http://www.aarweb.org/Meetings/Annual_Meeting/Current_Meeting/Program_Book/highlights.asp
Program Highlights
October 30-November 1, 2010
Atlanta, GA
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(CCC) Special Topics Forums
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A7-100 Special Topics Forum Theme: Student Town Hall Meeting: "Yes We Can!" The Future of Students in the AAR Sponsored by the Graduate Student Committee Students comprise one third of the membership of the AAR. We bring renewed vitality and fresh perspectives to the study of religion. And, yes, we know how to have a good time. Can we shape the future of the Academy? Yes we can! Join us for our Student Town Hall, a forum where you can offer your suggestions, hear about new initiatives led by the Graduate Student Committee, and get a preview of this year's student-focused programming. Topics about which we are most concerned include how you can be involved in the AAR, ways you can be a force for positive change in your department, and of course, how you can secure research funding and navigate the career search. Our future is full of promise. Yes we can! |
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A7-101 Special Topics Forum Theme: Queer Careers Sponsored by the Status of LGBTIQ Persons in the Profession Task Force Come take part in a conversation about the intersections of LGBTIQ identity and LGBTIQ studies with the career paths of religious studies scholars. What are the ramifications of decisions to stay in the closet or to be out? What career paths are open to queer scholars? Should you wait until tenure to do LGBTIQ work? How do you deal with homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia in the workplace and in graduate school? All of these questions and more are on the table for this Special Topics Forum. The panelists will begin the forum with reflections on their own career paths; then the floor will be open for a broader conversation about these critically important issues. |
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A7-200 Special Topics Forum Theme: (In)formation: Religious Studies and Theological Studies Sponsored by the Academic Relations Committee and Theological Education Steering Committee Common wisdom suggests that there is a disconnect between faculty interest in forming students academically and student interest in spiritual or religious formation. What are our responsibilities for forming our students? Are they purely academic? Spiritual? Does institutional context play a role in this? Is such formation different for seminaries, divinity schools, religiously-affiliated undergraduate programs, state schools, or private universities? What if a faculty member has interest in such formation, especially since so many of their students, as the Walvoord study illustrates, have interest in such formation? This Special Topics Forum will explore the role of religious studies and theological studies in forming, informing, deforming, and reforming students. The panelists, drawn from different institutional contexts, will present their varying perspectives on the question of formation and invite the audience into a lively discussion over this important issue. |
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A7-201 Special Topics Forum Theme: Publishing Your Book: Thoughts from Oxford University Press and from the Editors of the AAR Book Series and JAAR Sponsored by the Publications Committee Based on notions that scholars have an understanding of the books needed in the fields of religion, religious studies, and theology, the AAR publishing program with Oxford University Press (OUP) produces quality scholarship for religion scholars and their students. OUP is an outstanding international publisher and the AAR has published hundreds of titles, many of which have become critical tools in the development of our fields and in training new scholars. AAR/OUP books include five published series: Academy Series; Reflection and Theory in the Study of Religion Series; Religion, Culture, and History Series; Religion in Translation Series; and Teaching Religious Studies Series. The JAAR Editor will also discuss essay publishing. The panel provides an opportunity to hear from experienced OUP and AAR editors, and to ask any and all questions you might have regarding the AAR/OUP series. There will also be opportunities to speak with an individual editor. |
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A7-202 Special Topics Forum Theme: To Sustain and Renew: AAR, NativeEnergy, and Building Supportive Partnerships between Academia and First Nations/First Peoples Sponsored by the Sustainability Task Force and NativeEnergy This year, the Sustainability Task Force inaugurates the AAR’s newest innovative environmental initiative. Beginning with the Montréal meeting, AAR has linked its online registration process with NativeEnergy to encourage all those attending to offset their production of carbon dioxide emissions generated by travel to the Annual Meeting. Through its third-party verified and certified Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) and offsets, NativeEnergy helps to build Native American, farmer-owned, community-based renewable energy projects that create social, economic, and environmental benefits. This Special Topics Forum is essentially a working session to discuss ways that the AAR, similar scholarly organizations, and the broader realm of academia can take a greater role in supporting environmental sustainability efforts, while helping to support and sustain native cultures in the process. |
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A7-301 Special Topics Forum Theme: "Our Home and Native Land": Colonial Encounters and the History of Religion, Spirituality, and the Secular Sponsored by the American Lectures in the History of Religions Seeking both to recognize and interrogate the history of our discipline, the History of Religions Jury, under the auspices of the American Lectures in the History of Religions, has convened the Centennial Scholars Panel. Four distinguished scholars and artists will discuss how their work explores some of the ways that colonialism has shaped categories of religion, spirituality, and the secular, especially within the Americas. With increasing awareness of the legacies of colonialism for the study of religion, scholars have gained perspective on the discipline's contributions both to naturalizing colonialism and to confronting colonial and postcolonial uses of religion for identity creation and domination. The title, taken from the Canadian anthem, points to the unavoidable ambivalence of being “at home” in postcolonial worlds. Gathering together such creative and interdisciplinary conversation partners, the panel offers an extraordinary chance to rethink what it is to be at home in the study of religion. |
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A7-302 Special Topics Forum Theme: Diasporas of Religion and Religions of Diaspora Sponsored by the International Connections Committee Globalization and diaspora have become closely related terms and concepts. Religion, in a sense, has always had a tendency to go global; this happened, for example, way before our current globalization when Christians, under a missionary impulse and with missionary zeal, worked tirelessly to take the Christian traditions to other peoples and other lands. The late Jacques Derrida has, of course, famously called capitalist globalization, or the continuation of the religiously implicated imperial project that started from the old Roman Empire, “globalatinization.” During this capitalist globalization, people moving across borders to study, work, and live also bring their religions with them wherever they go. Panelists in this forum will interpret and further nuance the relations between diaspora and religion from various traditions. |
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A8-101 Special Topics Forum Theme: The Big Lie: The Mismatch of Job Expectations and Placement Reality Sponsored by the Academic Relations Committee and Job Placement Task Force Results from the 2008 AAR Survey of Graduate Students and data from the AAR Job Center reveal a growing gap between the placement expectations of students and their advisors, on the one hand, and the reality of the job market, on the other. While the vast majority of doctoral candidates expect to secure tenure-track positions in the field, statistics show that most are unable to do so. Meanwhile, the nature of the field of religion has undergone major shifts in recent years, but graduate programs continue to graduate large numbers of students prepared to teach in subfields for which openings are scarce. This panel will bring together leadership from major doctoral granting programs, recent graduates who have navigated the job market, and members of the Job Placement Task Force and Academic Relations Committee to discuss "the big lie" regarding the job market in the academic study of religion. |
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A8-200 Special Topics Forum Theme: Transnationalism and Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning Beyond Borders Sponsored by the International Connections Committee and Teaching and Learning Committee “Globalization of Religion in North America” means, among other things, an increasing diversity in our classrooms for religious/theological studies. Not only does this diversity need to be understood in terms of race/ethnicity, and religion, as well as national origin and world region, but it also takes place on both sides of the dais. Students who come to North America to study may become faculty members "here" or “back home.” Likewise, students from North America also cross borders and/or oceans to study and/or teach. What implications do these transnational movements have for our pedagogical reflections and practices? Panelists in this forum will address issues and conflicts that have arisen in their transnational experiences as students and/or faculty members, and suggest how we may teach in a way that helps bring about a greater global consciousness and transnational competence among students. |
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A8-202 Special Topics Forum Theme: How to Propose a New Program Unit Sponsored by the Program Committee Join the Director of Meetings for an informal chat about upcoming Annual Meeting initiatives as well as the guidelines and policies for proposing a new program unit. |
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A8-203 Special Topics Forum Theme: The Marty Forum: James H. Cone Sponsored by the Public Understanding of Religion Committee The recipient of the 2009 Martin Marty Award for contributions to the public understanding of religion is James H. Cone, the Charles A. Briggs distinguished professor of systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary. Cone is the author of eleven books, including Black Theology and Black Power (1969) and A Black Theology of Liberation (1970). He is also the author of the highly acclaimed God of the Oppressed (1975) and Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or a Nightmare? (1991). His most recent publication is Risks of Faith (1999). He has also published over 150 articles and has lectured at more than 1,000 universities and community organizations throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The Marty Forum provides an informal setting in which Cone will talk about his work with Cornel West, the Class of 1943 professor at Princeton University. |
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A8-250 Special Topics Forum Theme: Reasonable Accommodation in Québec: Reflections with Cochairs Charles Taylor and Gerard Bouchard Sponsored by the Public Understanding of Religion Committee In February 2007, Premier Jean Charest called upon Charles Taylor and Gerard Bouchard to head up a commission on the question of Reasonable Accommodation. The commission was in response to a series of highly publicized events in which non-Christian immigrant minority groups were seen to be making “unreasonable” demands upon the people of Québec to accommodate their religious requirements. The commission was unique in that it included twenty-one regional citizen’s forums in which individuals were given 90 seconds to voice their opinion, concerns, and desires for the future of interreligious relations in Québec. The final report delivered in May 2008 has had mixed reviews from politicians, religious, and nonreligious interest groups. This forum provides the opportunity for the co-chairs to offer their reflections on the process, the issues raised, and the future of interreligious relations in Québec and beyond. The 90-minute session will be moderated by a Montréal broadcaster, include a brief introduction to the history of the commission with a ten-minute film clip of highlights from the commission, a thirty-minute moderated reflective discussion with both Taylor and Bouchard followed by an open question and answer period with members of the audience. |
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A8-279 Special Topics Forum Theme: Cracks in the Tower: Barriers to a Career in Religion Sponsored by the Graduate Student Committee and Job Placement Task Force This Special Topics Forum addresses many of the barriers that make navigating the academy a difficult process (for example, issues of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, language, physical mobility, etc.). Panelists will share strategies for negotiating many of these barriers and for maintaining human flourishing in the academy. Panelists will also address the current job market and the many challenges that graduate students may face in the job application and interviewing process. |
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A8-301 Special Topics Forum Theme: Queering Communities of Color Sponsored by the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession Committee The session will explore the tensions existing within religious communities of color over issues relating to LGBTIQ. |
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A9-100 Special Topics Forum Theme: Global Economies of the Sacred Sponsored by the International Connections Committee For many, globalization means, first and foremost, what Mary Elizabeth Gallagher calls “contagious capitalism.” What then might be the relations between the global market and the globalization of religion? In this forum, our panelists will address not only how economic factors might be influencing the spread and exchange of religions, but also how religions themselves might function as goods and services for transactions in a globalized world. |
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A9-101 Special Topics Forum Theme: Got Life Yet? A Structural Analysis Sponsored by the Status of Women in the Profession Committee Many faculty members find themselves struggling to work out a reasonable balance between the demands of work and their other commitments. While the solutions that people find for themselves may be very creative, they are generally highly individualized and are often achieved at great personal cost. This Special Topics Forum begins from the premise that problems of work/life balance are structural and demand structural responses. Participants will place what are often experienced as individual difficulties in a larger context and reflect on policy changes that might allow and encourage people to be productive and committed teachers and scholars and still live sane and well-rounded lives. |
