AAR Call for Papers Announced

The Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion will be held in San Diego November 23-26, 2019.  The full Call for Proposals is available online, as well as in pdf form here. Proposals are due March 4, 2019! A few units of interest are included here, and all units can be viewed here.

Practical Theology Unit: This Unit engages practical theology and religious practice, reflects critically on religious traditions and practices, and explores issues in particular subdisciplines of practical theology and ministry.

We invite individual paper or set panel proposals on the two following topics:

● American theologian Mary McClintock Fulkerson’s book Places of Redemption was a leading example in theological engagement with ethnography, pushing studies of ecclesial practices to be at the same time more robustly empirical and theological. She disrupts traditional modes of doing theological work by starting from “the place of a wound,” attending to dynamics of race, gender, ability, and class as part of the lived experience of church, using her work to confront social brokenness and pursuing liberating practices. Further, her insertion of her own presence in the work problematizes the role of the theologian-ethnographer, raising challenging methodological as well as normative theological questions for future work in fields such as practical theology, ecclesiology, social ethics congregational studies, and the social sciences as they engage Christianity. The Practical Theology Committee welcomes papers that explore methodological as well as theoretical and/or substantial implications of her work for these various disciplines, and point to new areas that need to be explored in the future.

● The study and practice of Practical Theology includes the lived experiences of interreligious communities. Interreligious communities include those who are and are not religious and spiritual peoples. Interreligious communities are brought together in various ways, including through dialogue, practice, commitments to justice and peace, and lived experiences of hybridity and fluidity. The Practical Theology Committee invites proposals for papers and presentations centering on the practical theology of interreligious engagement. The committee is particularly interested in presentations discussing ongoing and completed cooperative community projects that bring insight to the discipline of inter-religious practical theology as a burgeoning field of study and meaning making. We welcome papers that explore methodological and theoretical implications for the study of practical theology, as well as substantial implications for inter-religious community engagement. Strategically partnered presentations and papers between scholars and practitioners are highly encouraged.

Ecclesial Practices UnitEcclesial Practices provides a collaborative space at the intersection of ethnographic and other qualitative approaches and theological approaches to the study of ecclesial practices.

We invite papers addressing intersectionality in the ethnographic study of ecclesial practices and/or the ethnographic theological interpretation of practice. Intersectionality theory analyzes how social identities are situated within dynamic matrices of oppression and privilege, constituted by ideological, economic, and political systems of power. Papers may reflect research employing intersectional analytic frameworks methodologically and/or research that deploys intersectionality theory interpretively, particularly to address categories such as power, race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, age, or physical ability in relation to the field of study. We welcome papers addressing how intersectionality provides both the analytic tools for understanding contexts of Christian practices (such as worship, preaching, justice, congregational care, mission, etc.) and the ethical commitments toward which such practice might be aimed. We are also interested in how theological inquiry may enrich, challenge, or even controvert the prevailing conventions of intersectional theory. Nancy Ramsay will offer a response to the panel of papers.

● Building on the AAR’s theme focused on “creating, redefining, and expanding spheres of public discourse,” we invite papers on San Diego’s Chicano Park and its mural paintings. This multi-unit co-sponsored session will likely be supplemented by a separate tour to the site. In 1970 Chicano Park emerged through the efforts of community activists responding to the fracture and displacement of Chicanx communities caused by the construction of the Interstate 5 freeway in the barrio of Logan Heights. On this freeway’s pillars, Chicano Park displays one of the largest assemblages of public murals in North America, inspired by Chicanx history. In 2018, the San Diego Tribune described the space as a “battleground” for cultural identity between right wing groups waving American flags and Chicanx groups waving flags of Aztlan. We welcome papers from multiple disciplinary vantage points. We are particularly interested in proposals that take an ecological approach by engaging both the manner in which the contested space informs religious/spiritual identities and practices and the manner in which Chicanx spiritualities have influenced this built environment. Likely co-sponsors include the following Units: Religion and Cities; Religions in the Latin Americas; Native Traditions in the Americas; Latina/o Religion, Culture and Society; Anthropology of Religion; Religion, Memory, History; Ecclesial Practices; and Latina/o and Latin American Biblical Interpretation (SBL).

Ecclesiological Investigations Unit: This Unit is a part of the Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network, which seeks to serve as a hub for national and international collaboration in ecclesiology, drawing together other groups and networks, initiating research ventures, providing administrative support, as well as acting as a facilitator to support conversations, research, and education in this field.

Call for Papers:
● Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification: Impact and Reception –
2019 marks the 20th anniversary of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ) by the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church. With the World Methodist Council, the World Communion of Reformed Churches, and the Anglican Communion affirming the JDDJ, this bilateral agreement has now developed into a multilateral document. The JDDJ opened new ecumenical horizons, but has not led to visible structural Unity. It has also raised objections among some Lutheran theologians. In this session, we will consider the impact and the reception of the JDDJ in theological, magisterial, practical, and other terms. We invite papers that focus on JDDJ-related developments on the global, regional and/or local levels from a variety of perspectives (doctrinal, ecumenical, ecclesial, cultural, linguistic, methodological, etc.). One of the questions that could be explored is why the JDDJ has so far not been received (or is not even well-known) by the “local communities.” We are open to papers from scholars who belong to the signatory churches of the JDDJ and who are associated with traditions that have not signed the JDDJ. Such contributions could also examine the JDDJ’s impact and reception in the wider ecumenical movement. We are also interested in studies that explore the methodology used in the JDDJ, the “differentiated consensus” it invokes, its impact on more recent dialogues, and its limitations and potential for future ecumenical dialogue, as well as in proposals for how this ecumenical methodology might be developed further.

