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Fifth International Conference on
Religion and Spirituality in Society
Social Movements and Faith
16-17 APRIL 2015 | UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY | BERKELEY, USA
RELIGIONINSOCIETY.COM
FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY IN SOCIETY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY
BERKELEY, USA
16-17 APRIL 2015
WWW.RELIGIONINSOCIETY.COM
@religionsociety
#CGReligion
International Conference on Religion and Spirituality in Society
www.religioninsociety.com
First published in 2015 in Champaign, Illinois, USA
by Common Ground Publishing, LLC
www.commongroundpublishing.com
© 2015 Common Ground Publishing
All rights reserved. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the applicable copyright
legislation, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other
inquiries, please contact support@commongroundpublishing.com.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Welcome Letter ......................................................................................................................................... 1
About Common Ground ............................................................................................................................. 2
The Religion in Society Knowledge Community ............................................................................................ 3
The International Advisory Board for the Religion in Society Community ..................................................... 7
The Religion in Society Journal and Book Series .......................................................................................... 8
Submission Process ............................................................................................................................ 10
Submission Timeline ............................................................................................................................ 10
Journal Subscriptions, Open Access, Additional Services ....................................................................... 11
The Religion in Society Book Imprint ..................................................................................................... 13
The Religion in Society Conference ........................................................................................................... 16
Conference Program and Schedule........................................................................................................... 19
Daily Schedule..................................................................................................................................... 20
Conference Highlights .......................................................................................................................... 21
Plenary Speakers................................................................................................................................. 22
Graduate Scholars ............................................................................................................................... 23
Schedule of Sessions........................................................................................................................... 25
List of Participants ............................................................................................................................... 45
Scholar ................................................................................................................................................... 51
Notes...................................................................................................................................................... 53
Dear Delegate,
Welcome to the Fifth International Conference on Religion and Spirituality in Society.
The Religion and Spirituality in Society Conference sets out to describe, analyze, and interpret the role of religion and spirituality
in society. The bases of this endeavor are cross-disciplinary. The intellectual project is neutral with respect to the agendas of
particular religions or explicit counterpoints to religion such as agnosticism or atheism. The Religion and Spirituality in Society
Conference serves as a forum for those interested in the pursuit of scholarly conversation surrounding the key issues that impact
the relationship between religion and society. The conference is intended as a space for careful, scholarly reflection and open
dialogue while recognizing that a tension exists between the academic conversation and the practice of religious and spiritual
traditions.
The fifth annual conference follows a very successful event held at the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, Heredia, Costa Rica
in 2014. This year's meeting will address a range of critically important issues and themes relating to religion and spirituality and
includes some of the leading thinkers in these areas. Scholars, researchers, and students from all corners of the globe are
joining together to discuss all aspects of theology, its practices, and dogmas. In 2015, we are honored to hold the Religion and
Spirituality Conference at the University of California at Berkeley in Berkeley, USA.
In addition to the Religion and Spirituality Conference, Common Ground Publishing hosts conferences and publishes journals in
many areas of critical intellectual human concern, including diversity, the humanities, learning, sustainability, and technology, to
name several. Our aim is to create new forms of knowledge community where people meet in person and also remain
connected virtually, making the most of the potentials for access using digital media. We are also committed to creating a more
accessible, open, and reliable peer review process. Alongside opportunities for well-known academics, we are creating new
publication openings for academics from developing countries, for emerging scholars, and for researchers from institutions that
are historically teaching-focused.
Thank you to all who have put such a phenomenal amount of work into preparing for this conference. I would particularly like to
thank my Common Ground colleagues, including Monica Hillison, Kim Kendall, Ashley McBride, and Homer (Tony) Stavely.
We wish you all the best for this conference and hope it will provide you every opportunity for dialogue with colleagues from
around the corner and around the world. And we hope you will be able to join us at next year’s conference in Washington, D.C.,
USA!
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Phillip Kalantzis-Cope
Director, Common Ground Publishing
Our Mission
Common Ground Publishing aims to enable all people to participate in creating collaborative knowledge and to share that
knowledge with the greater world. Through our academic conferences, peer-reviewed journals and books, and innovative
software, we build transformative knowledge communities and provide platforms for meaningful interactions across diverse
media.