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A9-102 Special Topics Forum Theme: AAR Guidelines for Teaching About Religion in K–12 Schools Sponsored by the Religion in the Schools Task Force The AAR Board of Directors has approved a proposal by the Religion in the Schools Task Force to construct AAR guidelines for teaching about religion in K–12 schools. This session will focus on the final draft of this three-year initiative and is intended as an opportunity to solicit feedback from AAR members. These guidelines are written for teachers, administrators, school boards, parents, and other citizens who seek guidance regarding how to teach about religion responsibly. They complement guidelines put out by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE), where religion is referenced but not elaborated upon. |
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A9-201 Special Topics Forum Theme: Religion Scholars and National Governments: Should They Be Partners? Sponsored by the Public Understanding of Religion Committee National governments come and go, reflecting a wide variety of political and normative positions. In an era when national governments wage international wars on terror, establish government funded faith-based initiatives, and launch public diplomacy programs aimed at countries that are not majority Christian, new opportunities and new perils await scholars of religion. Do scholars have a positive duty to serve their national governments when asked to contribute their insights? What criteria should scholars employ when weighing whether or not to respond to government solicitations? Do scholars have a moral duty to resist cooperation with national governments under contemporary conditions? Is it desirable to serve parts of the national government even when objecting to policies elsewhere in the administration? This international panel will take up these questions and others against the background of relatively new national governments in Canada and in the United States. |
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A9-300 Special Topics Forum Theme: The Turn to Spirituality: Enlightenment after the Enlightenment? Sponsored by the Theological Education Steering Committee That there is a widespread cultural turn to discourses about “spirituality” over the last several decades is incontestable. Interest in spiritual disciplines is high and the descriptor “spiritual but not religious” has become commonplace. This interest in spirituality is also deeply-rooted among seminary and divinity school students; students in a variety of institutions are calling for curricular attention to spirituality. Nonetheless, much remains unclear. What do we mean by “spirituality?” Can spirituality be taught? What accounts for the cultural turn toward spirituality? Is this interest in "enlightenment" a sign of the end of the Enlightenment? Are we in a postmodern moment wherein it becomes credible once more to think again about the relationship between knowing and the formation of the knower? If philosophers can speak without blushing of “philosophy as a way of life” (Hadot), what then about theologians? What might this turn to spirituality mean for theological education? |
(DDD) Wildcard Sessions
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A8-102 ***Wildcard Session Other Theme: Priestly and Lay Dimensions of Zoroastrianism |
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A8-204 ***Wildcard Session Other Theme: International Christian Perspectives on Christian Zionism |
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A8-251 ***Wildcard Session Other Theme: Paul Ricoeur and Theology: The Hermeneutics of Texts and the Phenomenology of Experiences |
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A8-252 ***Wildcard Session Other Theme: Whither the "Death of God": A Continuing Currency? |
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A8-303 ***Wildcard Session Other Theme: Building a Successful Academic Center: Religion, Politics, and Public Engagement |
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A8-304 ***Wildcard Session Other Theme: Studying Religion and International Development: Affinities, Intersections, and Potentials |
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A9-202 ***Wildcard Session Other Theme: Approaches to the Study of African Diaspora Religions |
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A10-100 ***Wildcard Session Other Theme: The Revitalization of Aboriginal Spirituality in Canada |
(EEE) Sessions Honoring AAR Award Winners
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A7-102 Special Topics Forum Theme: A Celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of the AAR Excellence in Teaching Award: A Participatory Workshop with the Excellence in Teaching Award Recipients Sponsored by the Teaching and Learning Committee and Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion You are invited to a workshop session on teaching. To reserve your place at the workshop, contact Tina Pippin at tpippin@agnesscott.edu. Workshop Schedule: 9:00 am: 11:30 am: |
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A7-311 Black Theology Group Theme: Fortieth Retrospective of Cone’s Black Theology and Black Power: The Next Forty Years A Black Theology of Liberation or Legitimation? A Neo-Washingtonian Critique of Cone’s Black Theology This presentation argues that Black Theology responded not to black power, but to the crisis of meaning that black power posed to black Christians, scholars, and clergymen who were loyal to the Civil Rights movement. The liberation that began as a rejection of dehumanizing racism and an affirmation of black life now functions as legitimation that increases the social capital of the black middle class by making poor people the object, not the agents, of their own theological praxis. Because James Cone only partially responds to Joseph R. Washington’s Black Religion (1964), black theology has developed on a trajectory of arrested development and methodological bias. Using a Neo-Washingtonian conceptual framework, I identify four contested boundaries of black religion that Washington presents to the Conian tradition. In conclusion, I propose several strategies to reinvent black theology, including different research methodologies, new spaces for ingroup criticism, and expanded engagement with sociological theoretical perspectives. A "Collective Black" Liberation in the Face of "Honorary White" Racism? A Growing Edge for United States Black Liberation Theologies James H. Cone argues that the social sin of white racism must be at the foundation of any true Christian theology in the United States. Nevertheless, there is a burgeoning problem for Cone’s project: the emerging racial structure within the United States is becoming three-tiered rather than two-tiered. As sociologists such as Eduardo Bonilla-Silva point out, the paradigm is now comprised of three categories, whites, “honorary” whites, and “collective” blacks, and exhibits a “new racism” that continues white supremacy in a different way. My study is a theological investigation into this changing racial reality within the United States and suggests a growing edge for the theologies of black liberation. I employ mutually critical correlation to bring the theological work of Cone into dialogue with the sociological work of Bonilla-Silva. To further Cone's project, I suggest an adjustment in the social analysis of black liberation theologies to account for this emerging racial paradigm. From Black Theology and Black Power to Afrocentric Theology and Hip-Hop Power: An Extension and Socio-re-theological-conceptualization of Cone’s Theology in Conversation with the Hip Hop Generation In this paper Cone’s Black Theology and Black Power will be put in conversation with two hip hop socio-theologians, Lauryn Hill and Talib Kweli. The next move in black theology will be led by the hip hop generation and this move will be towards an Afrocentric/African centered theology. The method and sociotheological conditions that surrounded Cone’s work will be compared and contrasted with the present state of affairs in the African American community. Cone was writing after the assignations of Malcolm X and Martin L. King Jr. Hip hop is writing after the election of President Barrack Obama. Hip hop is raising theological questions as one generation celebrates the realization of a dream hip hop is rapping about a nightmare. The theological tension between Cone’s generation, my generation, and hip hop will also be explored in this paper. The Prophetic Persona of James Cone and the Rhetorical Construction of Black Theology It has been forty years since James Cone burst on the scene with his provocative and challenging book Black Theology. However, as Black Theology made its way through the halls of academia, Cone faced not only theological challenges but he also faced rhetorical challenges along the way. In this essay, I argue that in order to present Black Theology as a theological enterprise, Cone not only drew upon the rhetoric of black power, he also adopted a prophetic persona to create not only space and place, but also to find voice to articulate his views. |
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A8-201 Special Topics Forum Theme: Conversation with Zarqa Nawaz, 2009 AAR Religion and Arts Award Winner Sponsored by the Religion and the Arts Award Jury Zarqa Nawaz is the driving force behind Fundamentalist Films and the creator of Little Mosque on the Prairie, which debuted to large audiences and tremendous acclaim in 2007. Nawaz, born in Liverpool and raised in Toronto, had a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Toronto in her hands when she realized that staying out of medical school would be her greatest contribution to Canada’s health care system. Unfazed, she coolly switched career plans and received a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Journalism from Ryerson in 1992. Nawaz worked as a freelance writer/broadcaster with CBC radio, and in various capacities with CBC Newsworld, CTV’s Canada AM, and CBC’s The National. She was an associate producer with a number of CBC radio programs, including Morningside, and her radio documentary The Changing Rituals of Death won first prize in the Radio Long Documentary category and the Chairman’s Award in Radio Production at the Ontario Telefest Awards. Bored with journalism, Nawaz took a summer film workshop at the Ontario College for Art and made BBQ Muslims, a short film that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1996. Her next short film, Death Threat, also premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1998. Other short-film credits include Fred’s Burqa and Random Check. In 2005, Nawaz’s documentary entitled Me and the Mosque, a coproduction with the National Film Board and the CBC, was broadcast on CBC’s Rough Cuts. |
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A8-203 Special Topics Forum Theme: The Marty Forum: James H. Cone Sponsored by the Public Understanding of Religion Committee The recipient of the 2009 Martin Marty Award for contributions to the public understanding of religion is James H. Cone, the Charles A. Briggs distinguished professor of systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary. Cone is the author of eleven books, including Black Theology and Black Power (1969) and A Black Theology of Liberation (1970). He is also the author of the highly acclaimed God of the Oppressed (1975) and Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or a Nightmare? (1991). His most recent publication is Risks of Faith (1999). He has also published over 150 articles and has lectured at more than 1,000 universities and community organizations throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The Marty Forum provides an informal setting in which Cone will talk about his work with Cornel West, the Class of 1943 professor at Princeton University. |
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A8-300 Special Topics Forum Theme: Conversation with Kwok Pui Lan, the 2009 Excellence in Teaching Award Winner Sponsored by the Teaching and Learning Committee Join us for a conversation about teaching with this year's AAR Excellence in Teaching Award winner, Kwok Pui Lan. |
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A8-400 AAR Awards Ceremony and Reception Celebrate the achievements of the 2009 AAR AWARD WINNERS:</p> Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion<br/> Excellence in Teaching Award<br/> Religion and the Arts Award<br/> 2009 Excellence in the Study of Religion Book Awards</p> Analytical-Descriptive Studies:<br/> Constructive-Reflective Studies:<br/> Andrew F. March, Islamic and Liberal Citizenship: The Search for an Overlapping Consensus. Oxford University Press, 2008.</p> Historical Studies:<br/> Stuart B. Schwartz, All Can Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian Atlantic World. Yale University Press, 2008.</p> Textual Studies:<br/> Shaul Magid, From Metaphysics to Midrash: Myth, History, and the Interpretation of Scripture on Lurianic Kabbala. Indiana University Press, 2008.</p> Best First Book Award in the History of Religions:<br/> Benjamin Lazier, God Interrupted: Heresy and the European Imagination between the World Wars. Princeton University Press, 2008.<br/> Christian Lee Novetzke, Religion and Public Memory: A Cultural History of Saint Namdev in India. Columbia University Press, 2008</p> 2009 Best In-depth Reporting on Religion Awards</p> News Outlets with Circulations over 100,000:</p> First Place: Laurie Goodstein, New York Times <br/> News Outlets with Circulations under 100,000:</p> First Place: Tracy Simmons, Waterbury Republican-American<br/> Opinion Writing:</p> First Place: David Gibson, articles published in the Star-Ledger and Wall Street Journal<br/> |
(FFF) Especially for Students
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A6-402 Ghost Hunt Tour of Old Montréal for Graduate Students Sponsored by the Graduate Student Committee and the Montréal Venue Committee The graduate students from Université du Québec à Montréal, Concordia University, Université de Montréal, and McGill University want to introduce graduate students to some of the "spooky" history and night life of Montréal. Graduate students are invited to sign up for a Ghost Hunt Tour through the streets of Old Montréal followed by stops at three night spots that showcase local microbreweries, Montréal night life, and maybe even some French Canadian culture (beverage samples and a few nibblies will be included). |
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A7-100 Special Topics Forum Theme: Student Town Hall Meeting: "Yes We Can!" The Future of Students in the AAR Sponsored by the Graduate Student Committee Students comprise one third of the membership of the AAR. We bring renewed vitality and fresh perspectives to the study of religion. And, yes, we know how to have a good time. Can we shape the future of the Academy? Yes we can! Join us for our Student Town Hall, a forum where you can offer your suggestions, hear about new initiatives led by the Graduate Student Committee, and get a preview of this year's student-focused programming. Topics about which we are most concerned include how you can be involved in the AAR, ways you can be a force for positive change in your department, and of course, how you can secure research funding and navigate the career search. Our future is full of promise. Yes we can! |
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A7-336 Special Topics Forum Theme: Beyond the Boundaries: Public Lecture Series I Alfred Daillaire Memoria Cafe Sponsored by the Graduate Student Committee Reverend Carmen Lansdowne's poetry is a personal reflection of her interdisciplinary inquiries into indigenous epistemologies and Christian missiology. As a member of the Heiltsuk First Nation on the central West Coast of British Columbia, Lansdowne holds a particular perspective on the relationship between the church and aboriginal peoples in Canada; one that is ambivalent in some senses because prior to residential schools her community converted whole-heartedly to Methodism, but has not escaped the trauma of residential schools or the ever-present systemic racism in Canada. Like many other aboriginal communities in Canada, Lansdowne's village is economically depressed and has many of the typical dynamics of native life in Canada. This evening will offer some poetic reflections on being aboriginal and a Christian theologian. |
