|
|
 |
|
|
| Dear List
Members, Due to the recent volume of
news items we have concatenated a number of individual
notices below. Cumulative news can now also be accessed
from the home page of our
web
site.
Regards
AABS Executive Committee
*
Please email
us to submit a News item for distribution to the AABS list |
|
Call for
Papers - New
Challenges in the Academic Study of Religion | |
19-22 April 2007, Stockholm
Borders and boundary conceptions are important themes in the
academic study of religion. As scholars of religion we have
always been challenged by the religious significance of
borders. This is true no matter whether we study ritual,
linguistic, social, gendered, economic, or political aspects
of religion. Furthermore, the crossing of borders is a
recurrent theme in our time. A seemingly boundless world is
taking shape. Formerly fixed borders between ethnic groups,
classes and sexes are dissolving. At the same time, new
borders are drawn up. New political agendas with universal
claims are outlined while the gap between rich and poor grows.
Religion plays a crucial part in these processes.
We are pleased to invite scholars of different disciplines to
take part in this conference, by which we hope to stimulate
the theoretical, methodological and empirical progress within
our field. Religion on the Borders is organized in
collaboration IAHR (International Association for
the History of Religions).Keynote Speakers:
professor Gavin Flood, professor Caroline Humphrey, professor
Tariq Ramadan, professor HE5kan Rydving.
http://www.stocon.se/religion2007
|
|
Special Spring School by Ven Geshe
Ngawang Samten | |
|
School of Philosophy, University of Tasmania
HPA398 Special Topic in Philosophy:
Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy
This series of special lectures will be presented by Ven
Geshe Ngawang Samten Vice Chancellor, Director and Professor
of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy of Central Institute of
Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, Varanasi, India
Hobart, Semester 5, 2006 (October Spring School)
To enrol please contact:
Sandra Kellett, Executive Officer
School of Philosophy, University of Tasmania Private Bag 41,
Hobart, Tasmania, 7001
e-mail: kellett@utas.edu.au, telephone (03) 6226 7581
http://www.utas.edu.au/philosophy/buddhist/
http://www.smith.edu/cihts/pagesenglish/messagedirector.htm |
|
Summer course at the Central
Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies | |
|
The
University of Tasmania Buddhist Studies in India Exchange
Program will again be running a Summer School unit to be held
in India from late December 2006 - late January 2007. The
Exchange program, administered under the direction of the
School of Philosophy, counts as a 25% credit unit at the
University of Tasmania and involves students in an intensive
month long study program conducted by staff from the Central
Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies at Sarnath just outside
Varanasi. University of Tasmania staff travel with the group
and supervise the overall program. The costs of travel,
insurance, accommodation and meals, as well as visits to
important historic and cultural sites, are included in the
overall cost of the program (up to $4,000), although
applicants should note that the unit also incurs a HECS
charge. The minimum requirement for admission into the
program is completion of first-year studies at any Australian
University. Interested applicants should contact the Sandra
Kellett, Executive Officer at the School of Philosophy at the
University of Tasmania (email: kellett@utas.edu.au - Ph: 03
6226 7581) no later than 26 May 2005.
This is a unique opportunity to learn more about
Indo-Tibetan Philosophy, History and Culture as well as the
chance to experience a radically different cultural
environment.
|
|
|
|
Out of the turmoil of Afghanistan, several sensational
collections of early Buddhist manuscripts have come to the
West in the last ten years. Now carbon-dated to as early as
140 AD, they are the oldest original manuscripts of Buddhism
still existing. Mark Allon, the Australian member of the
Buddhist Manuscripts Project, explains their significance and
reads in the extinct Gandhari language. Downloads of a two
part interview with Mark Allon on Radio National Ark program
are available from:
This following site include links to let you view some of
the manuscripts and their writings.
Please refer to
attachment for schedule of speakers and location details. |
|
One Year Term Appointment - Trinity
University | |
|
Two-semester term position (visiting
assistant professor) for the 2006-2007 academic year.
Teaching responsibilities to include two
to three sections of the introductory course on Asian
Religions with the possibility of one advanced undergraduate
course on Chinese Religions, Japanese Religions, Hindu
Tradition, or Buddhist Tradition per semester.
The Religion program aims to develop,
through consideration of diverse religious traditions,
intellectual insight into and awareness of different ways of
thinking critically about religion. Through the study of
religion the Department strives to assist students in
developing informed and creative ways of enriching their own
understanding of the world and of fulfilling their
responsibilities as educated persons to the larger society in
which they live.
Courses of study include Religious
Responses to the Holocaust, Ethical Issues in Religious
Perspective, Christian Scriptures and Apocrypha, Global
Christianity, Religion and Civil Rights, Religion and Science,
Islamic Literatures, Approaches to the Study of Religion, and
the Traditions courses (Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese, Japanese,
Islamic, Christian, and Jewish), among others.
Trinity University is an independent,
coeducational, primarily residential university, founded in
1869. Undergraduate enrollment is approximately 2,400,
including students from all areas of the United States and
many foreign countries. Trinity has very selective admissions
standards and enjoys a high rating among all undergraduate
institutions. Our extraordinary endowment permits challenging
opportunities for students and faculty. An attractive campus
overlooks downtown San Antonio, a city rich in heritage and
ethnic diversity with a population of slightly over one
million.
For optimal consideration, applications
should be received by May 5, 2006. Note: Preliminary
interviews will be conducted at the annual meeting of the
Association for Asian Studies in San Francisco.
