Call for Papers: PTS 2023 World Christianity Conference
CALL FOR PAPERS 2023
WAR, PANDEMIC, AND CLIMATE CHANGE: GLOBAL CRISES—PAST AND PRESENT—AND THEIR PLACE IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY SCHOLARSHIP
Fourth International Interdisciplinary Conference co-organized by the World Christianity and History of Religions Program (History & Ecumenics Dept.) and the Overseas Ministries Study Center, Princeton Theological Seminary, New Jersey, USA. March 14 (Tuesday) - March 17th (Friday) 2023
In the last two decades, the study of world Christianity has significantly expanded its horizons. A testament to that is the growth of academic programs, chairs, conferences, and publications devoted to studies of Christianity's kaleidoscopic local and global manifestations. Privileging lived experiences, world Christianity scholarship nowadays mainly focuses on concrete contexts, in the belief that faith should not be isolated from the rest of life. World Christianity scholarship, therefore, encourages approaches attentive to interactions across fluid borders—cultural, economic, existential, political, and religious—to promote embodied interpretations of these complex and interrelated realities. Whereas previous conferences asked questions about theory and methodology, our 2023 conference calls for fresh inquiry into the nature and responsibility of world Christianity scholarship at a time of overlapping crises of such ominous magnitude that the very ecology of life on planet earth looks increasingly imperiled. In short, in circumstances like today's, what should we as concerned public scholars be doing differently, how, and why, with an eye on the past as well as the present? Accordingly, we welcome panels and papers on any and all topics relevant to our conference theme, whether contemporary or historical. As in previous conferences, in 2023 the Global South will remain our primary although not exclusive frame of reference. We particularly encourage case-based studies grounded in historical/empirical research, while proposals from ethical, theological, and missiological perspectives will also be considered.
For a fuller description of the theme CLICK HERE.
Proposal Deadline: September 30, 2022
Notification of successful proposals: October 31, 2022
· This is a hybrid conference with both in-person and virtual options.
· An email on fees, registration, accommodations, and related matters will be forthcoming.
· Limited travel subsidies will be available for participants from the Global South with accepted paper/panel proposals.
For questions, please contact : worldchristianityconference@ptsem.edu.
Conveners: Afe Adogame, Raimundo Barreto, Thomas Hastings, Richard Fox Young
Call for Papers: Loyalties and Transloyalties in the History of Medical Missions
CALL FOR PAPERS
LOYALTIES AND TRANSLOYALTIES IN THE HISTORY OF MEDICAL MISSIONS
20-22 October 2022
VID Specialized University, Stavanger, Norway
This workshop explores new approaches to examine the history of medical missions from the perspectives of loyalties and transloyalties. Throughout the history of medical missions and World Christianity, tension persisted, for example between medicine and evangelism, between scientific development and ethical reflections, and between medical intervention and divine healing. Interplay of interests, values, and loyalties was found striking between various agents, such as between mission boards, missionaries, and colonial powers, and between mission hospitals, churches, and local communities. Research focusing on multi-layered identities and loyalties, as well as negotiations and shifts in-between (tentatively understood as “transloyalities”), would illuminate the complexity of human relations and the multifaceted processes in various contact zones in the history of medical missions and World Christianity.
The Centre of Mission and Global Studies at VID Specialized University, in collaboration with the Faculty of Health Studies and the Mission and Diakonia Archives at VID, invites presentation proposals from all disciplines in the social sciences, humanities, and beyond. Topics to be addressed may include (but are not limited to):
· “Healing bodies and saving souls”: medical missionaries’ professional loyalties
· Medical missions, colonial/national powers, and international organizations
· Conflicting and merging theories and practices of healing
· Medical missions, secularization, and modernization discourse
· History of diakonia; the deacon and deaconess movements
· Fundraising in medical and health work
· Cooperation and conflict in medical philanthropy
· Metaphors of disease and spiritual illness of the Church
· The meaning of the term “health” both physically and spiritually and definitions of terms such as “body”, “ability”, and “disability”
· Gender issues in medical and health work
Based on submitted abstracts, we will select 20 participants to present their papers. The cost of board and lodging of the presenters during the workshop will be covered. Limited travel subsidies are available for selected participants with accepted paper proposals.