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A8-101 Special Topics Forum Theme: The Big Lie: The Mismatch of Job Expectations and Placement Reality Sponsored by the Academic Relations Committee and Job Placement Task Force Results from the 2008 AAR Survey of Graduate Students and data from the AAR Job Center reveal a growing gap between the placement expectations of students and their advisors, on the one hand, and the reality of the job market, on the other. While the vast majority of doctoral candidates expect to secure tenure-track positions in the field, statistics show that most are unable to do so. Meanwhile, the nature of the field of religion has undergone major shifts in recent years, but graduate programs continue to graduate large numbers of students prepared to teach in subfields for which openings are scarce. This panel will bring together leadership from major doctoral granting programs, recent graduates who have navigated the job market, and members of the Job Placement Task Force and Academic Relations Committee to discuss "the big lie" regarding the job market in the academic study of religion. |
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A8-136 Special Topics Forum Theme: Women's Mentoring Lunch Sponsored by the Status of Women in the Profession Committee, Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession Committee, Status of LGBTIQ Persons in the Profession Task Force, and the Women's Caucus The Status of Women in the Profession Committee, Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession Committee, Status of LGBTIQ Persons in the Profession Task Force, and the Women's Caucus invite women who are graduate students and new scholars to a luncheon with over thirty womanist, feminist, and LGBTIQ midcareer and senior scholars. Women will have the opportunity to mentor and be mentored in a context where every question is valued. The lunch costs $10 per person; sorry, no refunds. Registration is limited to 100. Register at www.aarweb.org/Jump/WomensMentoring/default.asp>. |
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A8-139 Special Topics Forum Theme: Nurturing the Next Generation of Scholars Workshop Sponsored by the AAR and the Fund for Theological Education This workshop is designed for students from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups who are considering the pursuit of a PhD or ThD in religion, theology, or biblical studies. In addition to receiving information about the field of religious studies from scholars in the guild, participants will also gain insight into the doctoral application process. Students who participate in this workshop will be preselected from an applicant pool. For more information, email doctoralinfo@thefund.org. |
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A8-331 Special Topics Forum Theme: Beyond the Boundaries: Public Lecture Series II Le Pèlerin-Magellan Sponsored by the Graduate Student Committee In 1986 the United Church of Canada (UCC) offered an apology to First Nations peoples for the UCC’s role in residential schooling. The UCC’s apology is unique in that their 1986 apology was acknowledged by the First Nations community, but was not accepted. In 1998 another formal apology was presented and accepted. Barbara Greenberg will examine the 1986 and 1998 apologies using the psychoanalytic theories of Melanie Klein to in order to gain an understanding of the important role apologies play in making amends for past injustices. It is Greenberg's belief that Klein’s theories will provide a new theoretical lens to discuss and understand the interaction between the UCC and the First Nations peoples. She will discuss how her thesis work has potential beyond the “ivory tower” by discussing the pros and cons of political apologies which may have potential to mend relations between First Nations and the UCC in Canada. |
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A9-137 Special Topics Forum Theme: Wabash Luncheon for Graduate Students Sponsored by the Graduate Student Committee and the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion Join our table conversations on common issues faced by “newly” minted faculty. Discussions will be led by faculty hosts to explore questions and concerns emerging in the first years of teaching. Delicious box lunches will be provided. Registration is limited to 49 students, so early registration is recommended. |
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A9-335 Special Topics Forum Theme: Beyond the Boundaries: Public Lecture Series III La Grande Gueule Sponsored by the Graduate Student Committee We see religion all around us every day – from shrines in Chinese food restaurants to our standard cuss words to The Da Vinci Code. Religious narrative is so everpresent in our daily lives that, often, it doesn’t even register as “religious.” Where does the line between secular and religious lie in our cultural environment? Can we actually make such a clear distinction between what is religious and what is not? In this talk, Shelly Colette will discuss the ways in which biblical myths and stories are reconstructed in such popular media as film, television, popular literature, and even fashion magazines, and explore the impact that these “remakes” have on our secular society. |
(HHH) Sessions with a Focus on Sustainability
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A5-300 Sustainability Task Force Meeting |
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A6-200 Sustainability Workshop: Religious Studies in an Age of Global Warming: Transforming Ourselves, Our Students, and Our Universities |
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A7-202 Special Topics Forum Theme: To Sustain and Renew: AAR, NativeEnergy, and Building Supportive Partnerships between Academia and First Nations/First Peoples |
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A8-264 Bioethics and Religion Group and Religion and Ecology Group and Religion and Ecology Group Theme: Frankenfood, Bridges, and Hazards: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Social Justice and Sustainability in a Global Context |
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A9-125 Religion and Ecology Group Theme: Re-placing Epistemology: Thinking that Matters to the Earth |
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A9-223 Religion and Ecology Group Theme: Exploring Ecological Discourse in Global Contexts: Tensions and Tropes Rooted in Local Soils |
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A10-101 Arts, Literature, and Religion Section Theme: Poetry, Religion, and the Environment |
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A10-103 Christian Systematic Theology Section Theme: Stories of Nature |
(JJJ) Sessions with a Focus on the Globalization of Religion in North America
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A6-403 Arts Series/Films: Malls R Us |
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A7-132 Sikh Studies Consultation Theme: Identity and Diaspora |
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A7-135 Transformative Scholarship and Pedagogy Consultation Theme: Learning in Place: Globalization, Poverty, and Race |
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A7-206 North American Religions Section and Religion and Politics Section and Religion and Politics Section Theme: Reconsidering Civil Religion |
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A7-209 African Religions Group Theme: The Convergence of Multiple "African Diasporas" in North America |
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A7-211 Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Group Theme: Negotiating Diasporic Spaces: Practices of Religion, Aesthetics, and Pedagogy |
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A7-300 Plenary Address Theme: Islam and Modernity |
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A7-302 Special Topics Forum Theme: Diasporas of Religion and Religions of Diaspora |
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A7-323 Sacred Space in Asia Group Theme: Pilgrimage and Globalization: Affirming and Contesting Boundaries through Movement and Performance |
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A7-328 World Christianity Group Theme: Global and Local Perspectives and Patterns in World Christianity |
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A7-404 Plenary Address Theme: Presidential Address: Beyond Words and War: The Global Future of Religion |
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A8-200 Special Topics Forum Theme: Transnationalism and Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning Beyond Borders |
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A8-226 World Christianity Group Theme: Recent Research on Immigrant Christianity in North America |
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A8-229 Religion and Colonialism Consultation Theme: Colonialism and Empire |
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A8-258 Religion and the Social Sciences Section Theme: Multiculturalism and Pluralism in Canada, the United States, and Europe |
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A8-262 African Religions Group Theme: Religion and Power in Africa and the Diaspora: Conversations with Jacob Olupona |
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A8-266 Confucian Traditions Group Theme: American Confucianism |
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A8-281 Eastern Religious Sites of Montréal Tour: Putting Down Roots |
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A8-308 North American Religions Section Theme: Re(de)fining Religious Identities East to West |
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A8-313 Teaching Religion Section Theme: Globalization and Pedagogy: Practical and Theoretical Approaches |
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A8-315 African Religions Group and Religions, Medicines, and Healing Group and African Religions Group Theme: Permutations of West African Healing Traditions: Amisari Indigenous Healers in Nigeria, Santeria Practitioners in the United States, and Umbanda Practitioners of Paris |
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A8-317 Black Theology Group Theme: Black Theology across Borders |
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A8-403 Arts Series/Films: Bharatanatyam by Hari Krishnan and inDANCE |
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A9-100 Special Topics Forum Theme: Global Economies of the Sacred |
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A9-103 Buddhism Section Theme: Buddhism in Québec |
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A9-112 Teaching Religion Section Theme: Challenges and Opportunities of Teaching "Faith and Globalization" |
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A9-117 Contemporary Islam Group Theme: Attraction and Repulsion: Muslim Alterity in Contemporary Québec |
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A9-133 Religion and Migration Consultation and Space, Place, and Religious Meaning Consultation and Religion and Migration Consultation Theme: Sacralizing Space in Exile and Diaspora |
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A9-200 Plenary Address Theme: Global Perspectives on Religious Studies |
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A9-202 ***Wildcard Session Other Theme: Approaches to the Study of African Diaspora Religions |
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A9-223 Religion and Ecology Group Theme: Exploring Ecological Discourse in Global Contexts: Tensions and Tropes Rooted in Local Soils |
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A9-228 Buddhism in the West Consultation Theme: Buddhism in the West: A Canadian Focus |
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A9-318 Latina/o Religion, Culture, and Society Group Theme: Religion and Transnationalism: Migrating Identities |
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A9-329 Religion and Migration Consultation Theme: Religion, Ethnicity, and Identity in the Greater Montréal Area |
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A9-333 Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Group Theme: Issei Buddhism in the Americas: The Japanese-American Buddhist Diaspora |
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A10-106 North American Religions Section Theme: Managing Religious Diversity and Articulating Identity in Québec |
(KKK) Sessions on Professional Practices & Institutional Location
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A6-100 Leadership Workshop: Three Religion Majors Meet in a Café: What Do They Have in Common? |
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A6-102 Luce Seminars on Theologies of Religious Pluralism and Comparative Theology Fellows |
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A6-105 Space, Place, and Religious Meaning in the Classroom: A Workshop on Teaching Strategies |
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A7-101 Special Topics Forum Theme: Queer Careers |
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A7-102 Special Topics Forum Theme: A Celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of the AAR Excellence in Teaching Award: A Participatory Workshop with the Excellence in Teaching Award Recipients |
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A7-200 Special Topics Forum Theme: (In)formation: Religious Studies and Theological Studies |
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A7-201 Special Topics Forum Theme: Publishing Your Book: Thoughts from Oxford University Press and from the Editors of the AAR Book Series and JAAR |
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A7-308 Teaching Religion Section Theme: Turning Pro: From Teaching Assistant to Professor |
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A8-136 Special Topics Forum Theme: Women's Mentoring Lunch |
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A8-260 Teaching Religion Section Theme: Pedagogy as Integrative Cultivation - CANCELLED |
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A8-279 Special Topics Forum Theme: Cracks in the Tower: Barriers to a Career in Religion |
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A8-300 Special Topics Forum Theme: Conversation with Kwok Pui Lan, the 2009 Excellence in Teaching Award Winner |
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A8-303 ***Wildcard Session Other Theme: Building a Successful Academic Center: Religion, Politics, and Public Engagement |
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A8-304 ***Wildcard Session Other Theme: Studying Religion and International Development: Affinities, Intersections, and Potentials |
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A8-313 Teaching Religion Section Theme: Globalization and Pedagogy: Practical and Theoretical Approaches |
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A8-318 Buddhist Critical-Constructive Reflection Group Theme: Activating Compassion: Educating the Buddhist Chaplain |
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A9-101 Special Topics Forum Theme: Got Life Yet? A Structural Analysis |
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A9-102 Special Topics Forum Theme: AAR Guidelines for Teaching About Religion in K–12 Schools |
