Author Archives: Jim

CFP: Journal: Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion

Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Professor Ralph Hood and I, welcome your proposals for the Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion (RSSSR). The ‘Call for Papers’ is appended below. We both look forward to your responses
Many thanks
Sariya
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Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion
Edited by Ralph Hood & Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor
For more information, please visit brill.com/rssr
ISSN 1046-8064
Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion (RSSSR) is an interdisciplinary, international peer-viewed annual series, which publishes new and innovative research within the social scientific study of religion or belief. Contributions span a range of theoretical orientations, geographic contexts and research methods, though most articles are reports of original quantitative or qualitative research related mainly to the sociology and/or psychology of religion.
RSSR usually includes a guest-edited special section that allows networks of researchers to report studies in areas that are or current interest or which are innovative and expanding the discipline into new areas. For 2020, RSSR will include a special section on Feminist Approaches to the Sociology of Religion. This section will include chapter about research that utilises feminist epistemological frameworks to study lived experiences of religion or belief. For this issue we define feminist approaches broadly as those that
         use a gendered lens
         privilege lesser-heard voices including women
         reflect on researcher positionality
         seek societal transformation as an integral aspect of research.
Submitting Proposals: We invite proposals for the next edition of the RSSR. We welcome proposals from academics at all levels of their career, including early career researchers and final year PhD students. Please submit a title and abstract of no more than 300 words together with names and short biographies (150 words), institutional affiliation/s (if relevant), and contact details.
         Deadline for abstracts: 5pm on Monday 13th January 2020
         Notification of acceptance of paper: 30th January 2020
*         If accepted full papers will be due by 5pm Friday 31st April 2020
Manuscripts for both the main and special sections should be send to the editors, Ralph Hood (ralph-hood@utc.edu<mailto:ralph-hood@utc.edu>) & Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor (ac0967@coventry.ac.uk<mailto:ac0967@coventry.ac.uk>). For more information and submission guidelines please visit the Instructions for Authors document on brill.com/rssr, or contact the editor.
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Dr Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor
Assistant Professor | Research Group Lead | Faith and Peaceful Relations
Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University

Call for Papers: 3rd Annual Meeting of East Asian Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (EASSSR)

“Religion and Peace in East Asia: Reconsideration of Roles of Religion in the Post-Secular Age”

July 23-25, 2020
Jeju National University, Republic of Korea

Religion has always played an important role in promoting hope and vision for peace. Each religion present in both East and West emphasizes a religious importance of spiritual and ethical life based on justice, peace, brotherhood, and mercy. Religious beliefs and practices for the pursuit of a just and peaceful world should be considered more expansively at the political, social and national level as well as at the individual level, and further at the level of the entirety of humanity. The complex roles of religions in war and peace in modern times, especially in East Asian societies, should be examined more carefully and systematically.
With the global spread of political nationalism and economic protectionism, China, Japan, Korea, and other societies all face an internal conflict triggered by extreme oppositions and tensions within the established social order, while increasing the possibility of a clash between nations in the area. In this circumstance, both scholars of religion and peace need to pay more attention to social roles of religion through reflecting on a reconsideration of the revival of religion and, more specifically, the public roles of religion in the ‘Post-secular Age’ which needs a multi-layered dialogue beyond what “interreligious dialogue” has ever pursued.
Finding the spirit of religious tolerance and harmony inherent in East Asian religious traditions as well as religions introduced in modern times, papers based on various perspectives are welcome. In particular, priority will be given to papers that include the following topics and interests without any limitation to the geographical and cultural context and boundaries of East Asia.

  • Socio-historical studies on religion as an agent of peace or conflict
  • Relationship between religion and peace in the (post-) secular age.
  • Comparison of Eastern with Western religions in the quest for peace.
  • Case studies of peace building in East Asia.
  • Thoughts and practices of peace in traditional religions and/or newly-risen religions in East Asia.
  • Case studies of the transformations (or appropriation) of traditional religions.

