News of the extended network of faculty, alumni, students, visiting researchers, and mission partners is regularly updated, and some of the big ideas or major events in Global Christianity are covered in the CGCM News.
The Global Christian Forum Committee chose Dr. Casely Essamuah
The Global Christian Forum Committee chose Dr. Casely Essamuah to serve in the central role of its Secretary. Dr. Essamuah will take up the position on 1 July 2018, following the retirement of the Rev Dr Larry Miller who has led the GCF for the last six years. Dr. Essamuah will be presented as ‘Secretary elect’ to the third global gathering of the GCF, which occurs in Bogota, Colombia April 24-27, 2018.
Call for Applications for an International Workshop
Call for Applications for an International Workshop on the History of Christianity in East Asia at the University of Minnesota
The Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History at the University of San Francisco in collaboration with the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota will hold a four-day international workshop in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from October 1 through October 4, 2018.
Please note that all participants will be expected to arrive by Sunday, September 30 and depart on Friday, October 5, 2018. They are required to attend all workshop-related activities and sessions.
We are inviting post-doctoral level scholars and junior faculty members with their research focus on Christianity in East Asia who are currently preparing a book manuscript for publication to apply. This workshop is part of a four-year project supported by the Henry Luce Foundation in New York City. The project is entitled, “Historical Legacies of Christianity in East Asia: Bridging a New Generation of Scholars and Scholarship” and is administered by the Ricci Institute. For more information about the various initiatives that are part of the project, please visit: www.ricci-institute.org. For information about the workshop at Oxford in 2017, please visit the above website as well as: www.facebook.com/usfricci.
The workshop has three primary components. First, through a series of lectures and seminars by senior scholars at the University of Minnesota and elsewhere, participants will have the opportunity to confer with specialists from around the world with regard to the interpretation of complex primary source materials, including manuscripts and early printed books from different historical periods composed in a variety of East Asian and Western languages (e.g. classical Chinese, classical Japanese, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, etc...). Another primary focus will be reflecting on research methodologies and historiographies, as they developed and were expressed through different scholarly rhetorical traditions. The training will be further enhanced by discussions with librarians and curators of the James Ford Bell Library and other libraries at the University of Minnesota.
Secondly, participants will have the opportunity to interact with a Senior Acquisitions Editor from Brill Academic Publishers in Leiden and with other scholars with regard to the entire editorial and publication process.
Thirdly, participants will be mentored by invited senior scholars who are well known internationally for their contributions to the study of Christianity in East Asia. These scholars will critique and discuss the participants' draft manuscripts in view of their preparation for publication. This will take place in an open forum together with fellow participants.
Qualifications. Applicants must have completed doctoral studies and dissertation defense in order to be eligible to participate the workshop. Post-doctoral candidates must have completed their doctoral degrees within the past five years and have been involved actively in teaching and/or research (as a post-doctoral fellow, an independent scholar, or a junior faculty member).
Requirements.
(1) a most recent Curriculum Vitae;
(2) an 8~10 page double-spaced statement in English that summarizes the manuscript the candidate is currently preparing to submit for publication. The theme of the manuscript should be related to some aspect of the history of Christianity in East Asia, including China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. This statement should include a synopsis of the manuscript, a detailed description of the research methodology employed, plans for additional research and writing to complete the project (if any), and a proposed timeline for the submission of the manuscript to a publisher;
(3) two up-to-date letters of recommendation.
Expenses. The Ricci Institute will cover the following expenses for all successful applicants:
(1) Transportation: return economy airfare from your city/country of residence as well as local public transportation to and from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to the hotel reserved for the workshop participants (e.g. shared shuttle service or Minneapolis Metro system); Note: car rentals are not covered.
(2) Lodging in Minneapolis from September 30 until the morning of October 5, 2018, including most meals during the workshop (Note: lodging will be pre-arranged by the workshop organizers).
All authorized expenses will be paid as a reimbursement on presentation of official receipts, in compliance with the travel policies of the University of San Francisco and the terms stipulated by the Henry Luce Foundation.
Incidental expenses of a personal nature (e.g. travel insurance, phone/data purchase, etc.) are not reimbursable.
Medical Insurance
Please note that all participants are responsible to arrange their own valid medical insurance for the duration of their stay in the United States.
Visa
If you are required to apply for a visa to enter the United States, please contact the local US Consulate for more information on the documentation you will be expected to provide. To support your visa application, the Ricci Institute will be able to issue successful applicants with an official invitation to participate in the workshop. For more information see:https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas.html
Deadline. All required documents should be in English and submitted via email no later than April 21, 2018 to blkhaajav@dons.usfca.edu with the subject line: “2018 Minneapolis Workshop Application”. Letters from the recommenders must be sent directly to the above email address by the same deadline. The preferred formats for the letter attachments are PDF or MS-WORD.
Application results will be announced by May 15, 2017.
