The International Association for the Psychology of Religion (IAPR) holds bi-annual conferences that serve as a meeting point for scholars from all over the world to share the latest research findings in the field.

We are pleased and honored to announce that the IAPR Conference 2019 will be held in Gdańsk, Poland and will take place from August 31st – September 3rd.

This year, we would like to summarize the current knowledge within the title Psychology of Religion and Spirituality: New Trends and Neglected Themes.

Please refer to the Conference website: https://poland2019.iaprweb.org/

• Open registration: 1st of Nov. 2018
• Deadline for abstracts: 1st of Feb. 2019

Organizers:

• International Association for the Psychology of Religion
• University of Gdańsk (Institute of Psychology)
• Polish Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

Sociology of Religion Study Group (SocRel) Annual Conference 2019

9-11 July 2019, Cardiff University

• Charles Hirschkind (University of California-Berkeley)
• Mia Lövheim (Uppsala University)
• Jolyon Mitchell (University of Edinburgh)

As scholars of religion, we are all tasked with communicating religion in one way or another – to students, to the public, and to our research community. Moreover, what we study is itself a message: participants in our studies and creators of the documents we analyse are communicating religion, and what we receive as data is what Giddens referred to as the ‘double hermeneutic,’ or ideas and experiences that have already been mediated. What is the religion communicated to us? How do we communicate religion, and what is it that we communicate when we’re doing it?

Our focus is on “communicating” as a verb-like gerund rather than “communication” as a static, abstract noun. Scholars from different strands of the sociology of religion can imagine their work in it, and our topic engages the interests of colleagues in journalism, media and cultural studies; geography; music; English, communications and philosophy; social psychology; and law and politics.

The substance of communication can include evangelistic and apologistic discourse, education, media, and public policy interventions. We welcome diverse methodological approaches, including multi-modal and multi-sensory approaches to communicating religion. We understand communicating in multiple contexts, including academia, politics, education, social media and mass media. We imagine multiple frameworks that contour how we imagine communicating religion, encompassing the secular and the digital, the individual and the collective, the implicit and the explicit, the theoretical and the empirical.

To deliver a paper, please send an abstract of no more than 250 words, alongside a biographical note of no more than 50 words. We will also be accepting a limited number of panel proposals. To deliver a panel, please send an abstract of no more than 500 words alongside a biographical note of no more than 50 words for each contributor.

Please submit your abstracts online, before midnight Friday 1 February 2019, at: https://portal.britsoc.co.uk/public/abstract/Abstracts.aspx

Conference Bursaries: A limited number of bursaries are available to support postgraduate, early career, low income or unwaged SocRel members to present at the conference. Please visit https://www.britsoc.co.uk/media/24891/socrel-2019-bursary-application-form.docx for instructions, and to download an application form, and submit your bursary application along with your abstract by 1 February 2019.

Socrel is mindful of the various sensitivities people carry concerning content. If you feel that the presentation you give may include material that may be upsetting, please consider including a note about this content in your abstract. We will not restrict or censor presentations that include sensitive or alarming content, but by flagging it in the abstract, those who attend the conference can make informed decisions on which panel they might choose to attend.

• Abstract submission: Open now
• Early bird registration opens: 3 November 2018
• Abstract submission closes: 1 February 2019
• Decision notification: 15 February 2019
• Presenter registration closes: 29 March 2019
• Early bird registration closes: 7 June 2019
• Registration closes: 28 June 2019

Please note that after 7 June 2019, a £50 late registration fee will apply to all bookings.

Should you have other questions about the conference please also contact the conference organisers, Dr Michael Munnik (Cardiff University) or Dr Peter Hemming (Cardiff University) socrel19@cardiff.ac.ukmailto:socrel19@cardiff.ac.uk

For further details, visit the SocRel website: www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/sociology-of-religion-study-group/<http://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/sociology-of-religion-study-group/> For further details about the BSA visit www.britsoc.co.uk<http://www.britsoc.co.uk/>

The Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM) is pleased to announce its first annual conference, to be held at the University of Bedfordshire (Bedford Campus) 27-28 June 2019.