However, any topic in the social scientific study of religion is welcome. In particular, any proposals of closed sessions organized by three or four papers are welcome, focusing on different perspectives within the same religious tradition. In the case of individual papers we will arrange them into each session in accordance with their topics.
Abstract Submission
Paper abstracts should be submitted from Dec 1, 2019 to Feb 15, 2020 by clicking below:

Submit Paper Abstracts for the 2020 EASSSR Annual Meeting

For more information about any fees of membership, registration, and accommodation, please visit the website http://www.easssr.org/ or send e-mail by easssr2020@gmail.com

Vol. 30/2 of the journal Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies

We are happy to announce the publication of Vol. 30/2 of the journal Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies. The issue includes articles and reviews by prominent Nordic researchers Malin Thor Tureby, Simo Muir, Johan Fischer, Göran Rosenberg and Karin Kvist Geverts.

You find the journal at https://journal.fi/nj/issue/current

Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies aims at promoting Jewish studies in Scandinavia by publishing scholarly articles, surveys and documents, essays and conversations as well as by reviewing recent literature. The contributions are published in one of the Scandinavian languages, or in English, German or French, with an abstract in English. The journal is strictly academic and does not pursue any special religious, political or cultural policy.

NJ is published open access online.

Thanks for the continuing interest in our work,

Karin Hedner Zetterholm & Ruth Illman

Editors of Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies

Seed Corn Funding Competition: Call for Applications

As part of its ongoing effort to invest in its membership, Socrel invites applications for seed corn funding to support the development of significant and innovative work in the sociology of religion.

This competition is open to Socrel members at any stage of their careers who are also members of the British Sociological Association (BSA) and based at a UK university.

We will make one award of up to £5000 to be used in 2021.

The deadline for applications is 15th January 2020. Applicants will be notified of the outcome by end of January/early February 2020.

This award may be spent, in line with the BSA’s terms and conditions, on travel, subsistence, a one-off work package delivered by a third party e.g. event recording, transcription, research expenses e.g. equipment, software, printing, but not salary or indirect costs/overheads/full economic costing (fEC). We are open-minded as to the type of activity the seed corn funding is used for, for example, a writing workshop, pilot fieldwork, but it must be clearly designed to develop further work.[1]

We welcome applications from groups of members. In this instance, there must be a designated lead applicant who is a Socrel and BSA member and all co-applicants must have at least Socrel membership.

Any seed corn activity must be undertaken in line with the (lead) applicant’s university’s codes of ethics and conduct and data protection policies. The BSA will pay the award to the successful (lead) applicant’s institution once an invoice has been received.

The application form (see appendix A), the lead applicant CV, and short CVs for any other co-applicant named (if applicable) must be emailed to the Socrel Convenor, Céline Benoit (c.benoit@aston.ac.ukmailto:c.benoit@aston.ac.uk).

A note of support for the proposal from the (lead) applicant’s line manager/head of department/postgraduate supervisor/institutional point of contact should also be emailed separately to Céline by the competition closing date.

Criteria:

Applications will be judged by the Socrel Chair, another Socrel committee member, and two independent volunteer Socrel members, using the following criteria, which are ranked in descending order, using the criteria used by the RCUK

  1. Eligibility of applicant(s): affiliation to a UK university; Socrel AND BSA membership for the (lead) applicant and at least Socrel membership for any co-applicants;
    2. Innovation;
    3. Significance;
    4. Clarity of pathway to output(s) and/or outcome(s) e.g. a research project proposal, publicly
    available report, film, journal article, social impact[2];
    5. Applicant background and experience and proposal match;
    6. Benefit to Sociology of Religion in the UK;
    7. Value for money.

Please email c.benoit@aston.ac.uk<mailto:c.benoit@aston.ac.uk> if you have any queries.

[1] Any event(s) organised should not clash with any Socrel-run ones or the BSA annual conference (please check the Socrel website or with Socrel Events Officer Rachael Shillitoe (rachael.shillitoe@york.ac.uk<mailto:rachael.shillitoe@york.ac.uk>) if unsure of scheduling).

[2] Here we follow the Economic and Social Research Council’s definition of social impact, please visit https://esrc.ukri.org/research/impact-toolkit/what-is-impact/ for details.

[CfP] Religion and Cultural Change: Summer School in Åbo/Turku 8-10.6 2020

Call for Papers

Welcome to an interdisciplinary summer school and conference to be held in Åbo/Turku 8–10 June, 2020.