For more information about the Ricci Institute at the University of San Francisco, please visit: http://usf.usfca.edu/ricci or visit our Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/usfricci
Call for Papers: Prison and Religion in the Global South
The journal Social Sciences and Missions is now planning a special issue on Prison and Religion in the Global South.
Prisons build an important interface of social and religious concern. They are communities operating with limited connection to the outside world and with their own resilient communal life. Penal communities are often dominated by prison gangs. Yet there are aspects to communal life in prison that are outside of gangs’ control, among them an occasionally vibrant religious life independent of outside initiative. At the same time, religious groups of Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, or other provenience, and, to a smaller extent, non-religious NGOs play a crucial role in bridging the gap between prison community and outside world. They provide crucial services that mitigate the hardships of prisons. For some religious groups, prisons offer an excellent ground for religious propagation and recruiting of followers. They see religious renewal in prison as a particularly striking and publicly attractive form of demonstrating the power of faith in transforming people.
Most scholarly research on religious interaction with penal populations relate to North America or Europe. Focusing on religions and prisons in the Global South, this special issue invites contributions from social science and religious studies.
Topics include but are not limited to
- Religious and missionary agents in prison: motives, goals, and interests
- Religious propagation in penal contexts: strategies and methods
- Independent or indigenous religion in the penal context and its interaction with missionary initiatives;
- Religion, gang culture, and penal community life
- Conversion, conversion narratives, and deconversion in the penal context
- Religious ministry in prison and its effectiveness in rehabilitation
- Faith and adjustment to prison life
- Religion and prison administration: convergences and tensions
- State administration of religious affairs in prison
- Religion, penal politics, and human rights
- Comparative approaches to religious ministry in different penal contexts of the Global South
- Chaplains and volunteers in prison ministry
- Religion and restorative justice
- Religious influences on penal ideologies
- Religion and the death penalty
- New Religious Movements in prison
We invite contributions of original research with a maximum length of 8,000 words. We encourage interested contributors to first submit by email an abstract of around 100 words by April 30, 2018 in order for us to gain a preliminary understanding of your submission plans. Please send your abstract to the guest editor Tobias Brandner (tobias@cuhk.edu.hk or tobiasbran@gmail.com) or the journal’s editor Jayeel Cornelio (jcornelio@ateneo.edu). You may also contact either one of them for further information and questions. Please take note of the submission guidelines that can be found on the journal’s website (http://www.brill.com/social-sciences-and-missions).
Submission deadline for the full paper: October 31, 2018.
Islam and Toleration
The Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University is pleased to announce our annual conference on Islam and Toleration. This conference aims to explore the concept and realities of toleration in the Islamic tradition with a focus on contemporary work, from Asia and Africa to Europe and the United States. This conference is co-sponsored by Harvard Law School's Islamic Legal Studies Program: SHARIAsource.
Christianity in the Chinese Society: Impact, Interaction and Inculturation
African Humanist Theology
Derrick Muwina, CGCM student affiliate, successfully defended his dissertation. The dissertation develops an African humanist theology as a basis for concrete engagement with social problems (dehumanization, violence, and poverty) by drawing from Kenneth Kaunda’s concept of Christian humanism. Kaunda’s concept of Christian humanism is a valuable, multidimensional concept that, properly understood can serve as a critical resource for addressing the ethical challenges related to human dignity, nonviolence, and economic justice. The study concludes that African Christian humanism should be an important component of Christian Social-Ethics.Casely Essamuah as the next Secretary of the Global Christian Forum
Dr. Casely Essamuah, BUSTH alumnus, has been selected as the next Secretary of the Global Christian Forum which brings together traditional ecumenical, evangelical and Pentecostal churches. He received his Th.D. in 2003 and has written a book titled, "Genuinely Ghanaian: History of the Methodist Church Ghana, 1960-2000." Read the full article here.
Cross-Cultural Friendship, Spiritual Practices, and Witness to World Christian Community
Duke Divinity School will sponsor the 2018 David C. and Virginia Steinmetz lecture featuring Dr. Dana L. Robert, Truman Collins Professor of World Christianity and History of Mission and also the director of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission. Her lecture will be titled "Cross-Cultural Friendship, Spiritual Practices, and Witness to World Christian Community: Twentieth Century Case Studies." More information can be found here.
American Society of Church History Winter Meeting 2019 Call for Paper
The Program Committee of the American Society of Church History, chaired by President-Elect Paul C. H. Lim, is pleased to announce its Call For Papers for the upcoming Winter Meeting.
The annual Winter Meeting of the American Society of Church History (ASCH) will be held Thursday to Sunday, January 3-6, 2019, in Chicago, Illinois, as a concurrent event to the annual meeting of the American Historical Association (AHA). All ASCH sessions will be held at the historic Blackstone Hotel, next door to the main AHA conference hotel.
Conference Theme: “Race and the Other: Whose Church, Which Histories?”
