Conference Updates. John Bozeman CONFERENCES

Transcription

1 Conference Updates John Bozeman CONFERENCES American Academy of Religion (AAR): November 2007, San Diego, California, U.S.A. The AAR is one of the largest organizations in the world dedicated to the academic study of religion. The group s annual meeting brings together over 7500 scholars from some 70 program areas, including new religious movements. This will be the last joint session to be held concurrently with the Society for Biblical Literature (SBL). General questions can be sent to Aislinn Jones, the Annual Meeting Program Director, at ajones@aarweb.org (phone: ). More information can also be found at the AAR website at Upcoming annual meetings will be held in Chicago, Illinois (2008), Montreal, Quebec (2009), Atlanta, Georgia (2010), and San Francisco, California (2011). Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR): August 2007, New York City, New York, U.S.A. The theme for this year s meeting is Striving for a Better World: Religion and Social Change. The 2007 theme focuses on how different religions attempt to implement their vision of a better world by either sanctifying or challenging the status quo, and the consequences of their efforts for their own communities and their relationships with the secular world. Possible paper topics include: religions access to power, privilege, and prestige; religious competition throughout history; religious violence; degrees of religious participation in community advocacy and social services; religious cooperation vs. denominationalism in the pursuit of social change; tensions between religious groups and secular society; religious Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Volume 10, Issue 3, pages , ISSN (print), (electronic) by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press s Rights and Permissions website, at 117

2 Nova Religio groups political involvement and agendas; religious challenges to institutional arrangements, such as race, class, gender, and sexuality; competing religious understandings of and explanations for social change; clashing visions of a better world within particular religious communities; the ways that religious insiders and outsiders work to overcome long-standing conflicts; successes and failures of religious groups in their attempts at social change; and alternative religious movements. As always, sessions and papers that fall outside the formal theme are also welcome. For more information and the preliminary program for the conference, see the ASR website at sociologyofreligion.com, or contact the program chair, Rachel Kraus, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306, or via at ASR2007@bsu.edu. British Sociological Association/Sociology of Religion Study Group: 2 4 April 2007, St. Catherine s College, Oxford, England. The 2007 BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group conference will be conducted jointly with the U.K. Research Network for Theology, Religion, and Popular Culture. Full details of this conference were not available at press time; for updated information, see ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association [formerly AFF, American Family Foundation]): 29 June 1 July 2007, Brussels, Belgium. The guiding theme for this conference is Psychological Manipulation, Cultic Groups, and Other Alternative Movements. Sessions are expected in the following areas: recovery-oriented presentations for former group members; practical issues for family members/friends of people involved in cultic and related groups; legal and governmental topics; recent research developments; peer consultation and caseoriented discussions for mental health professionals; small seminar discussions for researchers; small seminar discussions for family members; and small seminar discussions for former group members. The Montreal-based organization Info-Cult/Info-Secte will be working with ICSA to make this an English-French bilingual conference with some presentations given twice, once in each language. Attendees and speakers at ICSA conferences are diverse, including academicians, helping professionals, former group members, current group members, families, clergy, educators, and others. For more information, contact the ICSA at mail@icsamail.com. Telephone: ; fax: For more information see conferences/2007brussels/ 2007_home.htm. Popular Culture/American Culture Associations National Conference: 4 7 April 2007, Boston Marriott Copley Place, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. The Popular Culture Association was founded as a spin-off of the 118

3 Bozeman: Conference Updates American Studies movement in the late 1960s. The PCA focuses on material culture, architecture, popular music, movies, comics, ephemera, and similar topics and is not restricted to the American context. The American Culture Association, on the other hand, focuses upon more traditional topics in American history, literature, and the arts. The 2007 conference will feature a number of sections that may be of interest to scholars of religion, including sections on vampires in literature, culture, and film; Arthurian legend; conspiracy theories and paranormal claims; Gothic culture; horror; medieval popular culture; and mythology in contemporary culture. For more information see the PCA/ACA conference website at Utopian Studies Society: July 2007, University of Plymouth, Devon, England. Full details of this conference were not available at press time; for updated information, see CALLS FOR PAPERS Society for the Scientific Study of Religion/Religious Research Association (SSSR/RRA) joint meeting: 2 4 November 2007, Tampa, Florida, U.S.A. The SSSR conference s guiding theme this year is Religion, Community, and Social Action. We have seen that religious organizations and activities can span continents and that religious identity can reinforce cultural and national background, but that it can also trump such affiliations. Papers that assess the variety of ways in which religion functions as a basis for the development of community identity, solidarity, and mobilization are especially invited. Papers on any topic related to the social scientific study of religion are welcome, but please give special consideration to these topics: religion as the spur for different types of social movements; the relationship between religious communities and race; the types of gendered communities that are created by religion; religious communities as opponents and supporters of gay rights; religious mobilization around immigrant rights; issues of transnationalism and religion; religion and ethnic nationalism; religious fundamentalisms; and religion and politics. Proposals for papers are due by 15 March 2007 and should be in the form of a concise abstract of 150 words or less, clearly stating the research question(s), chosen methodology, and preliminary findings (where applicable). Immediately before the abstract include the title of your presentation, your name, your institutional affiliation, and your address. Please send your proposal via to Prema A. Kurien, Program Chair, Department of Sociology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY sssr07@maxwell.syr.edu. For more information, see 119