Deadline to submit application: May 31, 2022. Please submit your application, consisting of a paper title, an abstract (max. 300 words), a short bio, and a note about travel subsidy if you wish to apply (approx. cost of airfare), to marina.wang@vid.no. We will notify the selected participants of acceptance by 10 June 2022. The workshop language will be English.
Deadline to submit a draft of a full paper: September 30, 2022. An edited volume of revised papers or a special issue in an established journal in the field is the planned output of the workshop.
For any queries and further information, please contact the workshop convener, Dr. Marina Xiaojing Wang (marina.wang@vid.no).
Call for Papers: “Slavery, Law and Religion in the Early Modern Period”, UCLouvain, March 8-9, 2023
Call for Papers
UCLouvain will host a workshop on "Slavery, Law, and Religion in the Early Modern Period" on March 8-9, 2023. See the full flyer here for more details and registration information.
Colonial slavery and the global slave trade recently have received much attention in the historical disciplines. This interdisciplinary workshop seeks to bring together junior researchers - Ph.D. candidates and early-stage postdocs – working on early modern colonial and Christian slavery in the fields of cultural, intellectual, religious, and legal history.
Particularly regarding the 18th century, scholars have compared the transatlantic with the Indian Ocean world. Researchers have also identified shifting attitudes to the institution of slavery as well as the extent to which sources reveal the agency and actions of enslaved human beings, and they have examined distinctions between various forms of dependency, servitude, and slavery.
For example, European intellectuals at the time offered justifications as well as criticisms of enslavement and the slave trade, sometimes unquestioningly supporting the former, while rejecting the latter, sometimes rejecting colonial aspirations but not the enslavement that came with such endeavors. Furthermore, notions of an assumed self-evident nature of slavery that required no justification at all were articulated. In the legal sphere, research has revolved, among further issues, around the legal status of not being able to own property, the agency of Europeans and non-Europeans in legal procedures, the role of contracts, and observable differences between theory and practice. The extent to which enslaved human beings claimed rights or took legal recourse has been a topic of research.
Besides the intellectual and legal dimensions, the cultural and political contexts of various governing entities such as trading companies, mission stations, and indigenous political powers have been analyzed, including a range of motivations, from commercial interests to competing claims to political authority. Moreover, scholars increasingly have begun to turn to religious source material from Christian missions. For example, the extent to which slaveholding pertained to religious settings of conversion, education, and membership in Christian communities has been reconstructed from the archival evidence.
The call for papers addresses researchers in the fields of cultural, intellectual, religious, and legal history and is equally interested in methodical as well as empirically focused contributions. The aim is to address this topic by responding to a series of questions:
• To what extent does slavery offer a perspective on the entanglement between trade, colonial rule, and Christian mission?
• How did political culture motivate change in social formations that included slavery?
• What narrative figures and discursive patterns did individuals employ in order to communicate about slavery and servitude? What specific terms did they use?
• How did local colonial circumstances affect legal practices?
• What was the impact of intellectual texts, such as scholastic tractates or theories of empire, war, and peace, on social practices of enslavement and slave trading?
• To what extent were the rules of natural law and classical Roman law, such as selling oneself or enslaving enemies, relevant in early modern colonial settings?
• In how far was the enslavement of Christians different from that of non-Christians? • Did legal treatments coexist with supposedly scientific, anthropological assertions of inferiority, particularly of non-Europeans?
• What role did the Christian confessional perspective play? Was there a difference particularly between Catholic and Protestant practices of slavery?
• Can we consider a cross-confessional approach to early modern colonial slavery by way of comparative analysis?