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A9-112 Teaching Religion Section Theme: Challenges and Opportunities of Teaching "Faith and Globalization" |
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A9-115 Buddhist Critical-Constructive Reflection Group Theme: Applying Modern Academic Findings to Help Inform Buddhist Understandings Today |
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A9-137 Special Topics Forum Theme: Wabash Luncheon for Graduate Students |
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A9-201 Special Topics Forum Theme: Religion Scholars and National Governments: Should They Be Partners? |
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A9-210 Teaching Religion Section and Queer Theory and LGBT Studies in Religion Consultation and Teaching Religion Section Theme: Queer Pedagogy and/in Religious Studies |
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A9-300 Special Topics Forum Theme: The Turn to Spirituality: Enlightenment after the Enlightenment? |
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A10-113 Teaching Religion Section Theme: Online Learning? An Oxymoron? |
(LLL) Films
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A6-403 Arts Series/Films: Malls R Us Sponsored by the Religion, Film, and Visual Culture Group Montréal-based filmmaker Helene Klodawsky spent over two years researching and traveling to shopping malls in India, Dubai, Europe, and North America to make this film. It shows how malls are the new sacred spaces in which people experience a secular version of transcendence and communal identity, an environment in which we “lose ourselves” in amusement and splendor. But the film also asks whether the “religion” practiced in malls brings liberation, or simply creates more consumers for global capitalism. Local businesses and the environment are displaced for the benefit of giant international corporations, showing how the need to which malls respond is exploited by those who benefit from it most. AAR member and American religious historian Jon Pahl, who is interviewed in the film, will introduce it and lead a discussion. |
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A6-404 Arts Series/Films: Shugendô Now: The Creative Reinvention of a Japanese Mountain Ascetic Tradition Sponsored by the Japanese Religions Group and the Sacred Space in Asia Group How do mountain ascetic priests in remote communities attract and serve the needs of diverse, urban practitioners? In what ways have globally aware and locally grounded charismatic individuals transcended boundaries of nation, gender, class, age, and ethnicity to engage disaffected city dwellers? Shugendô practitioners perform ritual actions from shamanism, “Shintô,” Daoism, and Tantric Buddhism. The filmmakers represent their creative reinvention of hallmark practices, including a 26-kilometer Lotus Ascent, Three Day Monk Camp, and Eco-pilgrimage. Taking seriously the teaching, “From mountain austerities to urban austerities,” and insight that pilgrims are “much else before they are pilgrims and for much more of their time” (Grodzins-Gold 1988:1), the film traverses ascetic training grounds of Kumano and Yoshino and urban neighborhoods of Tokyo and Osaka. More poetic than analytical, the filmmakers observe practitioners performing austerities and represent the myriad ways mountain learning interacts with urban life. Might the two be seen as one? For more information on the film, visit www.shugendonow.com. |
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A7-406 Arts Series/Films: Jesus of Montréal Sponsored by the Arts, Literature, and Religion Section and the Religion, Film, and Visual Culture Group Jesus of Montréal traffics in multiple meanings of “gospel,” including the texts of the New Testament, cultural interpretations of those texts, and Arcand’s own filmic revisionings of both. A band of actors performs a critically acclaimed and updated rendition of the Passion Play, only to come into conflict with the Roman Catholic hierarchy that hired them. As events in the actors’ lives begin to follow the Passion narrative they are dramatizing, questions of what is real and what is imagined emerge, along with issues of artistic integrity and the commercialization of art. The biblical stories, the revamped Passion Play, and the lives of the actors who perform it thus intertwine in mutual reflection to establish meaning that hovers among, rather than rests solely in, any one of them. Featuring Lothaire Bluteau and Catherine Wilkening. |
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A7-407 Arts Series/Films: Me and the Mosque Sponsored by the Religion and Arts Award Jury In this film, journalist and filmmaker Zarqa Nawaz visits mosques throughout Canada and talks to scholars, colleagues, friends, and neighbors about equal access for women. Discussions about the historical role of women in the Islamic faith, the current state of mosques in Canada, and personal stories of anger, fear, acceptanc, and defiance punctuate the film. Nawaz herself speaks of the spiritual longing that comes from belonging to an institution that doesn't want you. With original animation, archival footage, and deeply personal interviews, Me and the Mosque is a smart, self-aware, and whimsical story that documents the debates and presents the personalities on all sides of the issue. |
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A8-404 Arts Series/Films: Pray the Devil Back to Hell Sponsored by the Women and Religion Section, African Religions Group, and Religion, Social Conflict, and Peace Group This film offers an arresting account of Liberian women's nonviolent, interreligious resistance to Charles Taylor and the warlords who sought to overthrow him. In the face of brutal civil wars, which began in 1989, these women reached across an entrenched Muslim–Christian divide to start a grassroots movement for peace. Desperately ingenious, their strategies helped put an end to the rape, forced conscription of children, and political corruption that had decimated their country. Only now is their struggle beginning to garner the international attention it deserves. Pray the Devil Back to Hell has received numerous awards, including best documentary at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, and the women featured in the film recently received the 2009 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. For those exploring the connections between religion and gender, violence, politics, and human rights, the film is an extraordinary resource. Following the screening, panelists from the sponsoring groups will facilitate a discussion with the audience. |
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A8-405 Arts Series/Films: Eve and the Fire Horse Sponsored by the Asian North American Religions, Culture, and Society Group and Religion, Film, and Visual Culture Group. Nominated for five Genie (Canadian Oscar) Awards and winner of the Sundance Film Festival's Special Jury Prize, this film traces the life of nine-year-old Eve and her Chinese Canadian immigrant family. Especially featured are Eve's attempts to make sense of her frenetic religious environment: her father's traditional ways, her mother's embrace of Buddhism, and her sister's conversion to Catholicism. Amidst this spiritual chaos, Eve maintains ties to her Chinese religious roots and comes to her own religious synthesis. Director Kwan's eclectic vision allows for nuanced reflection in a number of areas: Asian North American religious identity, Canadian multiculturalism, immigrant spirituality, and the portrayal of (Asian) religion in popular film. |
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A9-400 Arts Series/Films: Bonjour Shalom Sponsored by the Study of Judaism Section and the Montréal Venue Committee This award-winning film explores the relationship between Hassidic Jews in Montréal's Outremont district and their predominantly French-Québécois neighbors. The film allows us to enter the intimacy of the Hassidic world where we discover not only what is unique to their way of life, but what they share in common with other residents. The film will be followed by a conversation with the filmmaker and a member of the Hassidic community. To view more information about this and other films by Garry Beitel please visit the Reframe Films website at www.reframe-films.com. |
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A9-401 Arts Series/Films: Religulous Sponsored by the Religion, Film, and Visual Culture Group Bill Maher’s film Religulous is a carefully orchestrated tour through some of the most controversial arenas of modern Christian, Jewish, and Muslim practices today. Scholars interested in the film have found themselves challenged to either defend the carefully selected religious views ridiculed by Maher or acquiesce to his charge that all of religion is setting the world on the path to man-made apocalyptic doom. A third option remains: to critique the film’s often lopsided and incomplete portrayals of belief, and to open the door to deep conversations about what “religion” really means for people today, an option not offered by Maher. Despite its limited portrayal of religion, however, the film does raise pertinent questions about what makes religious beliefs legitimate, and what exactly constitutes a “rational critique” of religion today. |
(MMM) Arts Series
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A8-402 Arts Series/Films: Sweetgrass Singers The Sweetgrass Singers are a group of Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) women from the community of Kahnawake. The singers are a nonprofit singing society that supports Mohawk language and cultural initiatives. The women are a group of mothers who are raising their children with the language, culture, and traditions of the Kanienkehaka people. They are part of the six-nations Haudenasaunee confederacy and are known throughout the confederacy for their songs. The women have traveled throughout Eastern Canada and the United States sharing their stories, songs, and dances with both First Nations and nonindigenous people. The Sweet Grass Singers always encourage audience members to participate in the songs and dances that celebrate Kanienkehaka culture and look forward to the opportunity to share their stories, songs, and dances with members of the AAR. |
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A8-403 Arts Series/Films: Bharatanatyam by Hari Krishnan and inDANCE Bharatanatyam is a dance form traditionally performed by courtesans and temple-women known as devadasis or bhogamvallu in South India. When their lifestyles were criminalized by the state in 1947, their practices were reinvented, “classicized,” and reinterpreted by upper-caste elites. Hari Krishnan, Artist-in-Residence at Wesleyan University and Artistic Director of inDANCE, has studied dance with women from over ten different devadasi lineages, and this session will offer excerpts from their very rare repertoire. It presents a counterpoint to the universalized and reinvented forms of “classical Indian dance” seen elsewhere. Commentary on the pieces will be provided by Davesh Soneji, McGill University, and will be accompanied by live music. |
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A9-403 Arts Series/Films: The Red Box Sponsored by the Gay Men's Issues in Religion Group and the Religion, Holocaust and Genocide Group The Red Box is a love story that begins in modern-day with Victor, who has never before told his story. Barbara, with a hidden agenda of her own, gets Victor to confront his complicated past as a Holocaust survivor. As the play travels through his memory, Victor relives falling in love for the first time with a non-Jewish boy, coming to terms with his sexuality, and examining his own family’s dysfunction, all while the Nazi party is rising to power. He then lays out the series of mistakes he made from thinking with his heart, including running away to decadent Berlin, until he finds himself as a prisoner in a concentration camp. Victor is persecuted for being both gay and Jewish. It is Victor’s detailed path of survival and the people he meets along the way that cause him to question relationships, spirituality, and the unfathomable atrocity he was forced into. |
(NNN) Pre-Conference Workshops
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A6-100 Leadership Workshop: Three Religion Majors Meet in a Café: What Do They Have in Common? Sponsored by the Academic Relations Committee and the Teagle Foundation The Teagle/AAR Working Group, which produced the white paper The Religion Major and Liberal Education (Religious Studies News, October 2008) identified five common characteristics that they suggest the religious studies major is by its very nature: intercultural and comparative, multidisciplinary, critical, integrative, and creative and constructive. In this interactive workshop, participants will have an opportunity to discover and discuss this constellation of characteristics. They will then explore the presence of these characteristics in the design of majors in different institutional contexts (small public, large public, private, and theological). The workshop will conclude with presentations and discussions about how we address these in ways attentive both to our responsibilities as educators and to the students and the reasons they are in our programs. This is the first in a three-year sequence of workshops that will explore the implications of the Teagle White Paper. |
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A6-102 Luce Seminars on Theologies of Religious Pluralism and Comparative Theology Fellows Sponsored by the Theological Education Steering Committee and the Luce Foundation This all-day seminar will be the second meeting of the American Academy of Religion/Henry Luce Foundation Summer Seminar Fellows. By invitation only. |
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A6-103 Religion and Media Workshop: Texts, Scripts, Codes: How Religions and Media Make the World We Live In This year’s annual Religion and Media Workshop, co-sponsored by Auburn Media, will highlight how religious texts, scripts, and codes make and unmake political and social worlds. Interdisciplinary panels, discussions, and performances will interrogate how media texts translate religion for global publics, how media scripts religious and national identities, and how religious cultures code the transmission and reception of media objects. Our morning program features a series of interdisciplinary panels on representation, performance, authority, and technology across religious traditions and in a variety of geographic contexts, as well as in media contexts that confound geography. Panels will include an exploration of issues of regulation and authority. An intensive afternoon discussion of the Iranian Revolution and recent elections will amplify the critical vocabularies developed throughout the day. As always, there will be ample time for small thematic conversations around issues of urgent relevance to the study of religion and media. Register online at www.aarweb.org/Meetings/Annual_Meeting/Current_Meeting/registration.asp. |
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A6-105 Space, Place, and Religious Meaning in the Classroom: A Workshop on Teaching Strategies Sponsored by the Space, Place, and Religious Meaning Consultation and the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion As religious studies teachers, we tend to be skilled at integrating textual material, social historical analysis, ethnography, sociological study, and other approaches into our courses, but we often neglect to include a sensitivity to and sensibility of religious constructions of space and place, despite the fact that these components are central to religious experience. This half-day workshop is intended to aid faculty in the development of classroom techniques that incorporate the study of religious space and place into our courses. Participants in the workshop will: 1) Deepen their intellectual sensitivity to space and place as components of religion; and 2) Learn specific techniques to employ religious space and place in the classroom. |