When the term “church history” is used in the North American context, whose church(es) do we mean? Has “church history” – both as a demarcator of a discipline and as a range of discursive parameters – served to signify inclusion of certain groups, while ignoring, occluding, or excluding others, however unintentionally?
Reflecting the conference theme, “Race and the Other: Whose Church, Which Histories?”, papers and panels are solicited that deal particularly and organically with the various ways racial and cultural others have been depicted historiographically; resisted or accommodated, tolerated or celebrated existentially; and become the mirror to reveal the fault-line of identity formation of various communities of Christian faith.
Proposals from the following periods and categories, inter alia, are welcomed:
1) Early Christianity and patristic literatures
2) Medieval and Byzantine
3) Reformation and Early Modern Atlantic
4) American: Colonial to Contemporary
5) Africana, broadly construed
6) Latino/a/x
7) Modern European
8) World Christianity
We solicit proposals that address the conference theme, or any other aspect of the history of Christianity and its interactions with culture, within traditional categories of historical periodization and geographical area, or across periods or regions. We also encourage proposals that engage in interdisciplinary discussion; place theological ideas and lived religious practices in historical context; examine particular genres, source materials or methods, including the use of digital humanities and non-textual sources; or treat the current state of the study of histories of Christianity. Sessions that deal with pedagogical issues of concern in the teaching of the history of Christianity, or with issues in the publication and dissemination of research to specialist and general audiences are also invited. Sessions may also consider a major recent book or offer critical assessments of a distinguished career.
Types of Proposal
We solicit three types of proposal for presentation: regular panels, roundtables, and individual papers. Each type is defined below.
Regular Panel: Structured presentations from three (or, rarely, four) scholars of original research papers. These papers must be no more than twenty minutes each. Moderated by a chairperson, these presentations are often commented upon by a respondent, after which there is a conversation among the panelists as well as time for audience questions.
Roundtable: Structured group discussion of a topic, question, theme, or book significant to the discipline of the history of Christianity. Such a discussion can be proposed in a variety of ways, at the discretion of the person submitting the proposal. Roundtables are limited to six participants, along with the chairperson. The aim of the roundtable is a discussion among the participants, who may present short papers (~five minutes each) to frame their further contributions. The roundtable format should reserve a substantial amount of time for interaction with the audience at the end of the formal discussion.
Individual Paper: While the Program Committee gives strong preference to regular panel and roundtable proposals, one can also propose an individual paper for presentation on the conference program. If accepted, an individual paper will be placed into a panel — usually constructed of other individual paper submissions —by the Program Committee.
To ease scheduling and foster diverse dialogue, the ASCH limits the participation of conference attendees to:
- 1 presentation of a paper, and
- 1 comment on a session or participation on a roundtable, and
- 1 chairing of a session.
Deadlines For Proposals
The regular ASCH deadline for proposals is March 15, 2018.
The priority deadline, by which all proposals to be co-sponsored by the AHA must be submitted, is February 15, 2018. Persons submitting AHA co-sponsored proposals must submit them to both the AHA and the ASCH, using the proposal submission forms of each society.
The Program Committee will do its best to announce the results of all submissions by April 30, 2018.
Submission Guidelines
To submit a proposal for a full panel, roundtable, or individual paper, go to churchhistory.org/proposals/. Submitters will be required to enter basic information about their proposal, as well as submit a proposal document.
Full panel and roundtable proposal documents will consist of a single PDF or Word file containing:
1) session title
2) a description of less than 300 words outlining the topic of the session
3) a description of less than 300 words of each paper
4) a biographical paragraph of each presenter, the session chair, and the respondent if applicable
5) an e-mail address and phone number for each participant
Full panel and roundtable proposals should exhibit diversity (gender, ethnicity, rank, scholarly location, etc.) in their composition. Sessions are typically ninety minutes in length and allow for three or four papers, a formal response, and audience interaction. The committee reserves the right to reconfigure sessions as needed.
Individual paper proposals will consist of a single PDF or Word file containing:
1) a description of less than 300 words
2) a biographical paragraph about the applicant
3) an e-mail address and phone number for the proposed presenter
Video Projection
Panels or papers requiring video projection should provide a clear rationale for doing so, as the expense involved is considerable. While we will make every effort to accommodate requests, unfortunately the Program Committee cannot guarantee that projection equipment will be available for every presentation.
Membership and Registration Requirements
All session participants (except those living and working outside the United States) must hold a 2019 ASCH membership by November 1, 2018 in order to remain on the program. For information about ASCH membership, go to http://www.churchhistory.org/membership
All session participants must purchase a registration for the 2019 Annual Meeting by November 1, 2018 in order to remain on the program.
Northeast Evangelical Missiological Society Regional Conference
A complete program will be posted to the webpage soon: https://www.emsweb.org/
Directions to the campus and area info are available at http://www.nyack.edu/