Application materials to include
Curriculum Vitae, letter addressing candidate's teaching
interests and experience, evidence of teaching effectiveness
(if available), and three letters of recommendation (sent
separately by authors). Send materials to:
Professor Randall Nadeau, Chair Faculty
Search Committee
Department of Religion Trinity University
One Trinity Place San Antonio
Texas 78212-7200 |
|
International Society for the
Sociology of Religion Conference | |
|
Internationale de Sociologie des Religions/
International Society for the Sociology of Religion 29th ISSR/SISR
Conference
Secularity and Religious Vitality
Leipzig (Germany) July 23-27, 2007
Please make a note of the date and put it
in your diary
Deadlines
May 31st 2006: Proposals for Thematic
Sessions and Working Groups to be sent to the General
Secretary Session titles and the organisers' names will be
published in the next Network and posted on www.sisr.org by
July 15th 2006 October 31st 2006: Abstracts of proposed papers
for sessions to be sent to the Session Organiser, abstracts of
miscellaneous papers to be sent to the General Secretary Early
January 2007: Programme of the Conference on the Web Site and in
the first issue of Network for 2007
DO NOT FORGET THE FIRST DEADLINE:
May 31st 2006: Proposals for Thematic
Sessions and Working Groups to be sent to the General Secretary
karel.dobbelaere@soc.kuleuven.be
29TH ISSR/ SISR CONFERENCE
CONFERENCE THEME
SECULARITY AND RELIGIOUS VITALITY
Secularity and religious vitality are often
in tension, if not in conflict, and both have many meanings.
Each can be defined and examined at the macro-, meso- and
micro-levels, each can be seen as a process or a stable
condition, and each can occur as either the exception or the
rule. But if one thing is clear in recent research, it is that
secularity and religious vitality very often co-exist, in part
because they frequently play off one another dialectically. This
conference is intended to probe their interactions in diverse
settings around the world at different levels and with various
outcomes, however temporary. According to secularization
theories, secularity reflects the functional differentiation of
society, the disestablishment of religion, the
institutionalization of individual rights, etc. Secularity is
institutionally embedded in democratic politics and may be
ideologically supported by the idea of confining religion to the
private sphere. Secularity may be positively correlated with
modernization. These propositions have come under hard attack
during the last two decades, theoretically and empirically.
Newer religious developments -- including the expansion of
Protestant movements in different regions of the world, the high
public profile of recent Catholic popes, the growth of
alternative spiritualities, the revitalization of indigenous
religious traditions, the increase in religious participation in
China, the rise of diverse Islamic movements, and the surge of
political Hinduism -- have demonstrated religion's potential
vitality and undermined the plausibility of so! me
sociological theories of the = secular. Nevertheless, the
relation between secularity as a characteristic of = modern
societies and the sometimes competing religious movements within
those societies remains to be clarified. The two may be
incompatible or = even in open contradiction, as quarrels over
religious law versus = secular law indicate. But religious
mobilizations may also provoke new = bargaining processes
between religion and secularity, as evinced by = battles over
blasphemy. And in some cases religious movements may = encourage
new attempts at social order that respond to the perceived =
failures of secular states, as the growth of certain Protestant
and Islamic movements in different countries around the world
suggests.
Plenary One :
New Theoretical Approaches to Secularity
and Religious Vitality
Within a comparative and/or global
perspective, this session will elaborate the relationship
between processes of secularization, patterns of societal change
and manifestations of religious vitality. It will present new
models, theories and critiques.
Plenary Two: Case Studies of Religious
Vitality and Secularity Around the World.
This session will focus on empirical
studies of religious movements and secular conditions in
different regions. It will deal with relations between religious
vitality and secularity in both conflict and negotiation.
Possible Topics for Thematic Sessions and
Papers
-
Conceptions of the relationship between
religious institutions and the state.
-
Islamic vitality in European societies.
-
Secularity and religious conflict in
India.
-
The societal role of evangelical and
charismatic movements.
-
Growing religious activity in China: is
there a religious revival?
-
Religiosity and popular religion outside
official religion and religious =
-
organizations.
-
Private vs. public religion amid
religious change.
-
Pluralism, secularity, and religious
vitality.
-
Religious indifference, atheism, and
cultural religion.
-
Discontinuities in religious and economic
developments.
-
Assessing the moral impact of religious
movements.
-
Religious and secular constructions of
gender identity.
-
Competition between religious and secular
organizations.
-
The societal influence of secularist
organizations.
-
Social class and tensions over religion
and secularity.
-
Battles over blasphemy as in novels and
cartoons.
-
Transnational religion and secular
orders.
-
Religious versus secular nationalism.
-
Sacred conceptions of the secular.
-
Civil religion and secular states.
-
Spirituality and personal growth
movements.
-
Conflict over religion in education.
-
Spirituality vs. religion?
-
Religion and global migration.
-
Religious and secular movements:
conditions for dialogue Transmitting secularities and
religions as traditions.
-
Medicine, healing, and religion.
-
Religion and secularity in the media.
-
Religion and secularity in the public
sphere.
-
Religion, popular culture, and the media.
CONVENERS OF Thematic Sessions And Working
groups
Should send to the General Secretary :
karel.dobbelaere@soc.kuleuven.be before May 31st 2006 the title
of their proposed session, in English and French and and the
rationale of their Session (100 words in each language)
|
|
The Quest for Cosmopolitan Modernity -
Dr. Cristina Rocha - Book Launch | |
|
The Quest for Cosmopolitan Modernity -
Dr. Cristina Rocha - will be launched on April 20, 6:30 at
the Japan Foundation Sydney office. Associate Professor
Ghassan Hage of the University of Sydney will launch it. |
|
Asian Art Course - NSW Art Gallery -
Goddesses | |
Explore the profound spiritual truth expressed in sculpture,
painting and ritual of goddesses in the traditions of Asia.
- Term 1: 7 March - 30 May
- Term 2: 18 July - 26 September
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/events/cal/aac06 |
|