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A6-200 Sustainability Workshop: Religious Studies in an Age of Global Warming: Transforming Ourselves, Our Students, and Our Universities Sponsored by the Sustainability Task Force and the Forum on Religion and Ecology Teaching the environmental crisis poses unique challenges and opportunities for higher education. The scope and extent of the threat demands that faculty inform themselves about a host of practical, theological, moral, historical, and political concerns that probably were not part of their original scholarly field. This workshop will give participants the chance to examine their own responses to the environmental crisis, the time to engage with faculty concerning teaching resources, sample syllabi, and course modules, and the ways to connect with others in the campus sustainability movement. Material will be provided to support the development of “Religion and Environment” courses, and integration of environmental themes into courses such as “Introduction to Religious Studies,” “Social Ethics,” “Religion and Politics,” or studies of particular religions. We will take up relevant theological issues, moral problems, the role of religious environmentalism in relation to other social movements, and engaged teaching techniques designed to connect students to these crucial moral issues and their meaning for life on earth. |
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A6-400 |
(OOO) Plenary and Presidential Addresses
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A7-300 Plenary Address Theme: Islam and Modernity Islamic thinkers and activists are facing the great social changes associated with modernity that other religious traditions have and are facing. Cultural diaspora; the context of pluralism; the breakdown of traditional family and social patterns; changing cultural values including the shifting gender roles and sexual attitudes; and the intersection of political and spiritual ideas — all these are elements of modernity that have confronted all religious traditions. Are the Islamic responses any different? Are they diverse and changing? Are there internal disputes as well as external pressures? And what is the future of Islamic ideas and culture in a postmodern world? These and similar questions will be addressed by a distinguished panel of observers of the contemporary Islamic world, exploring the changing character of Islamic modernity in all of its geographic and cultural diversity. |
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A7-404 Plenary Address Theme: Presidential Address: Beyond Words and War: The Global Future of Religion In a global era new forms of religion will require the invention of new forms of religious studies. The central themes in the study of religion have changed in the last hundred years — from texts, to myth and ritual, to social conflict — and in the global culture of the twenty-first century the study of religion will continue to evolve. The old approaches will endure, but will increasingly be put to new purposes, such as understanding the encounters among cultures and probing the strata of spirituality that underlie religious diversity. Among the novel approaches will be new syntheses, such as the emerging field of sociotheology, which utilizes the insights of theology and cultural studies, and the methods of interpretive social sciences, in order to construct the internal logic of religious world views. Rather than being at the periphery of the academy, increasingly religious studies will be seen at the center of understanding our contemporary global world. |
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A8-100 Plenary Address Theme: Rethinking Secularism The emergence of strident new forms of religion in the twenty-first century challenge the domain of secular ideas and institutions in the public sphere — and encourage a rethinking of what secularism is, as an ideology and as a way of life. This panel brings together some of the most articulate social theorists writing on the subject, scholars associated with a major project on rethinking secularism sponsored by the Social Science Research Council, a think tank supported by the professional academic associations of the social sciences. They explore the roots of the secular ideal in eighteenth century European Enlightenment thought, the way it is diversely reconceived in the present day around the world, and how the concept is changing. They raise the question of whether we are moving into a new moment of history marked by resurgent religion in public life — a post-secular age. |
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A8-138 Plenary Address Theme: Tariq Ramadan: Contemporary Islam: The Meaning and the Need of a Radical Reform Named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most important innovators of the twenty-first |
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A9-200 Plenary Address Theme: Global Perspectives on Religious Studies The modern field of religious studies is arguably a European and American invention and yet it flourishes around the world. Are there differences between the European and American paradigms of religious studies, and is the field of religious studies conceived differently in India, Indonesia, Mexico, and elsewhere? Is there resentment over what may be regarded as the intellectual colonialism of transported analytic frameworks from the West around the world, and are there new currents of intellectual creativity in disparate parts of the world that may be appropriated by Western scholars? This panel of distinguished scholars of religious studies from around the world will describe how religious studies as a field fares within their own regions, how it is changing and becoming innovative, and how it interacts with the scholarship from the European and American academic community. |
(PPP) Planning Sessions
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A8-280 Planning Session for Implicit Religion Consultation According to Edward Bailey, Director of the Centre for the Study of Implicit Religion and Contemporary Spirituality, the concept of implicit religion refers to people's commitments, whether or not they take a religious form. During recent annual meetings, presenters have introduced an ever-increasing number of papers from vastly varying viewpoints discussing the religious look-alikes present within autonomous spheres such as politics, media, arts, science, and psychology. This planning session is organized to gather scholars engaging these interests to work on a proposal for a new program unit that applies their insights into human behavior. Members from all areas within religious studies are invited to share their understanding of implicit religion or unconscious religiosity (as distinct from self-conscious secularism) with the hope that there will be sufficient interest to develop annual meeting sessions devoted to the topic. As illustrated in the journal Implicit Religion, we hope this session will illuminate the study of society and of religion, the theoretical and the applied, and the intelligent and interesting. |
(QQQ) Tours
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A8-281 Eastern Religious Sites of Montréal Tour: Putting Down Roots This bus tour will take us to the west island suburbs of Montréal where several Eastern religious communities have taken root. The tour will include stops at the Tibetan Buddhist Temple Gaden Chang Chub Chöling. This temple, like many sites used by “new” non-Christian traditions in Canada, has converted a bank building into a temple space. Founded in 1980 and established in 1986, the center offers a range of religious ritual practices and cultural development activities at the center. For more information, visit www.khenrab.org. The second stop will take us to the “most beautiful Gurdwara in Montréal.” Following the trend of other religious communities, this Gurdwara is built in a semi-industrial neighborhood in a suburb twice removed from the city center where land and zoning bylaws are easier to negotiate. The space includes an impressive example of traditional Gurdwara construction with a community that is ready to answer our questions. The last stop on the tour will take us further down the island of Montréal into the suburb of Dollard Des Ameaux, where we will visit the Thiru Murugan Temple, a Sri Lankan Tamil Saivite Temple constructed in the traditional style of South Indian architecture, clearly the most beautiful example of its kind in the region. Our timing should coincide with a puja service, giving us the opportunity to share an experience with this most welcoming community. For more information, visit montrealmurugantemple.faithweb.com. |
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A9-6 Walking Tour of Old Longueuil and a Visit to the Archives of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary The study of the religion, history, and culture of French Canada is not complete without an understanding of the role of Catholic religious orders of women. In the second half of the nineteenth century, numerous religious communities of women were started in Québec. The social influence of their lives and institutions is of particular interest to historians and scholars of religion. The Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary (SNJM) is one example of the historical contribution Catholic sisters made to French Canada. Founded in Longueuil, Québec, in 1843 by Eulalie Durocher (Mother Marie Rose), the SNJM order is the first congregation of women to be founded by a French Canadian woman. Prior to Durocher’s initiative, orders of Catholic sisters in Canada belonged to congregations from France or were founded by sisters who came from France. In less than 150 years, Durocher’s followers grew to over 7,000 members in 277 institutions around the world. This session will begin with a walking tour of some of the historical sites of Old Longueuil followed by a visit to the nineteenth century foundation house of the SNJM sisters and a presentation by the archivists of significant documents and artifacts. Lunch is included. |
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A9-234 Sacred and Religious Sites of Montréal Bus Tour: Tradition in Transition This religious sites tour will explore several encounters between the old and the new. Beginning with a stop at St. Joseph’s Oratory, we will have the opportunity to explore the world’s largest Catholic site dedicated to Saint Joseph. This ten-story building, with an impressive footprint on the Montréal landscape, attracts millions of pilgrims (and tourists) the world over. Recently, the site has embraced its status as a pilgrimage site for non-Christians too. For more information, see www.saint-joseph.org/en_1007_index.asp. |
(RRR) New Program Unit
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A7-111 Religion and the Social Sciences Section and Sociology of Religion Consultation and Religion and the Social Sciences Section Theme: Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class: Rethinking Religion and Economy in an Age of Crisis Like his contemporary, Max Weber, Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) studied economies as historical phenomena, situating socioeconomic institutions within interdependent and broader cultural contexts. Yet unlike Weber, Veblen has rarely, if ever, served as an important theorist in the field of religious studies. This panel reexamines Veblen’s work in light of the recent economic crisis, while keeping an eye on cultural representations of its comparative counterpart, the Great Depression. Veblen's theoretical approach and cautionary tales remain relevant today, particularly given the more recent trends that include a radical departure from the risk-aversion that once characterized the typical mortgage-lender, coupled with median home-buyers aspiring to copy the wealthy. The panelists intend to illustrate that analytical relevance, suggesting a “Veblenian” approach both for the study of religion and economy in an age of crisis, as well as for the field of religious studies in a stage of transition. |
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A7-125 Body and Religion Consultation Theme: Bodies of Knowledge: Ground, (Re)source, Metaphor, Text In this inaugural session, the Body and Religion Consultation begins its inquiry into how “body” is used or understood in religion, and what it means across the range of themes, disciplines, methods, regions, and traditions that make up the field of religious studies. To what extent is there an overlap (or at least family resemblance) among these uses and meanings? This year’s session engages uses of “body” in theology, pedagogy, anthropology of religion, and Sikh studies to start the conversation. When “On the Ground” Means “On the Floor”: Conducting Ethnography of Religion in the Space of the Kitchen This paper considers the ways that “sensuous ethnography” can illuminate the instability, dynamism, and nonlinearity of embodied religious perception and behavior. The author discusses her ongoing ethnographic research in an African-American community of Santería practitioners on the South Side of Chicago, and explores the sensorily attentive methodological approach adopted in the course of the author’s interactions with this house of worship, called Ilé Laroye. After providing an account of how Ilé Laroye’s kitchen became the micro-site of the author’s ethnographic research, she characterizes it as a woman-centered space that privileges complex forms of labor defined by elders as religious processes generative of virtue, merit, and ritual competence. This paper focuses on the acquisition of somatic knowledge in the kitchen through post-sacrificial food preparation, arguing that kitchen work serves to prepare the uninitiated for the rigors of priesthood, and is vitally necessary for the internalization of dispositions and sensibilities that lead to initiation. Teaching Religion and Body: Sensationalizing and Reconciling Models of Body Modification When teaching a course focused on the cross-cultural examination of the interplay between religion, culture, and the body, the author has found that students have three types of response to materials on body modification: awe, fear, and/or disgust. Reflecting on pedagogical matters, it is important that the author finds ways to guide students to critically analyze their reactions in order to help them to more effectively engage with the materials and to learn to think about issues of the greater world — rather than shunning these ideas, sensationalizing them, or deliberately misreading them only through the lens of the religion(s) with which they are most familiar. This presentation will discuss the issues that the author has encountered and will present some of the ways the author has adapted teaching methods and course organization to deal with religious understandings of body modification. Sacred Text as the Body of the Gurus: The Quintessential Sikh Metaphor For the Sikhs, their scripture (Guru Granth) is the manifest body (deh) of their Gurus. But this quintessential Sikh metaphor has become so familiar an application that it has lost its “fundamental metaphoric quality.” We need to ask anew: what does it mean that the Guru Granth is the body of the Gurus? In their metaphorical relationship, the “text” and the “body” must maintain a dynamic tension — a simultaneous is and is not — so that the mind is forced to stretch and discover a new meaning. Using Gadamer’s hermeneutic lens, the author will explore the “widening experience” (Truth and Method, p. 429) brought about by the perpetual motion between the textual and the corporeal matrices. What significance does their metaphoric association have in the daily life of the Sikh community? The two areas that the author will examine are ritual performance and feminist ontology. Dressing the Body as Spiritual Progress: Gertrude of Helfta’s Spiritual Exercises Gertrude the Great’s Spiritual Exercises consciously subverts both the inherited exegesis that states clothing is a sign of one’s unworthiness and fallenness, and it subverts claims that clothing ties one to human institutions — the clothing here does not serve to identify the sister as part of the earthly community, but it identifies her as part of God’s community. Gertrude’s use of clothing metaphors in her Spiritual Exercises underscores the significance of the Easter vision: Christ’s torn body rose with his soul on Easter Sunday, showing that the soul’s progress can be “read” through the clothing of the body. Similarly, the clothing of the body (both the physical body as clothing of the soul and clothes as clothing for the physical body) can reflect the stages of the human soul. Clothing the body symbolizes the progress to be made by the soul. |
