{"id":8366,"date":"2017-01-11T11:59:06","date_gmt":"2017-01-11T16:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgcm\/?p=8366"},"modified":"2017-01-19T08:18:24","modified_gmt":"2017-01-19T13:18:24","slug":"cfp-converting-spaces-re-directing-missions-through-global-encounters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgcm\/2017\/01\/11\/cfp-converting-spaces-re-directing-missions-through-global-encounters\/","title":{"rendered":"Call for Papers: Converting Spaces: Re-Directing Missions Through Global Encounters"},"content":{"rendered":"

The department of religious studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara, with support from the Cordano Endowment in Catholic Studies, will host an interdisciplinary conference from May 4-6, 2017, entitled \u201cConverting Spaces: Re-Directing Missions Through Global Encounters.\u201d The keynote speaker for the event is Dr. Liam Brockey of the history department at Michigan State University.<\/span><\/p>\n

Proposals addressing the relation of space to conversion in the context of European global and colonial expansion from the sixteenth century onwards are welcome from established scholars, graduate students, and independent researchers. The deadline for submissions is February 17, 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

We seek papers addressing the relation of space to conversion in the context of European global and colonial expansion from the sixteenth century onwards. We invite contributions that explore the relationship between \u201cmission\u201d and the conversion of spaces globally, focusing on how these spaces both converted and were converted by different contexts, people, and environments. We especially solicit papers that examine missions against the particular historical contexts and cultural environments into which they entered. We therefore encourage contributions that consider how Christian missions have been sent in different directions by the people they have sought to missionize, and consider how those who were the targets of conversion \u201cindigenized\u201d the spaces that were produced to convert them. We conceive of space broadly\u2014as sites or loci of interaction and exchange; as an effect of social practices within communities; as an ontological question (e.g., the relation of the metaphysical to the physical); and as an epistemological category bound up with producing order and legibility. What were the politics of this exchange, and how did the spaces shape transmission? Likewise, how did missionaries contribute to the creation of epistemological spaces (e.g. museums, archives, schools) in which the study of the \u201cother\u201d was institutionalized and bound to colonial taxonomies? What were the responses to missionaries by the \u201cmissionized\u201d: how did buildings, hymns and texts serve as spaces of contestation and adaptation?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As an interdisciplinary conference interested in the ambiguity of Christian missions, conversion and inculturation, we welcome papers addressing the following themes:<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1. Spaces of missionary\/colonial knowledge<\/span>
\n\u2022 The politics of archives and museums ranging from collection and preservation of, as well as access to materials. Missionary influence on educational systems and their curricula. We are especially interested in papers articulating approaches to decolonizing epistemologies of archives.<\/span>
\n\u2022 Academic texts and conferences as sites for the creation or contestation of knowledge and policy for colonial powers.<\/span>
\n\u2022 The Christian social-spatial imaginary in relation to conceptions of \u201cmission fields,\u201d \u201c10\/40 window,\u201d \u201cthe Muslim world,\u201d and similar (pseudo)geographical frames.<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 2. Material histories of the mission<\/span>
\n\u2022 The spatial organization of the mission, including the relation of sacred space to sites of labor and production.<\/span>
\n\u2022 Political economies of missions, including commodity production, educational services, economics of charity, land, and labor.<\/span>
\n\u2022 The indigenization of Christian art, architecture, relics, and liturgy.<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 3. The politics of enclosing and (de-)constructing borders<\/span>
\n\u2022 Critical discussion of the relation of the spatial and directional qualities embedded in categories of \u201cmissionized,\u201d \u201cindigenous,\u201d \u201cnative,\u201d \u201clocal,\u201d \u201creached\/unreached.\u201d<\/span>
\n\u2022 Charting spaces\u2014how did mapmaking, census-taking, and similar processes of inscribing legibility by missionaries contest existing understandings of place and community?<\/span>
\n\u2022 Differing ontologies: what were the modes, practices and understandings of \u201cspace\u201d encountered by missionaries in different contexts. What were the limitations of their categories and epistemological assumptions, e.g., where \u201cconverts\u201d understood themselves not as \u201ceither\/or\u201d but as occupying polysemous\/ambiguous spaces.<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 4. Conversion and the creation of \u201cCalifornia\u201d<\/span>
\n\u2022 The transformation of indigenous lands into Spanish colonial and Catholic missionary spaces.<\/span>
\n\u2022 The politics of \u201cconservation\u201d and its connection to cultural and territorial dispossession. The relation of history-making to history-writing and the authority of the \u201chistorian.\u201d<\/span>
\n\u2022 Indigenous Californian evaluations of California history. What are the responses to California-textbook history? How was the land conceived of prior to Spanish missionary\/colonial expansion?<\/span><\/p>\n

To submit a proposal, send an abstract of 300-500 words, along with a one-page CV, to\u00a0<\/span>UCSBConvertingSpaces@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Website:\u00a0<\/span>http:\/\/blogs.ssrc.org\/tif\/2017\/01\/06\/cfp-converting-spaces\/#more-44344<\/a><\/p>\n

Source: Dwight Reynolds<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The department of religious studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara, with support from the Cordano Endowment in Catholic Studies, will host an interdisciplinary conference from May 4-6, 2017, entitled \u201cConverting Spaces: Re-Directing Missions Through Global Encounters.\u201d The keynote speaker for the event is Dr. Liam Brockey of the history department at Michigan State University. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3242,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2003],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgcm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgcm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgcm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgcm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgcm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8366"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgcm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8390,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgcm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8366\/revisions\/8390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgcm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgcm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgcm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}