Proposal submissions
The workshop “Slavery, Law and Religion in the Early Modern Period” invites junior scholars studying for a Ph.D. degree or having recently completed their dissertation to submit a proposal of 200-250 words for a 20-minute presentation by 31 July 2022 to Dr. Christoph Haar via email christoph.haar@uclouvain.be.
The primary conference language will be English. Proposal submissions in French are also welcome.
Call for Papers from The Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians (The Circle)
Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians (The Circle), U.S Chapter
Circle and Womanist Theologians Sankofa Research Project
Co-editors: Ericka Shawndricka Dunbar, Ph.D., and Yoknyam Dabale, Ph.D. Candidate
Introduction: Musa W. Dube, Ph.D.
The Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians was founded in Ghana, West Africa in 1989 with the purpose of amplifying Pan-African and inter-religious theological perspectives of African women. As a means of embodying Sankofa, our next conference in 2024 will be a pilgrimage back to Ghana. In preparation for our return, we are engaged in several research projects that analyze and expand the work of the Circle theological matriarchs, that is, the founders and the earliest champions of the Circle. The Circle has always included sisters both on the continent and in the Diaspora. This call is an expansion of projects already underway that center on the US founding matriarchs, as we endeavor to go back and retrieve their insights and contributions to create more equitable and just futures for African(a) women specifically, and African(a) peoples more generally. Additionally, this is a broader call for exploring other thematic aspects of the Circle, diasporic identities, and womanist theologies.
We invite papers that reflect not only on the crises that have marked African(a) women’s lives in the diaspora but also on future possibilities and collaborations. These opportune two special-volume issues aim to include papers that capture African(a) women’s reviews of and resistance to gender and ethnic-based oppression and violence across various continents; and resilience in the face of and revision of ideologies, attitudes, and theologies that undergird such practices. The scope of this issue is intended to be broad and inclusive of diverse methodologies, theories, and approaches. Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:
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Archival and scholarly research looking at the scholarship, contributions, and legacies of US Circle Sisters. How have their lives, work, and impact contributed to building communities of resistance, resilience, and revision across various contexts?
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Exploration of the intersections of gender, race/ethnicity, places/space, identity, and what we pass on to our future generations.
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Exploration of what it means to belong in diasporic places/spaces and resources for navigating those (physical, social, religious, geopolitical) landscapes.
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Assessment of liberation theologies formed in the context of African(a) culture and religion.
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Analyses of social issues such as gender and ethnic constructions and hierarchies, poverty, marginalization, sexualized violence, language, etc.
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Examination of prejudices and biases, freedom/liberation, and research that examines African(a) women’s personal, professional, public, and political representation emphasizing existing cultural norms/biases, questioning societal prejudices, inequities toward women, and resistance to those practices.
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Investigation of cultural influences on womanist perceptions/perspectives and theologies.
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Circle Members’/Womanists’ transnational and global activism and resistance in all forms.
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Africana Womanists subjectivities and experiences in Academia.
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Intersections of Womanist Theologies and Afro-futurism.
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Exploration of immigrant women and religious identity in the diaspora.
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Analyses of African (a) motherhood, health, marginalization, and belonging in Eurocentric spaces looking at it through the religious lens.
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Reflection on ways in which mainstream Eurocentric feminist theological discourse on gender influence African(a) discourse on womanhood.
Timeline: Please submit a 200-300 word abstract by April 21, 2022
Please send all submissions and any questions to: thecircleuschapter@gmail.com
Decisions on publication will be made on: May 15, 2022
The deadline to complete papers is: September 15, 2022
The volumes are peer-reviewed and will be published by The Journal of Black Women and Religious Cultures
BWRC Formatting Guidelines:
Generally, manuscript lengths are 24 to 32 double-spaced pages, approximately 6,500 to 10,000 words (excluding the abstract, notes, and bibliography). Essays must include an abstract of not more than 200 words.
Manuscripts must be double-spaced, left-justified, using 12-point Times New Roman type, and submitted as Microsoft Word .docX files.