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A7-210 Anthropology of Religion Group and Body and Religion Consultation and Anthropology of Religion Group Theme: Making Sense of, in, and as Religion: Lessons and Questions from Sensory Anthropology Sensory anthropology demonstrates that sensory experience results from skilled, learned, cultured bodily activities: “immediate” sense experience is deeply mediated by culture. Since religion is predominantly lived, not thought, perception is fundamental for religious worlds; material (sensed) religion is primary, texts and doctrines secondary, though both affect one another. Most work in religious studies in senses and religion focuses on visual culture and/or body and material culture apart from sensory enculturation. This panel considers the questions that sensory anthropology poses to the study of religion; e.g., how do scholars’ sensory enculturations affect their perception and understanding of those whose understanding and experience differs substantially from theirs? How can scholars articulate the interplay of sensory enculturation and religion(s) in the many contexts in which they play out? How does the historical and cross-cultural divergence of lived (sensory) experience complicate the notion of religious “traditions” continuous over time and across cultures? |
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A8-330 Sociology of Religion Consultation Theme: Sociological Perspectives on Contemporary American Religion Embracing the Blindness of our Theories: A Paradoxical Revision of Durkheim’s Collective Consciousness within the Context of Modernity In this paper I argue that Niklas Luhmann’s systems theoretical approach avoids some of the impasses that Emile Durkheim encountered with respect to modern religiosity, an impasse resulting from the latter's understanding of religion in terms of collective consciousness. I put these two figures into conversation with one another in order to re-envision the place of religion within a secular and individualistic society. I argue that religion has not been diminished through the ascendency of secularism and individualism, but that, if one views modern society as founded on the limitations of subjectivity (and not the analogic replication of it), questions about religion can be addressed in ways that transcend traditional categories of exclusive group identity. I pursue this argument through discussion of interviews with national park visitors in northern California that I conducted in the summer of 2007. Faith without Borders: Culture, Identity, and Nigerian Immigrant Spirituality in a Multicultural American Community The paper examines four case studies of the Nigerian-initiated Christian communities in Massachusetts. Through the data collected from participant observation and interviews, it studies the historical emergence and ritual practices of the movements with focus on issues of cultural negotiation, social identity, and gender-related engagement. The questions that the study seeks to answer are: how do these new forms of religious movements draw membership? What unique and important roles do they play in the social and religious lives of their members? What are the implications of their new religious expressions on social, economic and spiritual lives of the members of the religious communities in their host land and on the basic traditional religious doctrines and practices of their homeland? Adopting a combination of anthropological-phenomenological and hermeneutics, the study provides a typology for the analysis and interpretation of Christian immigrant religious communities. "This Was Your Life": Jack Chick and the Dissemination of Political Religion The renewed attention to visual culture has opened up valuable conversations about religious modes of perception, the visual habitus of religions, and the media by which religions are articulated. As part of these considerations, Jack Chick's evangelical cartoon tracts provide a rich opportunity for exploring methodologies of content analysis. Interstitial Subjectivities and Religious Change: Circumscribing Giddens for the Study of Contemporary American Religion Observers of American religion have noted significant changes in the last fifty years. Many of the current theories interpreting these changes cite the writings of the British social theorist Anthony Giddens. Such works suggest that we are living in a post-traditional, “late modern” society in which self-identity, community, and the codes we live by are no longer ascribed, but reflexively made and remade in continuous “projects of the self.” Here I seek to circumscribe late modernity theory for the study of contemporary religion, examining its usefulness and limitations. I argue that the disembedding structures of late modernity—while uneven in their effects on individuals from different social locations—create “interstitial subjectivities” among certain classes and groups. This state of being “betwixt and between” social locations places individuals into new and sometimes ephemeral social networks, which in turn may result in them seeking out and experimenting with new religious groups, beliefs, and practices. |
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A9-230 Latina/o Critical and Comparative Studies Consultation Theme: Latina/o Religious Traversals: Sexual and Cultural Travesuras The Role of Exu in Jorge Amado’s Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos In The Signifying Monkey (1989), Henry Louis Gates, Jr. argues that the African trickster deity of Eshu-Elegbara functions as a unifying trope between African and United States’ African-American discourses. In this presentation, I explore the survival of this same African deity in another location in the Western Hemisphere—the city of Salvador da Bahia in Brazil—in order make the claim that the figure of Eshu-Elegbara, far from remaining monolithic across the Diaspora, shifts shapes in different New World contexts. I argue that while Eshu acquires a dismissive and combative stance to the Anglo-Saxon dominant culture in North America, in Brazil Exu contests the dominant Lusitanian culture through a jocular and threatening exhortation to cultural creolization. Migrating Faith: A Social and Cultural History of Pentecostalism in the United States and Mexico (1906–1966) This study of Pentecostalism in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands examines the construction of transnational circuits and webs that bolstered subaltern responses to macro events and prejudicial actions of nation-states and majority cultures. The project maps and sounds out the early history of the movement through a focused study of religious genealogies and expressive cultures that spread and took root along the swath stretching from the Pacific to the Texas-Tamaulipas border and deeper into both countries. This study provides useful analytical templates (e.g., the border as trampoline and creative hybrid zone) for understanding Pentecostalism’s explosive success in later decades throughout further flung regions in the hemisphere and among indigenous populations. Pentecostal and Pentecostal-like religious practices migrated more easily than others because they required less institutional support. Transnational Religious Memories of Colombian Conflict in Miami This paper explores the role of religion in the construction of memories of pain and injustice suffered in a context of forced migration. It studies the particular connotations of the Colombian case, where the conflict is still going on and the complexity of the problem makes difficult to identify a target group of victims and victimizers. Religion appears then as a core where transnational practices are projected, in the absence of a transnational community. The methodology crosses reflections on the transnational political practices and identity construction with religious discourses. The methodology confronted the issue of silence and fear in the public official politic discourse and the predominant religious public discourse of memories of Colombian conflict. Remembering Kateri Tekakwitha: Hagiography, Historiography, and the Northern Borderlands The canonization process of the Mohawk woman Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680) has invited a number of conflicting accounts of her life from Catholic hagiographers, postcolonial historians, and Native American communities in New York, New Mexico, and Montana. Today she is remembered variously as a Catholic saint, a colonized Mohawk, and/or a creolized Catholic. These debates reflect deeper arguments over how to tell the story of North American origins. Considered altogether, the multi-perspectival accounts of Kateri Tekakwitha offer a rare opportunity to imagine the transnational space of New York/Quebec as a 'northern borderlands' born from the meeting, conflict and exchange of European and Native peoples. |
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A9-231 Middle Eastern Christianity Consultation Theme: Middle Eastern Christians: Identity and Discourse A "New Antioch" in Multicultural America: Arab Christians Navigate Religion and Ethnicity in the Bicentennial Era, 1976–1977 My paper examines the interplay of the Arab, American, and Christian identities of members of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese in the United States. I focus on the continual negotiation of their Arab ethnicity and their ancient Christianity within U.S. liberal multicultural discourses of the 1970s, heightened by the national planning and celebration of the 1976 Bicentennial. By dropping “Syrian” from the archdiocese’s name and mandating English as the liturgical language, all while the laity clung to their Arab roots, the Antiochian Orthodox constructed a specific, flexible Christian Arab-ness. The Antiochian Church understood its complicated position in U.S. society, vis-à-vis the negative stereotyping of Arabs in popular culture, and attempted to reconcile their own understanding of what it meant to be Arab and Christian. In the context of the 1970s, the Antiochian Orthodox contributed their ethnic flavor to multicultural America while intending to build a “New Antioch” in the U.S. Spaces and Scales of Armenian Diasporic Identity Representation: A Study of an Upstate New York Armenian Apostolic Church Community Scholars involved with the study of identity argue that people continuously construct their identity via performing identity work. Performing identity, as Blommaert (2005) claims, does not mean expressing one form of identity. Instead, it is a matter of mobilizing an array of identity elements translated into intricate “moment-to-moment speaking positions.” This paper explores the identity work of the leaders and activists of an Armenian Apostolic Church community in Upstate New York as the key reproducers and distributors of diasporic Armenian identity. The paper asks the following question: How do the Armenian-American community leaders in this diasporic community construct and represent their identity: as a sum of origins, language, and history (Friedman 2003), or a subjective intuition of belonging (Silverstein 2003), or something else? The paper argues that there is an overlap, negotiation between, reconfiguration, and blurring of the two definitions of identity in the work of these community leaders. Jihad in the Arabic New Testament: Contemporary Arabic Christian Commentary on the Utilization and Application of the Term The Arabic term Jihad has become equated with Islamic Radicalism and violence. It is well known, however, that the Qur’anic term, as well as its usage throughout the ages, has been multi-faceted. While much has been written about the use of jihad in the Qur’an and its interpretation, little attention has been given to its treatment by Arab Christians. The root of jihad is found throughout Arabic translations of the New Testament. This paper will seek to explore jihad within the Arabic New Testament with Study Notes, published in 2006. This most recent Arabic translation has provided explanations to terms for the Arab Christian reader. Through an examination of these notes we hope to provide insight into how contemporary Arab Christians have been possibly shaped by the rhetoric of jihad, and how they are attempting to redefine the term based upon its usage in their own scriptures. |