Our Message
Heritage knowledge systems are characterized by vertical separations—of discipline, professional association, institution, and
country. Common Ground identifies some of the pivotal ideas and challenges of our time and builds knowledge communities
that cut horizontally across legacy knowledge structures. Sustainability, diversity, learning, the future of the humanities, the
nature of interdisciplinarity, the place of the arts in society, technology’s connections with knowledge, the changing role of the
university—these are deeply important questions of our time which require interdisciplinary thinking, global conversations, and
cross-institutional intellectual collaborations. Common Ground is a meeting place for these conversations, shared spaces in
which differences can meet and safely connect—differences of perspective, experience, knowledge base, methodology,
geographical or cultural origins, and institutional affiliation. We strive to create the places of intellectual interaction and
imagination that our future deserves.
Our Media
Common Ground creates and supports knowledge communities through a number of mechanisms and media. Annual
conferences are held around the world to connect the global (the international delegates) with the local (academics,
practitioners, and community leaders from the host community). Conference sessions include as many ways of speaking as
possible to encourage each and every participant to engage, interact, and contribute. The journals and book series offer fullyrefereed academic outlets for formalized knowledge, developed through innovative approaches to the processes of submission,
peer review, and production. The knowledge community also maintains an online presence—through presentations on our
YouTube channel, monthly email newsletters, as well as Facebook and Twitter feeds. And Common Ground’s own software,
Scholar, offers a path-breaking platform for online discussions and networking, as well as for creating, reviewing, and
disseminating text and multi-media works.
The Religion in Society knowledge community is dedicated to the concept of independent, peer-led groups of scholars,
researchers, and practitioners working together to build bodies of academic knowledge related to topics of critical importance to
society at large. Focusing on the intersection of academia and social impact, the Religion in Society knowledge community
brings an interdisciplinary, international perspective to discussions of new developments in the field, including research, practice,
policy, and teaching.
2015 Special Focus
Social Movements and Faith
Religious commitments are, as often as not, social commitments. In addition to its usual range of themes, this year’s special
focus of the Religion and Society knowledge community is the relation of religion to social movements, ranging from movements
for nominally “progressive” or “liberal” social change, to “fundamentalisms” whose religious practices are often explicitly or
implicitly social and political. The conference will ask the questions: under what conditions and to what extent are religious
communities socially activist, either in their doctrine or their practices? How do religious communities, support or align with other
social movements?
Community Themes
Theme 1: Religious Foundations
On the sources, modes, and manifestations of religiosity.
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Religious values and aspirations
Sacred sources: sites, narratives, texts
Religious philosophies and philosophies of religion
Theological sources and resources
World sources: religious and secular cosmologies
Creation accounts in science and religion
World destinies: religious and secular eschatologies
Reason and faith: congruencies and conflicts
Traditional, modern, and postmodern orientations to religion
Science and religion: congruencies and conflicts on the sources of design in the natural world
Religious counterpoints: agnosticism, atheism, materialism, and secularism
Religious prophets: their messages and their meanings
Religiosity: measures, forms, and levels of religious commitment
Religion and law
Religion and commerce
The natural, the human, and the supernatural
Rites and sites of passage: birth, adulthood, marriage, death
Medical ethics and bioethics
Anthropologies, psychologies, and sociologies of religion
Theme 2: Religious Community and Socialization
On learning religious ways, spiritual ways of life, and religious institutions.
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Religious institutional governance
Symbology in theory and practice
Religious education and religion studies
Religiously-based schools and religion in public schools
Religion in ethnic, national, and racial identities
Congregations and religious community
Media for religious messages
Evangelism and conversion
Ritual, rite, liturgy
Prayer, contemplation, and meditation
Meditation as healing and therapy
Religious ‘ways of life’ and lifeworld practices
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Religious art and architecture
Pilgrimage, tourism, and the search for spiritual meaning
Religious leadership
Theme 3: Religious Commonalities and Differences
On variations in religious forms and the relationships between different religions.