The theme of the conference is The Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements: Critical and Interdisciplinary Approaches.

The aim of the conference is to facilitate critical and interdisciplinary discussion of apocalypticism, millenarianism and associated movements across time, place, and culture, and will cover academic fields such as anthropology, archaeology, biblical studies, critical theory, cultural studies, history, literary studies, political studies, psychology, religious studies, sociology, etc. The interdisciplinary scope is broadly understood to include methodologies, comparative approaches, and showcasing of research more specific to individual fields of expertise.

Speakers include:

• John J. Collins (Yale Divinity School)
• Vanessa Harding (Birkbeck College, University of London)
• Bill McGuire (University College London)
• Sarah Rollens (Rhodes College)
• Beth Singler (University of Cambridge)
• Fatima Tofighi (EUME, Berlin/University of Religions, Qom)
• Paul-Francois Tremlett (Open University)

We invite individual paper proposals from scholars at all stages of their career, including postgraduates, and we welcome suggestions for group panels. Please submit proposals to conference@censamm.org. Submissions for papers should include a 300-word abstract and short CV.

Deadline for proposals: 31 March 2019.

Please see the Censamm website for more information: https://censamm.org/conferences

The Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” and the chair of the sociology of religion at University Münster as well as the chair of practical theology at University Siegen are organizing the conference “Religiosity in east and West – Conceptual and Methodological Challenges” in Münster, Germany, on 25-27th June 2019. The conference results from collaboration between Dr. Sarah Demmrich (psychologist of religion, Post-Doc at the chair of sociology of religion) and Prof. Dr. Ulrich Riegel (Professor for practical theology and religious education).

Proposal deadline: January 15, 2019

We welcome contributions with a scope on the psychology of religion, the sociology of religion as well as on theology. Additionally, we would be glad to attract scholars from different cultural backgrounds. Please submit a paper abstract (250 – 300 words) to Sarah Demmrich by January 15, 2019.

Conference description:

The concept of religiosity as a highly individual aspect of religion and its research was shaped in Protestant circles in the Western context (Belzen, 2015). It inspired a huge body of research and further developments in the psychology of religion, the sociology of religion, and theology. In non-Western contexts, however, this concept has been proven only partially effective for the description and measuring of religiosity. This observation raises the question if research on religiosity is a science of Western Christianity (Cutting & Walsh 2008; Hill & Hood, 1999). Even within the Western context the present concepts and instruments are only partially applicable to measure religiosity in highly religious individuals adequately. For example, an orthodox belief, which is practiced in some Protestant Free Churches, often does not contradict with life in a modern society (Vermeer & Scheepers, 2017). This observation raises the question if the contemporary conceptualizations and operationalization of religiosity are too strongly oriented towards the ideal of an enlightened and individualized belief.

In light of these two observations, the Münster conference discusses the established concepts of religiosity and aims to expand them by alternative concepts where appropriate. For example, genuine approaches from non-Western cultures can add to the contemporary discourse of religiosity research (e.g., concepts of Muslim or Hindu religiosity). Similarly, a new understanding of highly religious milieus, which are – against the secularization theory – growing in modern societies, can stimulate a new concept of religiosity beyond individualized belief (e.g., Fresh Expressions, Mega Churches).

Besides conceptualizing non-individualized religiosity, another challenge is the application of measures that grew out of the classic concepts of religiosity to the non-Christian and/or non-Western context (Dover, Miner, & Dowso, 2007; Ghorbani, Watson, Sarmast, & Chen, 2018). However, first approaches of religion- and culture-sensitive measures for different contexts have been developed during the last years (e.g., Abu-Raiya & Pargament, 2011; Ağılkaya-Şahin, 2015; Kamble, Watson, Marigoudar, & Chen, 2014; Loewenthal & Solaim, 2016; Ok, 2016). These do not only allow a more differentiated description of such religiosities, but also facilitate a valid research on its correlates. However, there has been only a few of such alternative measures of non-individualized religiosity until today and more instruments of this kind are needed which proof appropriate to various cultural contexts.

Conference details:  https://www.uni-muenster.de/Soziologie/organisation/religiosity_east_and_west.shtml