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A9-232 Religious Conversions Consultation Theme: Religious Conversion: Social Sites, Cultural Contexts, and Critical Reflections Christian Science and Labor Radicalism in Lynn, Massachusetts This study focuses on economic dimensions of conversion experience in the early Christian Science movement. Drawing on original research in the archives at the Mary Baker Eddy Library, this paper examines how volatile labor conditions in Lynn, Massachusetts and Mary Baker Eddy's appreciation of labor as a factor in religious life shaped conversion experiences in the 1870s. By reconstructing social, familial and economic networks that connected believers, this paper shows that work-related associations within the shoe industry were better predictors of interest in Eddy's spiritual healing than prior religious affiliations. Moreover, processes of initiation and instruction were fitted to the tempo of industrial life. Finally, this paper argues that Eddy's irregular financial practices, including but not limited to elaborate and often legalistically-muddled contracts with new students, provided opportunities for creative negotiations, reinforcing bonds between individuals at a moment when industry bosses failed to consider the needs and aspirations of workers. Conversion and Confession in the Torture Chamber This paper examines torture in its relation to conversion and confession. Along with recent work by the political theorist Paul Kahn, I claim that torture, even of an ostensibly “secular” kind, does not primarily demand the confession of a set of facts (e.g., Where is the bomb? When is it set to explode?). Rather, torture aims at a religious conversion – the renunciation of false gods and the confession of the political sovereign. By appropriating central themes of Augustine’s Confessions, I propose an alternative politics of conversion. Conversion founds a practice of counter-confession aspiring to produce that disposition of the self – paradigmatically seen in the martyr – which, when the time of testing arrives, will not yield to sovereign demands. By refracting Augustinian spirituality through a critical lens, I then outline the relevance of this politics of conversion for contemporary responses to torture. Herman (Judah) of Cologne's Opusculum de Conversione Sua: A Medieval Jewish Narrative of Conversion to Christianity Constructed and Deconstructed This paper considers the autobiographical conversion narrative of Herman (Judah) of Cologne, a twelfth-century Jewish convert to Christianity. It analyzes the narrative’s construction of this conversion as responding to Christian anxieties surrounding Jewish conversion to Christianity and the ways that the narrative asserts the authentic nature of that conversion. Some of these concerns reflect the specific context of medieval Jewish-Christian relations; others echo anxieties widely shared by converts and communities receiving them. The Economic Implications of Converting to Christianity for Chinese Temple Women This paper concerns perceptions of Chinese converts who earned a living chanting Buddhist mantras, and who, upon converting, lost that income. Because of the Buddhist notion of the transference of merit, chanting of mantras and the names of Buddhas could be exchanged for money, providing a small income especially to old women. Drawing mostly from Church Missionary Society publications of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, several narratives are examined for their attitudes towards chanting and other temple-related employment, towards the economic hardships of conversion, and towards certain anxieties signaled by the term “rice Christian.” The Poetics of Conversion: Protestant Converts and Devotional Poetry in Colonial South India This paper examines Protestant poetry composed by Tamil converts to Protestant Christianity in the nineteenth century. This body of literature used the literary landscape and religious culture of sacred Tamil poetry to express Protestant piety. The poets borrowed both religious terminology and drew on the conventions that were a part of Tamil bhakti traditions. They used images from Śaivite and Vaiśnavite bhakti poetry to describe their devotion to and relationship with Christ. This paper analyses two related issues: one, how their poetry disrupted conventions of devotion by straddling the two religious traditions of Protestant piety and Tamil Bhakti; and two, by examining the conflict between the Protestant community and the British missionaries over this poetry, demonstrate the limited place for emotive expressions of devotion allowed for Protestant converts in South India, and how this was symptomatic of other forms of containment of the convert’s religious identity attempted by missionary agencies. |
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A9-233 Yogācāra Studies Consultation Theme: The Confluence and Conflicts between Yogācāra and Tathāgatagarbha in East Asia This panel aims to clarify the complex relation between the Yogācāra and the Tathāgatagarbha traditions in East Asia. Contained herein is a complex mix of historical, philosophical, and religious problems. Historically, the question is to what extent was Tathāgatagarbha a tradition distinct from Yogācāra? Philosophically, we shall explore the disagreements between the two, and try to pinpoint the underlying causes. Religiously, what is involved in the disputes is the timeless problem regarding the intrinsic purity/defilement of the mind. Given the disagreements between these two traditions, we shall also investigate what the extent was of the actual confluence between them. Methodologically, this panel suggests that it might be more fruitful if we examine the Yogācāra-Tathāgatagarbha relation first in the East Asian context. This is because part of what we know about the relation between these two traditions in India is based on their later transmissions to East Asia. On the Different Senses of Tathāgatagarbha in Paramârtha and in the Awakening of Faith This paper argues that the traditional image of Paramârtha as representing a synthesis between the opposing Yogācāra and Tathāgatagarbha traditions is to a large extent the result of later Chinese reinterpretation through the lens of the Awakening of Faith. I begin with the notion of jiexing to demonstrate the doctrinal differences between Paramârtha and the Awakening of Faith. The dissociation of the Awakening of Faith from Paramârtha leads to a differentiation between the weak sense and the strong sense of the notion of “tathāgatagarbha”: Paramârtha’s weak sense insists that “tathāgatagarbha” simply means the all-penetrating Thusness; whereas the strong sense maintains that “tathāgatagarbha” further serves as the ontological basis from which the storehouse consciousness originates. Paramârtha’s weak sense is shared by Vasubandhu as a major Yogācāra thinker and also by the Ratnagotravibhāga as a seminal Tathāgatagarbha text, a fact urging us to modify the way we currently depict the Yogācāra-Tathāgatagarbha relation. Wonhyo's Approach to Reconciling Yogācāra and Tathāgatagarbha A truly thorough examination of the character and trajectory of the Yogācāra-Tathāgatagarbha relationship in East Asia would be incomplete without taking into account the work of the Silla scholiast Wonhyo (617-686). It is clear that Wonhyo's personal religious views inclined in the direction of Tathāgatagarbha. Yet on the other hand, in his commentarial works, Wonhyo relied on Yogācāra works—especially the Yogācārabhūmi--more than any other family of texts. For the most part, Wonhyo tended not to treat Yogācāra and Tathāgatagarbha as two separate traditions, instead freely adopting material from both to suit the needs of his articulation of his wholistic Buddhist vision. In this paper we will explore Wonhyo's distinctive approach to these two traditions as a means of shedding light on the key philosophical points of juncture and variance between these currents of Mahāyāna Buddhist thought. Turning a Deaf Ear to Dharma? The Theory of śrutavāsanā and the Debate about the Nature of the Hearing and Mind in Twentieth Century China This paper takes a debate between two prominent intellectuals, Xióng Shílì and Lü Chéng in 1943, as its departure point. A major issue involved is the nature of “hearing” as exemplified in the Yogācāra teaching of permeation by hearing (*śrutavāsanā). I begin with a brief background on the importance of hearing in the Buddhist tradition, then sample major texts that discuss *śrutavāsanā in the East Asian Yogācāra tradition. It then discusses how the role of hearing was problematized in the Chinese Buddhist tradition by referring to the arguments of modern thinkers such as Xióng Shílì and Móu Zōngsān. The problem of hearing in modern China quickly developed into a debate about the core rift between Yogācāra advocates and adherents of the more traditional East Asian Tathāgatagarbha thought. This paper argues that, through this seemingly minor doctrinal disagreement, the two main approaches to Buddhism were formed, the traditionalist and the critical. Truth and Consciousness in the Polemics of the Yogācāra-Tathāgatagarbha Controversy: A Comparative Approach This paper argues that the Tathāgatagarbha polemics actually represent an eternal philosophical debate regarding the relation between mind and truth. I pick up three cases from the Faxiang School, the Chan School, and the Neo-Confucianism to argue that the same controversy recurs in all of them. The model in Yogācāra, Northern Chan School, and the Chen-Zhu Confucian School maintains that truth is the object of cognition that lies outside of the mind. At least methodologically, consciousness is prior to truth. In contrast, the model in Tathāgatagarbha, Southern Chan School, and the Lu-Wang Confucian School insists that truth discloses itself insofar as mind returns to itself, for ontologically truth and mind are not separated. Truth is the true essence of mind that does not lie outside of the mind. I conclude with remarks on how these two models imply different religious practices: cognition (Yogācāra model) vs. self-reflexive awareness (Tathāgatagarbha model). |
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A9-313 Buddhist Philosophy Group and Yogācāra Studies Consultation and Yogācāra Studies Consultation Theme: Levels of Description in Buddhist Philosophy The papers presented here commonly exemplify a significantly recurrent concern among Indian Buddhist philosophers: that of relating fundamentally different levels of description (e.g., ultimate and conventional, phenomenological and causal, metaphorical and referential) of the person and of reality. Three of them address such issues specifically with regard to the Yogācāra tradition of philosophy, respectively addressing the significance of phenomenological versus ontological conceptions of the two truths; metaphorical versus direct reference; and the continuity and consistency of Vasubandhu's Yogācāra project with the Ābhidharmika writings attributed to him. The first paper concerns the question of how it might make sense for Buddhists to affirm that persons are metaphysically unfree but nevertheless morally responsible for their actions. Buddhism and Compatabilism In this paper, I examine the question of freedom in early Buddhist thought, arguing that the notion of second order desires, taken from western analytic philosophy, can be of considerable utility in providing a coherent explanation of the Buddha's views on this issue. My discussion proceeds with reference to Peter Harvey's important recent article on free will in the Theravāda tradition (2007) and also to Harry Frankfurt's very influential Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person (1982). Taking the Anattālakkhana Sutta as the scriptural basis for my discussion, I argue that the early Buddhist understanding of freedom is that ordinary persons are metaphysically unfree but nevertheless morally responsible for their actions. Beyond metaphysical freedom, however, spiritual freedom is regarded as a real possibility. Two Models of the Two Truths: Ontological and Phenomenological Approaches Mipam (’ju mi pham rgya mtsho, 1846-1912), a Tibetan polymath of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, clearly articulates two distinct models of the two-truths, which are respectively reflected in Madhyamaka and Yogācāra Buddhist traditions. He positions one kind of (Madhyamaka) two-truth model as the product of ontological analysis while the other (Yogācāra) model involves a phenomenological reduction. Since each model reflects a different style of analysis, or a different perspective on truth, he shows how neither model alone has the last word on the nature of what is and how it is experienced. Rather, he argues how both models have an important role to play in coming to understand the nature of reality, emptiness, and Buddha-nature. This paper analyzes the means by which he lays out these two models of the two truths, and explores the implications of their integration in his philosophical works. Upacāra in Early Yogācāra: Towards a Philosophical Reconstruction of a Buddhist Theory of Metaphor The paper deals with the philosophical role and meaning of figurative language within early Yogācāra philosophical discourse, focusing on the school’s use of the term upacāra (metaphor). By examining Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, and Sthiramati’s understanding of the term, the paper attempts a philosophical reconstruction of a Buddhist philosophical theory of metaphor, grounding it in its philosophical and linguistic context. It is demonstrated that the Yogācāra’s ‘pan-metaphorical’ view of language — i.e. that all language use is figurative — implicitly appears already in Asaṅga’s Yogācārabhūmi, and it is argued that this view is tenable only against the background of the Yogācāra’s understanding of language as causally efficacious and as actively involved in the creation of the life-world. Finally, this theory of metaphor is used for examining specific instances of the school’s use of figurative language — among other in Sthiramati’s commentary on the Kāśyapaparivarta — and for discussing their hermeneutic and philosophical significance. Taking Up the Burden: Carrying Vasubandhu from the Treasury to the Three Natures In light of the overwhelming evidence presented by Robert Kritzer that Vasubandhu’s classic of Abhidharma philosophy, the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya, displays intimate knowledge of and inheritance from the Yogācārabhūmi, it is no longer defensible to draw a stark line between the “Śrāvaka” views espoused in the Kośa and the ostensibly Mahāyāna perspective taken in Vasubandhu’s later, explicitly Vijñaptimātra works. This paper attempts to read the Kośa as continuous, if not consistent, with Vasubandhu’s later Yogācāra positions and to hypothesize developments across diverse works (attributed by Frawallner to two separate Vasubandhus) as a perceptible, gradual working-out of a suite of related issues. I have argued elsewhere that Vasubandhu’s late view of the “three natures” synthesizes earlier Yogācāra conceptions of causality with views of representation as “non-dual” (advaya). This paper investigates Vasubandhu’s approaches to perception and causality in the Kośa as impetus and proving ground for nascent versions of this later synthesis. |
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A9-330 Religion in Europe and the Mediterranean World, 500–1650 CE Consultation Theme: Monasteries, Madrasahs, and Metivtas: Centers of Religious Learning in Medieval Christianity, Islam, and Judaism North African “Schools” in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries: Some Pre-Madrasah Institutions of Learning in the Western Mediterranean While there are many studies on the development and nature of Muslim institutions of learning in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Western Mediterranean and North Africa in particular have received less attention. This paper seeks to draw attention to the importance of personal and informal institutions of learning in the eleventh- and twelfth-century Maghrib, a time-period corresponding to the rise of the Almoravid and Almohad dynasties. The goal is to explore the different kinds of “schools” in existence and compare and contrast the nature and availability of Muslim education in urban and rural areas, as well as the differing needs of students depending on their educational and economic backgrounds. These diverse learning institutions and their teachers played an important role in the gradual Islamization and unification of the Muslim West and form the necessary backdrop for understanding the emergence of the more formal madrasah or legal college in the thirteenth century. Professionalizing the Professorate: Exclusionary Practices in Madrasahs of Mamluk Cairo (1250–1517) During the Mamluk period (1250-1517), Cairo was home to a radical increase in the number of madrasahs built. The increase in the wealth and social prestige that law professors enjoyed as a result of that expansion in madrasahs led to an elevation in the social position of scholars and teachers associated with these institutions. This professionalization of Islamic legal education resulted in a limitation of the general public's access to training in Islamic law. Brotherhoods of Secrecy: Jewish Mystical Fraternities and Esoteric Discourse in Medieval Spain The 13th century was a particularly fruitful period for the development of mystical and esoteric doctrines in both Christian and Jewish circles. It was during this period that the Zohar, arguably the most important kabbalistic text, was composed in Castile. A common image employed in Zohar and other kabbalistic texts is that of the 'havraya' or fraternity - a focused gathering of men who share in the transmission and study of secret traditions. In this paper I will consider how depictions of a congregation of a group of scholars around an 'elder' who reveals mysteries and transmits secret traditions is mobilized in the Zohar and Isaac ibn Sahula's Meshal Haqadmoni as a strategy to authorize and authenticate truths and knowledges for the purpose of spreading, rather than restricting, access to such doctrines. Slipping Off the Wedding Ring: Mystical Authority and Women Teachers in Late Medieval Convents This paper argues that three late medieval women mystics (Salomé Sticken of Diepenveen, Alijt Bake of Galilea, and Adelheid Langmann of Engelthal) demonstrate authority and orthodoxy in the instructional literature they composed for the women of their own institutions by emphasizing imitation of and meditation on Christ's life (especially his Passion and charity), rather than their intimate and mystically-authorized experiences with Jesus. Using these three cases, I propose that even though Sticken, Bake, and Langmann intentionally positioned themselves as mystics, gained authority through their orthodox theological reading of Christ's life and death, and composed treatises meant to instruct the women of their communities in contemplation and active charity, their successes and failures were due in large part to the responses of male religious superiors. The Salonikan Jewish Community: Making Curricular Inroads Following the Spanish Expulsion Approximately a decade after resettling in the Ottoman city of Salonika following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, Rabbi Jacob ibn Habib devoted himself to removing the majority of the Talmud's legal portions from the Talmudic corpus in an attempt to produce a new 'Talmud-like' collection containing only its aggadic passages (non-legal material). This collection, the Ein Yaakov, resembled the Talmud in the sense that ibn Habib preserved the order of the aggadic material within its original chapters and tractates. The collection marked a commitment to curricular reform within the Jewish academy of the early sixteenth century in Salonika. This paper will explore the relationship between this desire for a reevaluation of the curriculum and the traumas as well as the intellectual constellation of its authors' era. |