Religion and Cultural Change

Conference website: www.abo.fi/rcc

Keynote speakers:

  • Prof. Catharina Raudvere, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Prof. Anders Runesson, University of Oslo, Norway
  • Prof. Rebecca Catto, Kent State University, Ohio, USA

The aim of this summer school and conference is to bring together doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers from various academic fields that engage with the study of religion, such as theology, religious studies, history, philosophy, the arts, social and political sciences and other. We invite papers that engage with the theme Religion and Cultural Change from both historical and contemporary perspectives, also looking to the future where possible. We understand cultural change both as dramatic breaking points in history and as slowly evolving transformations and will address past, present and emerging trends and trajectories within culture, society and the scholarly community. The societal relevance and impact of our research is also an important theme.

The summer school will consist of working groups, tutored by the keynote presenters and other academic teachers, where doctoral candidates are given the opportunity to present and discuss their ongoing PhD work in a cross-disciplinary, international setting. Postdoc researchers will present their papers in sessions running parallel to the summer school. Thematic groups and working groups dealing with particular theories or methodologies may also be held. 

To apply, please send an abstract of approximately 150 words to cscc@utu.fi no later than 15 January, 2020. Letters of acceptance will be posted no later than 15 February, 2020. Upon acceptance to the summer school, doctoral candidates will furthermore be asked to submit a 500-word synopsis of their research theme no later than 1 May, 2020.

The summer school is arranged as a joint venture between three different research bodies in Åbo/Turku: the Centre for the Study of Christian Cultures(CSCC) at the University of Turku, the Polin Institute for Theological Research at Åbo Akademi University and the Donner Institute for Research in Religion and Culture (DI).

Calls for Manuscripts for Special Issue on Religion, Gender and Violence

Religion and Gender Journal

The journal Religion and Gender invites article proposals for a special issue on Religion, Gender and Violence. The relationship between religion and violence is highly contested and has come under considerable scrutiny by scholars of religion.  Less understood is the relationship between gender, religion and violence and this special issue aims to contribute to understandings of the ways in which religion intersects with institutional, familial and public gendered violence as explored through current research via an interdisciplinary lens.
With the current roll out of public inquiries into institutional child sexual abuse across Ireland, England and Wales, Scotland, Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, it is clear that at a global level, it is religious organizations that have had the most widespread and highest levels of abuse against children with characteristically poor institutional responses to victims and their families. Public inquires have clearly established that religious organizations made strategic decisions to limit reputational damage at the cost of child safety and the implications of this for religious institutions is yet to be fully understood.

Violence against women and children in domestic settings where religion is a significant factor has also been the subject of ongoing and recent research indicating that there are specific issues at play for women and children in experiencing and reporting abuse and how it is managed by faith traditions. In important public debates on the status of gender diversity and difference, for example the marriage equality issue, there have been forceful responses to vulnerable cohorts from religious leaders, in social media and religious publications.
At the same time, there has been an important counter discourse articulated by religious groups around building religious and social capital that contributes to a pluralist understanding of the value of multi-religious societies and gender diversity. These discourses, most often articulated by more liberal religious groups but also increasingly by mainstream faith traditions, utilize the language of social justice and theological interpretation to construct narratives of gender inclusion and equity. This brings faith traditions into conflict within themselves over the framing of gender relations for the new century.

For this special issue, we invite manuscripts that address this convergence from a variety of perspectives on the function and meaning of gender, religion and violence and its counter-discourses.

The editors are particularly interested in receiving manuscripts that showcase empirical research that address, but are not limited to, the following areas and/or questions:

  • What role does gendered violence play in mainstream religious groups re maintenance of the faith tradition?
  • How are the impacts and experiences of gendered violence managed by religious organisations with regard to pastoral care and processes of remediation?
  • Who are the victims of gendered violence in religious organisations?
  • In what ways can feminist theory and theology contribute to and expand understandings of religion, gender and violence?
  • What role does non-religion and/or secularity play in relation to responding to and managing the disclosure of violence in religious organisations.
  • How well do public inquiries address gendered religious violence and what are the impacts on religious organisations with respect to particular case studies?

Submissions should be between 5000 and 8000 words in length (including abstract, footnotes and references). See Brill’s page for further information on submitting an article https://brill.com/view/journals/rag/rag-overview.xml .

Affiliation and email address should be supplied in the first submission. In order to guarantee a blind review process, all submissions should be anonymized with the name of and references to the author removed from the text. We are happy to receive inquiries about prospective submissions.