● Doing Public Theology: Theologians and Theological Academic Institutions in Public Spaces –
In this session, we wish to explore the role of Christian theology and the institutions where it is developed in contributing to public theology. One area of interest here is the theologian as public intellectual, focusing on the personal and vocational consequences of her or his visible public engagement in this discourse. Questions that might be raised include: How do scholars navigate the costs and sacrifices (familial, professional, institutional) of public engagement in the interest of the church? Are churches truly engaged in protecting the role of the scholar in public? How do publicly engaged scholars understand their vocations/callings and sustain them? Do churches and academic/ecclesial-academic institutions provide theologians with the academic freedom necessary for public engagement and are they promoting new generations of theologians who will carry this engagement forward? A second area of interest is how theologians navigate public engagement and ecclesial ties. How does theological education for ecclesial ministry serve the public good? What happens when these types of service come into conflict? What patterns of theological discernment shape wisdom in different public spheres? Are there boundaries around the personal and the professional in the new territory of social media and civic protest? Finally, we are interested in proposals that explore the corporate, ecclesial contribution to public discourse, particularly in a post-truth and highly polarized and divisive context or in the face of shrinking public spaces and creeping authoritarianism globally.

● Crisis in the Church: Patterns of Abuse as Challenge and Opportunity for Reform (For a planned joint-session with the Vatican II Studies Unit) -
The sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults, both past and present, and related patterns of abuse of power by church leaders who valued the protection of the institution over the needs of victims in country after country point to a systemic failure of church leadership, structures, and practices. Efforts to cover-up the full extent of abuse and misconduct perpetrated by the ministers of the church have given rise to an unprecedented crisis of confidence and sense of betrayal by Christians world-wide, and have profoundly damaged the church’s credibility as a witness to the gospel in the world. What might we learn from the broad history of Christianity, the Second Vatican Council, and the experience of ecumenical partners? What insights might present theology and teaching contribute to a substantial renewal of ecclesiology and to the reform of structures and practices so as to ensure greater accountability and transparency in church governance and in the administration of ecclesiastical justice? Where might the limits of contemporary theology and practice need to be met by new visions, complemented by the resources of the synodal tradition, or by the knowledge of contemporary sciences?

Co-sponsored Session: Christian Spirituality Unit and Contemplative Studies Unit

Call for Papers: Panel on Introducing Contemplative Studies by Louis Komjathy

Psychology, Culture, and Religion Unit: The PCR unit is comprised of scholars and practitioners in the fields of psychology, religious studies, and cultural analysis. The interests of our members range from Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis to the practice of pastoral counseling, from object relations theory to cultural studies of trauma and healing. Our primary purposes are to foster creative research, encourage the exchange of ideas among the membership, and provide a forum within the AAR for people with shared backgrounds in the interdisciplinary study of psychology, religion, and culture. Please visit our Website at http://pcr-aar.org/ and join the PCR listserv at http://aarlists.org/listinfo/psychculturereligion.
Call for Papers:

The PCR Unit is comprised of scholars and practitioners in the fields of psychology, religious studies, and cultural analysis. The interests of our members range from Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis to the practice of pastoral counseling, from object relations theory to cultural studies of trauma and healing. Our primary purposes are to foster creative research, encourage the exchange of ideas among the membership, and provide a forum within the AAR for people with shared backgrounds in the interdisciplinary study of psychology, religion, and culture.

● Psychological Interiority of Resistance –
This session explores the psychological dynamics, personal, professional, and social consequences that instructors and professors at all career stages experience when they address contested topics through teaching, research, and public engagement. We invite submissions that explore the inner experience and social consequences of engaging race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. in the classroom and beyond, especially when these perspectives may prove threatening, compromising, or hold social and political implications for the scholar. For example, what happens when a scholar who identifies as a racial/ ethnic/ sexual/ political/ ideological minority expresses their commitments in an institutional culture that is overwhelmingly opposed to these views? What is the resulting social experience? What is at stake psychologically, and what internal/external resources sustain teachers and scholars in their resolve? We are interested in papers that prioritize personal experience in conversation with religious and psychological theories and frameworks.

● Experimental Session on Psychologies of Religions: Decentering Christian and Jewish Models of Psychological Wellness -
In the fields of psychology and religion, pastoral counseling, and spiritual care, Christian and Jewish paradigms of psychological illness and well-being have long dominated the discussion. This session seeks to foster a conversation that de-centers these dominant frames to explore notion of psychological (emotional, cognitive, behavioral, relational, communal) illness and wellness from the perspective of Hindu, Baha’i, Islamic, Buddhist, Jain, Aboriginal, and other religious frameworks.

● Climate Change Denial: How Religious & Psychological Perspectives May Expand Understanding and Foster Change -
Americans remain polarized in their attitudes about global climate change. As many as 40% still deny its reality. Professional organizations in both religion and psychology are taking steps to understand and mitigate the problem of “climate change denial” that continues despite nearly universal scientific consensus on the problem. For more than 30 years theologians and scholars of religion have sustained a body of work on ecology and religion, work that explores the religious understandings of natural and built worlds. More recently psychological organizations and theorists in the Americas and Australia have taken up psychological questions about global climate change exploring risks, interpersonal and intergroup behaviors, psychological barriers, and coping mechanisms, among other topics. This call invites papers that explore the intersection of psychology and religion as they inform understandings of the endurance of climate change itself, explore the religious and psychological commitments that persist in denial of global climate change, and/or offer solutions for fostering healing and change for the planet and its inhabitants.

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