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A9-332 Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Premodern Christianity Consultation Theme: The Use of Scripture in Constructions of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality The four papers in this session examine the use of scripture in relation to conceptions of sex, gender, and sexuality in Christianity prior to the Reformation. Panelists consider how premodern Christians differently engaged the hermeneutical tensions and possibilities entailed in the biblical text around sexual practice and embodiment. They also address how scripture functioned as a tool to articulate sexual difference and its implications. Discussions in this session also touch upon theoretical approaches to this nexus of issues in premodern Christian contexts. Making History Queerly with the Bible: A Third Way between Brooten and a Halperin Place Classicist David Halperin presents a vigorous defense of historicizing scholarship, while Bernadette Brooten’s significant historical efforts indicate that there is potential for constructing the history of “others” to the elite male normalizing views of gender, sexuality, and embodiment. Yet, both scholars’ approaches set a series of limits where one might still tap into a more resistant or disruptive strain in queer theory. Another way of 'making history,' though, can be explored through careful reflection upon and use of thinkers (queer and feminist) like Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Judith Butler. This paper explores a third way that remains invested in, but not bound to historiography in generating a body of interpretive strategies for interpreting biblical literature like Paul’s letter to the Romans. Origen and the Impossible: Exploring the Erotic Logic of the Song of Songs I explore the erotic logic of Christian monotheism through a comparison of Origen's interpretation of the Song of Songs and the notion of “the impossible” as formulated by Bataille and Derrida respectively. First, I argue that the notion of “the impossible” helps to reveal the distinct erotic logic of Christianity—a logic that hyper-eroticizes the spiritual life in the framework of a militant, monogamous monotheism. I then argue that the ero-theo-logic found in Origen's texts on the Song does not reveal a desire to eradicate desire in favor of the spiritual life, as they are sometimes characterized. Instead, they hyper-eroticize the spiritual life in the framework of a militant monogamous monotheism of a Bride longing for union with the Spiritual Groom. The Christian theme of dying to live is not contradicted by this erotic structure, but highlighted most lucidly according to such an erotic logic. Reclothing the Human in Maximus the Confessor This paper argues that the seventh century Byzantine theologian Maximus the Confessor utilizes imagery of clothing, donned and divested, to envision what it means to be “no longer male and female” but “simply a human being, thoroughly transfigured in accordance with Christ.” Maximus uses the theme of clothing to weave together several biblical passages in the service of his vision of ascetic ascent. The paper concludes by putting Maximus’s usage of clothing imagery into conversation with the contemporary, critical theoretical concept of the “morphological imaginary.” The Solitary Vices of Medieval Discernment The biblical injunction to “test the Spirits” (1 John 4:1) gave hermeneutical warrant for church officials to codify affects of vigilance and skepticism into forms of institutional mistrust called the “discernment of spirits.” This paper offers a reconsideration of medieval discernment literature by arguing that it is isomorphic with those moral rhetorics surrounding masturbation. Operative in both discursive registers is a fear of unregulated solitude. Examining scholarship on discernment literature alongside the cultural history and analysis of masturbation, I re-read selected passages from the writings of Jean Gerson and Middle English Chastising of God’s Children. The regulatory aims of these texts index the erotic power of thought to captivate and redirect a believer’s (sometimes unwilling) consciousness. Compelling both the solitary visions of the aspiring mystic and the “solitary vice” of masturbation are forms and languages of erotic pleasure that official theology fears are actually forms of selfishness |
(TTT) Sessions Honoring the AAR's Centennial
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A7-301 Special Topics Forum Theme: "Our Home and Native Land": Colonial Encounters and the History of Religion, Spirituality, and the Secular Sponsored by the American Lectures in the History of Religions Seeking both to recognize and interrogate the history of our discipline, the History of Religions Jury, under the auspices of the American Lectures in the History of Religions, has convened the Centennial Scholars Panel. Four distinguished scholars and artists will discuss how their work explores some of the ways that colonialism has shaped categories of religion, spirituality, and the secular, especially within the Americas. With increasing awareness of the legacies of colonialism for the study of religion, scholars have gained perspective on the discipline's contributions both to naturalizing colonialism and to confronting colonial and postcolonial uses of religion for identity creation and domination. The title, taken from the Canadian anthem, points to the unavoidable ambivalence of being “at home” in postcolonial worlds. Gathering together such creative and interdisciplinary conversation partners, the panel offers an extraordinary chance to rethink what it is to be at home in the study of religion. |
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A7-315 Critical Theory and Discourses on Religion Group and North American Association for the Study of Religion Theme: Roundtable on Theoretical–Critical Issues in the Study of Religion co-sponsored by the North American Association for the Study of Religion The North American Association for the Study of Religion and the Critical Theory and Discourses in Religion Group are holding a joint session, the general purpose of which is the consideration of theoretical–critical issues surrounding the study of religion. The specific intention of the session is to reflect on the current state of methodological and theoretical activity with regard to: 1) Reconciling our fields’ origins with contemporary practices; 2) Diversifying the people engaged in and the perspectives brought to bear upon the analysis of religious phenomena; and 3) Identifying potential new modes of collaboration between the academic Study of Religion and other disciplines. A significant element in our collective goal is to begin an initial conversation that will exert some influence on how future research in religion is conducted. |
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A7-401 Friends of the Academy Reception Members of the Sterling Circle, AAR leadership, and others whose generosity make AAR programs possible are invited to a reception hosted by the AAR Board of Directors. By invitation only. |
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A7-408 AAR Centennial Celebration You’re invited to a dessert reception to celebrate the kickoff of the AAR’s Centennial. From a base of four founding members in 1909, the AAR has grown to 11,000 members today. Spend the evening with colleagues and friends to reflect on the past, celebrate the present and imagine the future of the AAR. Don’t forget the free drink ticket that will be mailed with your name badge! |
(UUU) Sessions with a Focus on Canada
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A7-129 North American Hinduism Consultation Theme: Hinduism in Montréal and Canada: Communities in Community |
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A7-226 Wesleyan Studies Group Theme: Methodism and Wesleyan Traditions in Canada |
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A7-407 Arts Series/Films: Me and the Mosque |
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A8-108 Bible in Racial, Ethnic, and Indigenous Communities Group Theme: Minority Biblical Interpretation in Canada |
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A8-201 Special Topics Forum Theme: Conversation with Zarqa Nawaz, 2009 AAR Religion and Arts Award Winner |
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A8-210 Study of Islam Section and Women and Religion Section and Women and Religion Section Theme: Shariah Courts in Canada: Islam, Gender, and Public Policy in Family Law Arbitration |
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A8-212 Anthropology of Religion Group Theme: The Anthropology of Religious Pluralism in Canada |
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A8-222 Native Traditions in the Americas Group Theme: Issues for Canada's First Nations Peoples |
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A8-269 Law, Religion, and Culture Group Theme: First Nations, Islam, and Secularism: Religion and Law in the Canadian Context |
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A8-405 Arts Series/Films: Eve and the Fire Horse |
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A9-108 Religion and Politics Section Theme: Religion, Politics, and Law in Canada |
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A9-228 Buddhism in the West Consultation Theme: Buddhism in the West: A Canadian Focus |
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A9-328 Pentecostal–Charismatic Movements Consultation Theme: Origins and Identity of Canadian Pentecostalism |
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A10-100 ***Wildcard Session Other Theme: The Revitalization of Aboriginal Spirituality in Canada |
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A10-125 Childhood Studies and Religion Consultation Theme: Adolescents, Young Adults, and Religion: Canadian and Québec Studies in a Global Context |
(VVV) Sessions with a Focus on Québec
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A6-402 Ghost Hunt Tour of Old Montréal for Graduate Students |
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A7-108 North American Religions Section Theme: The History of Religion in Québec |
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A7-129 North American Hinduism Consultation Theme: Hinduism in Montréal and Canada: Communities in Community |
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A7-131 Religion Education in Public Schools: International Perspectives Consultation Theme: Québec’s New "Ethics and Religious Culture" Program |
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A7-208 Theology and Religious Reflection Section Theme: Theological Contributions in the Work of Gregory Baum |
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A7-304 Comparative Studies in Religion Section Theme: Multiculturalism and Religion in Québec: Negotiating Religious Pluralism |
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A7-317 New Religious Movements Group Theme: Québec's New Religions: Inside, Outside, or Parallel to the Catholic Church |
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A7-406 Arts Series/Films: Jesus of Montréal |
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A8-103 Arts, Literature, and Religion Section Theme: Jewish Poets of Montréal |
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A8-104 Arts, Literature, and Religion Section and Religion, Film, and Visual Culture Group and Religion, Film, and Visual Culture Group Theme: Ways of Looking at Jesus of Montréal: From the Streets of St-Denis to Mont-Royal |
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A8-250 Special Topics Forum Theme: Reasonable Accommodation in Québec: Reflections with Cochairs Charles Taylor and Gerard Bouchard |
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A8-307 History of Christianity Section Theme: Monastic Reflections in Contemporary Québec |
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A8-312 Study of Judaism Section Theme: Yiddish Montréal: From the Political Left to the Religious Right |
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A8-402 Arts Series/Films: Sweetgrass Singers |
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A9-6 Walking Tour of Old Longueuil and a Visit to the Archives of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary |
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A9-103 Buddhism Section Theme: Buddhism in Québec |
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A9-117 Contemporary Islam Group Theme: Attraction and Repulsion: Muslim Alterity in Contemporary Québec |
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A9-126 Religion and Popular Culture Group Theme: Folklore in Québec: Intangible, Essential, Cultural, and Religious Knowledge |
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A9-234 Sacred and Religious Sites of Montréal Bus Tour: Tradition in Transition |
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A9-329 Religion and Migration Consultation Theme: Religion, Ethnicity, and Identity in the Greater Montréal Area |
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A9-400 Arts Series/Films: Bonjour Shalom |
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A10-106 North American Religions Section Theme: Managing Religious Diversity and Articulating Identity in Québec |
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A10-125 Childhood Studies and Religion Consultation Theme: Adolescents, Young Adults, and Religion: Canadian and Québec Studies in a Global Context |