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Comparative studies of religion
Monotheism, polytheism, and immanentist religions
Indigenous or first nation spiritualities
Inter-religious harmony
Interfaith dialogue
Religious diversity, tolerance, and understanding
Religions in globalization
Centrifugal and centripetal forces: difference and interdependence
Denominationalism: tendencies to fracture and recombination
Literal and metaphorical readings of sacred texts
Religion, identity, and ethnicity
Interreligious education
The nation state and religious exceptionalism
Religious dual belonging
Ecumenicalism
Interfaith dialogue and international interfaith organizations
Theme 4: The Politics of Religion
On the relations of religion to the state and civil society.
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Religion in politics and the politics of religion
Modernity and religious frameworks
Religious freedom in secular states
Chaplaincies and the state
Politics, society, and religion in religiously defined states
Religious minorities and the state
Social agendas for religion: sustainability, justice, peace
Religious divisions and social conflicts
Religiously inspired violence and non-violence
Gender, sexuality and religion
Women, patriarchy, and the sacred feminine
Religion as a source of community cohesion or community dissonance
Terrorism, political extremism, and religion
Religion and human security
Religion and global ethics
Religion and human rights
Religion and reconciliation
The future of religion
Scope and Concerns
The Religion in Society knowledge community sets out in its conference, journal, book series and online community, to describe,
analyze and interpret the role of religion in society. The community’s intellectual project is neutral with respect to the agendas of
particular religions or explicit counterpoints to religion such as agnosticism or atheism.
Not that religion or spirituality can, in their very nature, ever be neutral subjects of discussion. In fact, religion is one of the most
interest-laden of all discussions. Religion supplies meanings-in-the-world, no less. Spirituality is an ultimate source of interest.
Religion provides an account of human origins, responsibilities and destinies. It sets out to explain the nature of being. And it
creates a framework for interpreting human action according principles of good and evil.
Religion’s stance is not only interest-intensive. It is also transcendental. Religion strives to reach beyond the lifeworld, grasping
deeper meanings that may not always be self-evident in the ordinariness of everyday experience. This much can be said of
religion-in-general. As for religions-in-particular, the range is as wide as the cultural experiences of human species-being.
‘First nations’ or indigenous peoples practiced a broad range of immanentist religions, including variants of totemism, animism,
nature worship, shamanism and ancestor worship—perhaps, in one perspective, for as long as the one hundred thousand years
or more of our existence as a species. Religion then was less a separate institutional, spatial and temporal space than it became
in subsequent moments of human history. Religious meanings were deeply and integrally layered into the material and social
worlds, thus representing a belief in the pervasive immanence of spiritual powers in natural circumstances and human affairs.
From about five thousand years ago, religious modes take a radically new textual-narrative form in conjunction with parallel
revolutions in agriculture, the domestication of animals, village or city dwelling, the invention of writing and institutionalized
economic class inequality. The new religions are rarely unequivocally monotheistic (monotheistic systems of deity mostly have
multiple personalities and deified prophets or saints). Nor are they simply polytheistic (polytheistic systems of deity mostly have
hierarchies of major and lesser deity). Their key features are the progressive solidification of religious expression into sacred
texts, sanctified buildings and the institutional formation of a class of priestly interpreters and intermediaries. The common
modes of meaning of these second phase religions are even signified at times to the extent of sharing historic origins or
exemplary persons and narratives.
Religious meanings take a third paradigmatic turn with the arrival of modernity. Or, more to the point, a new mode of spirituality
emerges in a parallel universe of meaning alongside the persistence of the first two. For the first time in human history, modernity
provides an alternative meaning system which is areligious—based on mixes of the epistemes of science, civic law, economic
progress, vernacular materialism and human reason. At the same time, atheism and agnosticism emerge as engaged
counterpoints to religion.
