Call for Proposals: CURA Colloquium
Call for Proposals for CURA Religion and World Affairs Colloquium
2018-19 Theme: “Religion, Violence, and Peacemaking”
Boston University’s Institute for Culture, Religion, and World Affairs (CURA) invites BU faculty and graduate students to apply to become fellows in the interdisciplinary colloquium on religion and world affairs, organized in cooperation with the BU School of Theology. CURA’s Religion and World Affairs Colloquium will involve bimonthly meetings throughout the academic year to discuss working papers on a chosen theme. The papers will be prepared by both the BU fellows and invited scholars from outside BU. The colloquium sessions will be open to the general public, with the expectation that all attendees will read the papers in advance and that the sessions will focus on providing feedback and suggestions to the authors. At the end of the colloquium, we anticipate collecting a group of the papers into an edited volume or a themed edition of a relevant journal.
The theme for the 2018-2019 colloquium is “Religion, Violence, and Peacemaking.” We encourage the submission of proposals from any discipline that explore the ways in which religious institutions, beliefs, and practices support or combat violence, promote reconciliation, or serve as a source of violent social division. We hope to build a working group that draws from diverse disciplines, methods, and regions of the world. A committee of faculty will select the proposals from among those submitted, with the idea of accepting approximately 10. Participants in the Colloquium will be asked to prepare a working paper of 5,000-8,000 words that will be scheduled for presentation next year. The papers will be made available a week in advance of their scheduled discussion. Fellows will be expected to attend all sessions, read papers in advance, and provide feedback for other participants. Colloquium sessions will be held on Fridays, 1:00-2:30 (on weeks where STH does not have faculty meetings), about twice a month. Fellows will receive a $1,000 stipend for successful participation of the colloquium. The deadline for applications is May 15, 2018.
Proposals are welcomed from scholars from any school or college at BU. This year’s Colloquium focused on “Religion, Violence, and Peacemaking” and included faculty, staff, and graduate students from anthropology, religion, philosophy, the School of Theology, the Graduate Program in Religion, and the Pardee School. The Colloquium builds on the Religion Fellows Program sponsored by the School of Theology annually since 2010, which has brought together faculty and graduate students from throughout BU to develop research papers on an important theme in the study of religion. STH remains a co-sponsor and active participant in the CURA Colloquium.
Founded in 1985, CURA was the first interdisciplinary research center in the United States focused on religion and global affairs. CURA seeks to build a community of scholars from BU and beyond with a shared interest in religion and world affairs. Under the leadership of Peter Berger and Bob Hefner, CURA has sponsored 140 research projects in over 40 countries, resulting in the publication of 145 books, and organized countless academic lectures and other events. CURA joined the Pardee School of Global Affairs in 2015 and continues to sponsor collaborative research projects, public lectures, and gatherings for faculty, graduate students, and others, and to support the Pardee School’s curriculum in religion and global affairs. For more information, please contact Arlene Brennan at 617-353-5241 or arleneb@bu.edu or Timothy Longman at 617-353-9751 or longman@bu.edu.
Please help us spread the word, and submit your proposal to Arlene Brennan by the deadline of May 21, 2018. Your proposal should include your CV and 300-500 words detailing your chosen subject.