4 Nova Religio As is customary, the Religious Research Association s annual meeting will take place concurrently with the SSSR. This year s RRA conference will focus on Changing Religious Forms and Connections. The structure of religious organizations is in a state of flux around the world. Not only are new forms of religious production emerging, but new networks among religious bodies are also developing in the place of, and often in conflict with, traditional relationships. Older organizational forms their authority models, systems of delivery, resource distribution and mission, and assumptions are changing, resulting in tension, competition and confusion. And given the naturally conservative nature of religious groups, changes often provoke resistance and retrenchment, as well as more radical efforts to jettison all traditionalistic impediments to more modern ways of building religious communities. We would like to use the coming year s meeting to explore these new forms and also the implications for older models. Topics and questions that may be explored include: cross-denominational networks of congregations, resource suppliers, and missions groups based on affinity (size, theological orientation, opposition to denominations, social agendas); new (or renewed) religious forms of gathering such as house church, emerging church, theater church, and cell church; changing structures of authority and accountability across denominational and judicatory lines; the effect of the global south on the global north ; Internet congregations and the implications of the web presence on face-to-face congregations ; specialized congregations such as rave churches, rap churches, cowboy churches, or grunge churches within and outside of denominations; the influence of megachurches and their use of satellite congregations and video-venue worship services; nondenominational resource providers effect on traditional denominational suppliers; denominational responses to new structural models that potentially undermine their authority and reason for being; the effect of switching of members and clergy across disparate religious traditions; the weakening of religious and denominational identity among individuals or congregations; the implications of congregations withdrawing from denominations; the challenges of continuing to finance mission efforts, and denominational life in the face of nondenominational competition; the effect of creeping congregationalism (and connectionalism) congregations appropriat-ing polity structures from other religious traditions and applying them to their own traditions; measurement and meaning of religious participation in this changing reality; and conflict within congregations and denominations sparked in part by these changes. As always, we solicit papers on all topics of a practical or theoretical nature relating to religion, especially (but not limited to) organized religions, denominations, and congregations. However, this year we especially encourage, sessions, papers, and panels that touch in some way on 120

5 Bozeman: Conference Updates questions related to structure (both in terms of organization and leadership) within older and newer religious organizations. Send proposals by to: Scott Thumma, Hartford Seminary, Include addresses and affiliations of all participants/authors on proposals. Paper proposal due (title and abstracts of 150 words or less): 15 March Completed papers due to discussants by 30 September For more information please see the RRA website at Society for Utopian Studies: 4 7 October 2007, Toronto Marriott Bloor Yorkville Hotel, Toronto, Canada. The Society is an international, interdisciplinary association dedicated to the study of utopianism in all of its forms, with a particular emphasis on literary and experimental utopias. Scholars and artists from all disciplines are encouraged to present on any aspect of the utopian tradition from the earliest utopian visions to the utopian speculations and yearnings of the twentyfirst century, including art, architecture, urban and rural planning, literary utopias, dystopian writings, utopian political activism, theorizing utopian spaces and ontologies, music, new media, or intentional communities. Abstracts may be submitted for any of the following: a paper, a panel (normally of three papers), an informal panel, or a presentation or performance of creative work on any topic related to utopian studies. Please send a word abstract by 10 May 2007 to Phillip Wegner, Department of English, P.O. Box , University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, or via at pwegner@english.ufl.edu. Further information see Please send conference announcements to: John Bozeman, Stratford University, 7777 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA jmb5b@yahoo.com 121