Religion, nevertheless, powerfully persists in forms characteristic of all three of these world-historic moments of meaningascription. Modern, liberal reinterpretations of second phase world religions recast sacred cosmologies as metaphorical, and not
incompatible with science. They perform re-readings of sacred narratives in the light of modernity’s ethical aspirations such as
for gender equality, human biomastery, non-violence, and material wellbeing for all. The shift is so profound that these modes of
religiously themselves might be characterized as third phase.
Meanwhile, others insist on holding to the truths of second phase religiosity. In practice they do this by means of textual
literalism, religious fundamentalism and didactic religious education. The chasm between liberal and fundamentalist religiosity in
modernity at times seems as great as that between religionists and anti-religionists. And to add an original layer to our
contemporary complexity, first nation religions persist and at times thrive, while revivals of immanentist religion are found in ‘new
age’ and other such spiritualities.
Today, the search for meaning-grounds can only be described as a scene of unprecedented pluralism. To this, we can react in
several ways. We can adopt pluralism as a modern value and strive for shared meanings and harmony-in-difference on earth. Or
we can regard pluralism as force undermining the integrity of religion and with it, the communal distinctiveness of specific
religious ways of life—in this frame of reference pluralism is an aspect of modernity that should be resisted.
The scope of this conference, journal, book series and online knowledge community is as broad as possible in the field of
religious studies. Together, these forums seek to create a space for the representation of any and all perspectives on the role of
religion and spirituality in society. We also welcome a wide variety of disciplinary practices. The perspectives captured in these
spaces range from committed within-religion views, to comparative or pan-religious views, to areligious empirical or theoretical
readings of the role of religion and spirituality in society. Above all, they provide spaces for open dialogue on the sources of
foundational or essential meaning.
Community Membership
Annual membership to the Religion in Society community is included in your conference registration. As a community member,
you have access to a broad range of tools and resources to use in your own work: electronic access to the full journal and book
collections; a full Scholar account, offering an innovative online space for collaborative learning in your classes or for broader
collaborative interaction with colleagues (within a research project or across the globe); and annual conferences where you can
present your work and engage in extensive interactions with others with similar interests who also bring different perspectives.
And you can contribute to the development and formalization of the ideas and works of others—as a journal or book reviewer,
as a conference participant, and as a contributor to the newsletters and community dialogue.
Membership Benefits
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Personal electronic subscription to the complete journal collection for one year after the conference (all past and
current issues).
Personal electronic subscription to the book series for one year after the conference.
One article submission per year for peer review and possible publication in any of the journals in the collection.
Participation as a reviewer in the peer review process and the potential to be listed as an Associate Editor of the journal
after reviewing three or more articles.
Subscription to the monthly community email newsletter, containing news and information for and from the knowledge
community.
Ability to add a video presentation to the community YouTube channel, whether or not it was presented in person at
the conference or is published in the journal.
Access to the Scholar "social knowledge" platform: free use of Scholar as your personal profile and publication portfolio
page, as a place to interact with peers and forms communities that avoid the clutter and commercialism of other social
media, with optional feeds to Facebook and Twitter.
Use Scholar in your classes—for class interactions in its Community space, multimodal student writing in its Creator
space, and managing student peer review, assessment, and sharing of published students’ works in its Publisher
space. Contact us to request Publisher permissions for Scholar.
Engaging in the Community
Present and Participate in the Conference
You have already begun your engagement in the community by attending the conference, presenting your work, and interacting
face-to-face with other members. We hope this experience provides a valuable source of feedback for your current work and the
possible seeds for future individual and collaborative projects, as well as the start of a conversation with community colleagues
that will continue well into the future.
Publish Journal Articles or Books
We encourage you to submit an article for review and possible publication in The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality
in Society. In this way, you may share the finished outcome of your presentation with other participants and members of the
Religion in Society community. As a member of the community, you will also be invited to review others’ work and contribute to
the development of the community knowledge base as an Associate Editor. As part of your active membership in the
community, you also have online access to the complete works (current and previous volumes) of The International Journal of
Religion and Spirituality in Society and to the book series. We also invite you to consider submitting a proposal for the book
series.
