RELIGION AS RESOURCE: LOCAL AND GLOBAL DISCOURSES

Call for Papers
Summer School Workshop

RELIGION AS RESOURCE: LOCAL AND GLOBAL DISCOURSES

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology Asia-Orient-Institute University of Tübingen Graduate Academy for Academics and Scientists (Excellence Initiative, DFG funded)

Convenors: Dr Vibha Joshi and Dr Andrea Luithle-Hardenberg

18-20 July 2014

Venue: Schloss Hohentübingen

Over the last decade, debates and discussions on religion have gained in importance as its relevance has increased in global politics and international relations. The Summer School Workshop takes into account the continuing contemporary relevance of religion (and secularism) as an integral part of modernity. The Summer School Workshop focuses on religion as resource. It will address its role in ideology, education, healing practices, shaping and marking the landscape, art, ritual economy, religious revival and conversion.

The theme ‘Religion as Resource’ will explore the (dictionary) meaning of the term resource as ‘assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively’ and as ‘an action or strategy which may be adopted in adverse circumstances.’ The concept of resource can be broad and take account, for instance, of such widely varying approaches as that concerned with divergent modes of religiosity or with religion as a cultural system. In accepting that what constitutes religion for a person and community is as varied as the idea of religion itself, the Summer School Workshop will explore different interpretations communities and individuals place on religion in times of both peace and conflict.

The Summer School Workshop, ‘Religion as Resource’, draws on the research expertise of invited, international scholars and current projects of faculty members of the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Tübingen University: International scholars who have confirmed participation are: Dr Masooda Bano (Oxford, UK), Prof Dr Simon Coleman (Toronto, Canada), Prof Dr John Cort (Denison, USA), Dr Sondra Hausner (Oxford, UK), Dr Jonathan Miles-Watson (Durham, UK), Prof Dr Magnus Marsden (Sussex, UK). Faculty from Tübingen, Germany: Prof Dr Roland Hardenberg, Dr Vibha Joshi, Dr Andrea Luithle-Hardenberg, Dr Shahnaz Nadjmabadi.

The Summer School will be conducted in English and take the form of a workshop with lectures by the international academics in the field of religion. Separate panels will include papers on a particular theme presented and discussed by a mixture of established academics, doctoral students and recent post-doctorates. The aim is to bring together experts from universities within and outside Germany in an intensive academic exchange and to facilitate networking of PhD students from Tübingen and other German/European universities with each other and with the visiting academic experts.

The Summer School Workshop invites papers from post-fieldwork doctoral students from within Germany and other European Universities on the following related themes in which religion is drawn on as a resource or asset by a person or a community in order to function effectively or to deal with an adverse situation: religion as ideology, religion in diaspora, religion and nationalism, religion and healing, religion and development, religion and education, religion and landscape (sacred cartographies, pilgrimage), religion and materiality, religion and ritual economy and religion and renunciation. We invite applications for
10 doctoral bursaries which will cover accommodation for four nights in Tübingen for the duration of the workshop 18th - 20th July 2014. To apply for participation and bursaries please send a 300 word paper abstract along with a short bio-data to reach by 10 April 2014 to: Dr Vibha Joshi (vibha-joshi.parkin) and Dr Andrea Luithle-Hardenberg (andrea.luithle-hardenberg)