Please send all queries to the special issues editors:

SUBMISSION DATES
15 January 2020: Abstract Submission
15 August 2020: Full manuscript submission

Religious Journalism Award

“The International Association of Religion Journalists (IARJ) is a global network of journalists promoting excellence in the coverage of religion and spirituality. It provides services and resources to strengthen and support the work of its members. It engages media leaders, educational institutions and communities on the importance of accurate, balanced, and ethical religion coverage to foster understanding.”

I would like to draw your attention to a new journalism award.

The IARJ together with the Italian institute Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII (FSCIRE), http://www.fscire.it/index.php/en/, within the framework of the European Academy of Religion https://www.europeanacademyofreligion.org/euare2020, have launched a new journalism award for journalists based in Europe and in the Mediterranean basin, the Piazza Grande Religion Journalism Award, of which I am the coordinator.

The amount of the award, fully funded by the FSCIRE, is 2,500 euros. The deadline for submissions is 28th February 2020, and the works submitted must have been published between 1st January 2019 and 31st December 2019. An international jury of prominent journalists, which will be announced in a few weeks, will select the winner.

The goal of the award is to encourage the journalistic coverage of religion on the field, through work with a wide range of sources, portraying peace and conflict, dialogue and interfaith issues, and the most varied intersections of religion with politics, public life, culture and the arts, society and history, at local, regional or international level.

It is not necessary for applicants to be full-time religion reporters, as long as the story submitted has a relevant religion component.

Articles can be in any official language of Europe and the Mediterranean basin, but the submission must include a faithful translation in English or in French.

Here you can find a brief description of the award and the online entry form for submissions: https://www.theiarj.org/contest/

Here you can find the FAQs about the award: https://www.theiarj.org/frequently-asked-questions-piazza-grande-religion-journalism-award/

Here you can find the IARJ news story about the launching of the award in Bologna last March: https://www.theiarj.org/blog/2019/03/04/iarj-and-fscire-announce-new-piazza-grande-religion-journalism-award-for-european-and-mediterranean-journalists/

Thank you very much in advance.

Best wishes!

María-Paz López

Notices from the Australian Association for the Study of Religion

Call for Papers:
Conferences

  • International Conference on Religious Tourism (ICRT), University of Punjab, Lahore Pakistan, 8-9 January 2020. Abstract deadline: 11 November 2019. More info.
  • “Mosques, power and politics”, Copenhagen, Denmark, 22-24 January 2020. Abstract deadline: 15 November 2019. More info.
  • The 25th Nordic Conference in the Sociology of Religion. 17-19 August 2020, Gothenburg, Sweden on ‘Religious Organisation(s): Challenges and changes in contemporary society’. Session proposal deadline: 15 November 2019. More info.
  • British Muslim Charitable Organisations: A Best Practice Forum, Birmingham, 15 January 2020. Abstract deadline: 22 November 2019. More info.
  • Rethinking​ ​Media, Religion and Secularities. Conference of the International Society for Media, Religion and Culture Conference location: Sigtuna Foundation, Sigtuna, Sweden. Conference dates: 4-7 of August 2020. Deadline for Paper proposals: 6 December 2019. More info.
  • International Communication Association Preconference on Intersectional Imaginaries in Media, Religion & Gender, Gold Coast, Australia, May 2020. Proposal deadline 15 December 2019. More info.
  • The XXII Quinquennial World Congress of the IAHR, hosted by the New Zealand Association for the Study of Religions, will take place at the University of Otago, in Dunedin, New Zealand from 23-29 August 2020. Submission deadline 31 December 2019. More info.
  • Navigating the non/confessional in university Islamic studies. University of Birmingham. 20-22 April 2020. Submission deadline 17 January 2020. More info.

 Publications

  • Call for Papers on Digital Visibilities of the Religious. Deadline 15 January 2020. More info.
  • Call for papers on Religion & Ecology for a special issue of Religions. Deadline 31 May 2020.

Postgrad/ECR Opportunities

Also if you’re on Facebook, we have a postgrad page so do join us 🙂

New Publications
Oosterbaan, M., van de Kamp, L. and Bahia, J. (2019), Global Trajectories of Brazilian Religion: Lusospheres, London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Downloadable Memoir about David Martin

Jim Beckford and Grace Davie have written a memoir for David Martin, which is now available for download on the BA website at: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/biographical-memoirs-fellows-british-academy/18/martin-david-1929-2019

The download box is on the upper left-hand side of the page.
Copyright remains with the British Academy, but there is no obstacle to sharing the link widely.