Engage through Social Media
There are several methods for ongoing communication and networking with community colleagues:
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Email Newsletters: Published monthly, these contain information on the conference and publishing, along with news of
interest to the community. Contribute news or links with a subject line ‘Email Newsletter Suggestion’ to
support@religioninsociety.com.
Scholar: Common Ground’s path-breaking platform that connects academic peers from around the world in a space
that is modulated for serious discourse and the presentation of knowledge works. To learn more about Scholar, please
see the end of the program.
Facebook: Comment on current news, view photos from the conference, and take advantage of special benefits for
community members at: http://www.facebook.com/ReligionInSociety.cg.
Twitter: Follow the community: @religionsociety.
YouTube Channel: View online presentations or contribute your own at http://religioninsociety.com/theconference/types-of-conference-sessions/online-presentations.
THE INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD FOR THE RELIGION IN SOCIETY COMMUNITY
The principal role of the Advisory Board is to drive the overall intellectual direction of the Religion in Society community and to
consult on our foundational themes as they evolve along with the currents of the community. Board members are invited to
attend the annual conference with a complimentary registration and provide important insights on conference development,
including suggestions for speakers, venues, and special themes.
We also encourage board members to submit articles for consideration for publication to the International Journal of Religion
and Spirituality in Society as well proposals or completed manuscripts to the Religion in Society book imprint.
Advisory Board Membership is an opportunity that is extended by the staff and advisory committee. We also take applications
for membership to the Advisory Board. To apply, please send a brief statement and CV to support@religioninsociety.com.
We are grateful for the continued service and support of these world-class scholars and practitioners:
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Desmond Cahill, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
Tracy Fessenden, Arizona State University, Phoenix, USA Mohammad Khalil, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
Steve Knowles, University of Chester, Chester, UK
Robert McKim, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA Saša Nedeljkovi
ć, Belgrade,
of
University Belgrade, Serbia Norbert Samuelson, Arizona State University, Phoenix, USA
About Our Publishing Approach
For three decades, Common Ground Publishing has been committed to creating meeting places for people and ideas. With 24
knowledge communities, Common Ground’s vision is to provide platforms that bring together individuals of varied geographical,
institutional, and cultural origins in spaces where renowned academic minds and public thought leaders can connect across
fields of study. Each knowledge community organizes an annual academic conference and is associated with a peer-reviewed
journal (or journal collection), a book imprint, and a social media space centered around Common Ground’s pathbreaking ‘social
knowledge’ space, Scholar.
Through its publishing practices, Common Ground aims to foster the highest standards in intellectual excellence. We are highly
critical of the serious deficiencies in today’s academic journal system, including the legacy structures and exclusive networks
that restrict the visibility of emerging scholars and researchers in developing countries, as well as the unsustainable costs and
inefficiencies associated with traditional commercial publishing.
In order to combat these shortcomings, Common Ground has developed an innovative publishing model. Each of Common
Ground’s knowledge communities organizes an annual academic conference. The registration fee that conference participants
pay in order to attend or present at these conferences enables them to submit an article to the associated journal at no
additional cost. Scholars who cannot attend the conference in-person may still participate virtually and submit to the journal by
obtaining a community membership, which also allows them to upload a video presentation to the community’s YouTube
channel. By using a portion of the conference registration and membership fees to underwrite the costs associated with
producing and marketing the journals, Common Ground is able to keep subscription prices low, thus guaranteeing greater
access to our content. All conference participants and community members are also granted a one-year complimentary
electronic subscription to the journal associated with their knowledge community. This subscription provides access to both the
current and past volumes of the journal. Moreover, each article that we publish is available for a $5 download fee to nonsubscribers, and authors have the choice of publishing their paper open access to reach the widest possible audience and
ensure the broadest access possible.
Common Ground’s rigorous peer review process also seeks to address some of the biases inherent in traditional academic
publishing models. Our pool of reviewers draws on authors who have recently submitted to the journal, as well as volunteer
reviewers whose CVs and academic experience have been evaluated by Common Ground’s editorial team. Reviewers are
assigned to articles based on their academic interests and expertise. By enlisting volunteers and other prospective authors as
peer reviewers, Common Ground avoids the drawbacks of relying on a single editor’s professional network, which can often
create a small group of gatekeepers who get to decide who and what gets published. Instead, Common Ground harnesses the
enthusiasm of its conference delegates and prospective journal authors to assess submissions using a criterion-referenced
evaluation system that is at once more democratic and more intellectually rigorous than other models. Common Ground also
recognizes the important work of peer reviewers by acknowledging them as Associate Editors of the volumes to which they
contribute.