Required writing style: Full Chicago humanities citations as endnotes only
All manuscripts undergo double-blind peer review. To facilitate anonymous peer review, author names should be indicated on a separate cover page but NOT be included on any other page within the submission. The cover page should include the title of the submission, the author’s (s’) name(s), email address, and institutional affiliation(s).
Call for Papers on “Colonial Violence: Secular and Ecclesiastical Perspectives (1919-1975)”
VID Specialized University, Stavanger (Norway)
Centre of Mission and Global Studies
International Conference - Call for Papers
Colonial Violence: Secular and Ecclesiastical Perspectives (1919-1975)
Praia, Cape Verde, 7-9 November 2022
The history of violence in the colonial contexts in the twentieth century has received considerable scholarly attention in recent years. With regard to some colonial spaces, the topic of colonial violence has, in fact, flourished as scholars have deployed new theories and methodologies to explore the mechanisms and typologies of violence across a range of colonial spaces/societies. Despite all this, inter-and transdisciplinary and empirically grounded approaches to colonial violence remain rare and considerably underexplored. Colonial Violence: Secular and Ecclesiastical Perspectives (1919-1975) seeks to gather scholars from different disciplines such as History, Art History, Church History, Legal History, Law, Anthropology, and Historical Sociology to study the phenomenon of colonial violence. The main goal is to discuss the attitudes of secular and ecclesiastical colonial and anti-colonial actors towards colonial violence, in its different forms and manifestations, at different levels from international fora to colonial territories, in colonial and non-colonial contexts.
Colonial Violence: Secular and Ecclesiastical Perspectives (1919-1975) is organized by the Centre of Mission and Global Studies of VID Specialized University of Stavanger, Norway, and will be held on 7-9 November 2022 in Praia, the capital city of Cape Verde, West Africa (Venue: National Library of Cape Verde).
Keynote lectures will be delivered by Diogo Ramada Curto (Instituto Português de Relações Internacionais, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal); Aurora Almada (Instituto de História Contemporânea, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal); Mika Vähäkangas (Lund University, Sweden).
Proposals are invited for twenty-minute papers which explore any aspect of the history of colonial violence. Papers are welcome from any academic discipline. Interdisciplinary papers and studies of the European colonies in Africa and contributions addressing the dynamics of loyalties in the context of approaches to colonial violence are particularly encouraged. Potential topics could include (but are not limited to):
- Methodologies for histories of colonial violence in the twentieth century (source interpretation; archival purge/erasure; theoretical perspectives).
- Typologies of colonial violence (forced labour/slavery, cultural violence; environmental violence; psychological/symbolic violence; violence against cultural heritages, etc.).
- Conflict of loyalties in the justifications/rationalizations and condemnations of colonial violence.
- Resistance and dynamics of loyalties in colonial violence narratives.
- Colonial violence in the international secular and ecclesiastical conferences (Bandung Conference; Vatican II and other ecclesiastical meetings and conferences; the Pan-African Congresses, etc.).
- Supranational and transnational organizations’ reaction to colonial violence (League of Nations; United Nations, World Council of Churches; the Holy See, the World Labour Organization; the World Health Organization).
- Colonial and non-colonial states’ (Germany, the Scandinavian countries) approaches to colonial violence.
- Churches, religion/spirituality, and colonial violence (prohibitions; justifications; complicity and loyalties).
- Native voices, perspectives/representations of colonial violence.
- Legacies, memories/reminiscences, and scars of colonial violence.
Proposals, consisting of a title, an abstract (max. 250 words), and a short academic track record, should be sent to jairzinho.lopes@vid.no by Friday, 15 May 2022. Feedback on the proposals will be sent by 3 June 2022. This conference is scheduled to be held in person in Praia, subject to the global public health situation.
For any queries and further information, please contact the conference organizer, Dr. Jairzinho Lopes Pereira (jairzinho.lopes@vid.no).
More information can be found here.