XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology
Power, Violence, and Justice: Reflections, Responses, and Responsibilities
Toronto, Canada, July 15-21, 2018
RESEARCH COMMITTEE 22: SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION
Religion, Power, and Resistance: New Ideas for a Divided World
Program Coordinators:
Anna Halafoff, Deakin University, Australia
Sam Han, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Caroline Starkey, University of Leeds, UK
Current environmental, economic, social, and political challenges indicate that people are losing faith in existing power structures and mechanisms for coping with crises. This creates increasingly divided societies, riven by ideological battles for the future of the human and the more than human world. Religion has a place in this picture. Not only is it often a source of divisions; it can also be a source for alternative means of addressing them.
These divisions take new and as yet unclear shapes, which sociologists are only now beginning to comprehend. It is not enough to refer to the struggle between �?tradition’ and �?modernity’, terms that dominated sociology through the 1970s. Nor do the tropes �?colonialism vs. anti-colonialism’ and the �?clash of civilizations’ adequately explain what is going on. Nor, arguably, does �?populism vs neo-liberalism’ fully capture such things as the recent clashes between cosmopolitan and anticosmopolitan actors in the major Western democracies. Each of these has a piece of the picture; none of them captures it all.
What is religion’s role in this situation: as a creator of divisions, as a locus of power, and as a ground of resistance? How does religion influence our divided societies? How is religion influenced in turn?
We invite paper abstract submissions for the following RC22 sessions:
Religion and National Identity
Religion and Secularity
Religion and Non-Violent Social Movements
Religion, Gender and Family Violence
Religion in the East Asian Public Sphere
Religion in the Public Square
Social Theory and Religion
Religion and Migration: Contrasting First and Second Generations
Dynamics of Gender, Religion, and Intersectionality
Prejudice, Exclusion, and Violence in a Transnational World
Media and Religious Radicalization: Gatekeeping and the Construction of Extremism
Gender, Feminism, and Islam and the West
Candlelight Revolution and Religion in South Korea
Religious Texts of Diversity Vs Exclusion
We will also be including the following invited sessions in our RC22 program:
Presidential Address: Whither the Sociology of Religion? (Invited Session)
Session Organizer: James SPICKARD, University of Redlands, USA
Religion and Diversity: An International Study (Invited Session)
Session Organizer: Lori BEAMAN, University of Ottawa, Canada
Diffused Religion. Beyond Secularization – Author Meets Critic Session (Invited Session)
Session Organizer: Roberto CIPRIANI, University Roma Tre, Italy
The Case for an Indeterminate Sociological Theory of Religion (Invited Session)
Session Organizer: Tak-ling WOO, York University, Canada
The ISA CONFEX website site is now accepting paper abstracts between 25 April and 30 September 2017 24:00 GMT.
https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/wc2018/webprogrampreliminary/Symposium459.html
Please address any questions to the Program Coordinators:
Anna Halafoff: anna.halafoff@deakin.edu.au
Sam Han: HanSam@ntu.edu.sg
Caroline Starkey: C.Starkey@leeds.ac.uk