For over ten years, Common Ground has been building web-based publishing and social knowledge software where people can
work closely to collaborate, create knowledge, and learn. The third and most recent iteration of this project is the innovative
social knowledge environment, Scholar. Through the creation of this software, Common Ground has sought to tackle what it
sees as changing technological, economic, distributional, geographic, interdisciplinary and social relations to knowledge. For
more information about this change and what it means for academic publishing, refer to The Future of the Academic Journal,
edited by Bill Cope and Angus Phillips (Elsevier 2009).
We hope that you will join us in creating dialogues between different perspectives, experiences, knowledge bases, and
methodologies through interactions at the conference, conversations online, and as fully realized, peer-reviewed journal articles
and books.
The Religion Journal
The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society
Journal Editor
Dr. Saša Nedeljković—University of Belgrade, Serbia
Publication Frequency
4 issues per volume; articles are published continuously online.
Indexing
The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society is indexed by:
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Ulrich's
Academic Search Alumni Edition
Academic Search Elite
Academic Search Index
Academic Search Premier
Academic Search Complete
Biography Reference Bank
OmniFile Full Text Mega
OmniFile Full Text Select
Acceptance Rate
30%
Circulation
320,320
Foundation Year
2011
SUBMISSION PROCESS
Every conference delegate with an accepted proposal is eligible and invited to submit an article to the journal. Full articles can be
submitted using Common Ground’s online conference and article management system CGPublisher. Below please find step-bystep instructions on the submission process.
1.
Submit a presentation proposal to the conference (in-person or article submission).
2.
Once your conference proposal or paper abstract has been accepted, you may submit your article to the journal by
clicking “add a paper” from your proposal/abstract page. You may upload your article anytime between the first and
the final submission deadlines, which can be found on the next page.
3.
Once your article is received, it is verified against template and submission requirements. Your identity and contact
details are then removed, and the article is matched to two appropriate reviewers and sent for review. You can view the
status of your article at any time by logging into your CGPublisher account at www.CGPublisher.com.
4.
When reviewer reports are uploaded, you will be notified by email and provided with a link to view the reports (after the
reviewers’ identities have been removed).
5.
If your article has been accepted, you will be asked to accept the publishing agreement and submit a final copy of your
article. If your paper is accepted with revisions, you will be asked to submit a change note with your final submission,
explaining how you revised your article in light of the reviewers’ comments. If your article is rejected, you may resubmit
it once, with a detailed change note, for review by new reviewers.
6.
Accepted articles will be typeset and the proofs will be sent to you for approval before publication.
7.
Individual articles may be published online first with a full citation. Full issues follow at regular, quarterly intervals. All
issues are published 4 times per volume (except the annual review, which is published once per volume).
8.
Registered conference participants will be given online access to the journal from the time of registration until one year
after the conference end date. Individual articles are available for purchase from the journal’s bookstore. Authors and
peer reviewers may order hard copies of full issues at a discounted rate.
SUBMISSION TIMELINE
The timeline for the deadlines of Volume 5 is as follows:
1.
July 15, 2015
2.
October 15, 2015 (Final date for submissions of articles)
Note: Please feel free to submit at any time. If your article is submitted after the deadline for Volume 5, it will be considered for
Volume 6. However, the sooner you submit, the sooner your article will begin the peer review process. Also, as we publish ‘web
first’, early submission will mean that your article will be published as soon as it is ready, even if that is before the full issue is
published.
