (University of Groningen), and Dr. Stefania Travagnin (University of Groningen).

You can find further information about the preliminary program and lectures on our homepage.

Please, feel free to share this information with your colleagues and students and do not hesitate to contact me if you have any question.

Kind regards,

Julia Martínez

 

Summer School: “Religion in Cities: Contested Presences, Contested Regulations”, University of Groningen (Netherlands) on August 20-24 2018.

This is a reminder of the invitation to apply for the summer school “Religion in Cities: Contested Presences, Contested Regulations” that I am organising, with the support of CRCG and ISOR-UAB, at the University of Groningen (Netherlands) on August 20-24 2018.

The summer school addresses a topic that generates heated political debates and that is increasingly discussed in the social sciences. It will provide undergraduate students in their last year of studies, as well as Master and PhD students in different disciplines with the means to reflect upon religious issues in cities from the perspective of sociology, geography, urban studies and religious studies.

The topic will be addressed from three different stand-points: a) theoretical perspectives to understand the presence, visibility and regulation of religious diversity in cities; b) methodological insights into how to research these topics and conduct fieldwork in concrete urban settings; and c) discussions about the political relevance and policy responses offered at the level of cities.

The deadline for applications is June 1, 2018.

Confirmed guest lecturers are:

  • Dr. Avi Astor (Autonomous University of Barcelona)
  • Dr. Marian Burchardt (University of Leipzig)
  • Dr. Mar Griera (Autonomous University of Barcelona)
  • Dr. Alexander-Kenneth Nagel (University of Göttingen)
  • Dr. Joram Tarusarira (University of Groningen)
  • Dr. Stefania Travagnin (University of Groningen).

You can find further information about the preliminary program and lectures on our homepage: https://www.summerschoolsineurope.eu/course/9624/religion-in-cities—contested-presences-contested-regulations

Please, feel free to share this information with your colleagues and students.

Kind regards,

Julia Martínez

Dr. Julia Martínez-Ariño
Assistant Professor of Sociology of Religion
Department of the Comparative Study of Religion
Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Groningen

Summer School in Ethnography, 10-14 September - University of Trento

Dear Colleagues,

The Department of Sociology and Social Research at the University of Trento is organising a Summer School in Ethnography, 10th - 14th September 2018.

It is addressed primarily to Master, PhD and Post-Doctoral students and will be devoted to the interrelated topics of Diaspora, Emotions and Families in Urban Contexts.

Our keynote speakers will be Henrike Donner (Goldsmith, University of London), Ghassan Hage (University of Melbourne), Michele Lancione (University of Sheffield), Maruska Svasek (Queen’s University Belfast).

Please find more information in the attachment.

Deadline for application: 30th April.

Thank you for circulating the call among those who might be interested!

Best wishes,

Ester

Ester Gallo, PhD

Lecturer in Anthropology
Department of Sociology and Social Research
Via Verdi 26
38122 Trento, Italy
2017 The Fall of Gods. Memory, Kinship and Middle Classes in South India. Oxford University Press
2016 (with F.Scrinzi) Migration, Masculinities and Reproductive Labour. Men of the Home. Palgrave MacMillan