For More Information, Please Visit:
http://religioninsociety.com/submitting-your-work/journal-articles/submission-process
JOURNAL SUBSCRIPTIONS, OPEN ACCESS, ADDITIONAL SERVICES
Institutional Subscriptions
Common Ground offers print and electronic subscriptions to all of its journals. Subscriptions are available to the journal and to
custom suites based on a given institution’s unique content needs. Subscription prices are based on a tiered scale that
corresponds to the full-time enrollment (FTE) of the subscribing institution. You may use the Library Recommendation form in the
back of this pamphlet to recommend that your institution subscribe to The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in
Society.
Personal Subscriptions
As part of their conference registration, all conference participants (both article submission and in-person) have a one-year online
subscription to the Religion Journal. This complimentary personal subscription grants access to both the current volume of the
journal as well as the entire backlist. The period of complimentary access begins at the time of registration and ends one year
after the close of the conference. After that time, delegates may purchase a personal subscription. To view articles, go to
ijn.cgpublisher.com. Select the “Login” option and provide a CGPublisher username and password. Then, select an article and
download the PDF. For lost or forgotten login details, select “forgot your login” to request a new password.
For more information, please visit:
http://religioninsociety.com/publications/journal/subscriptions-and-orders or contact us at
journals@commongroundpublishing.com.
Hybrid Open Access
The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society is Hybrid Open Access. Hybrid Open Access is an option
increasingly offered by both university presses and well-known commercial publishers.
Hybrid Open Access means that some articles are available only to subscribers, while others are made available at no charge to
anyone searching the web. Authors pay an additional fee for the open access option. They may do this because open access is
a requirement of their research funding agency. Or they may do it so that non-subscribers can access their article for free.
Common Ground’s open access charge is $250 per article, a very reasonable price compared to our hybrid open access
competitors and purely open access journals that are resourced with an author publication fee. Electronic papers are normally
only available through individual or institutional subscriptions or for purchase at $5 per article. However, if you choose to make
your article Open Access, this means that anyone on the web may download it for free.
There are still considerable benefits for paying subscribers, because they can access all articles in the journal, from both current
and past volumes, without any restrictions. But making your paper available at no charge increases its visibility, accessibility,
potential readership, and citation counts. Open access articles also generate higher citation counts.
For more information or to make your article Open Access, please contact us at support@commongroundpublishing.com.
Institutional Open Access
Common Ground is proud to announce an exciting new model of scholarly publishing called Institutional Open Access.
Institutional Open Access allows faculty and graduate students to submit articles to Common Ground journals for unrestricted
open access publication. These articles will be freely and publicly available to the whole world through our hybrid open access
infrastructure. With Institutional Open Access, instead of the author paying a per-article open access fee, institutions pay a set
annual fee that entitles their students and faculty to publish a given number of open access articles each year.
The rights to the articles remain with the subscribing institution. Both the author and the institution can also share the final
typeset version of the article in any place they wish, including institutional repositories, personal websites, and privately or
publicly accessible course materials. We support the highest Sherpa/Romeo access level—Green.
For more information on Institutional Open Access or to put us in touch with your department head or funding body, please
contact us at support@commongroundpublishing.com.
Editing Services
Common Ground offers editing services for authors who would like to have their work professionally copyedited. These services
are available to all scholarly authors, whether or not they plan to submit their edited article to a Common Ground journal.
Authors may request editing services prior to the initial submission of their article or after the review process. In some cases,
reviewers may recommend that an article be edited as a condition of publication. The services offered below can help authors
during the revision stage, before the final submission of their article.
What We Do
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Correct spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors in your paper, abstract and author bionote
Revise for clarity, readability, logic, awkward word choice, and phrasing
Check for typos and formatting inconsistencies
Confirm proper use of The Chicago Manual of Style
The Editing Process
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Email us at support@commongroundpublishing.com to express your interest in having your article edited.
The charge for the editorial service charge is USD $0.05 per word.
Within 14-21 business days of your confirmed payment, you will receive an edited copy of your edited article via email.
We can also upload the edited copy for you, and any pending submission deadlines will be altered to accommodate
your editing timeline.
Contact us at support@commongroundpublishing.com to request a quote or for further information about our services.
Citation Services
Common Ground requires the use of the sixteenth edition of the Chicago Manual of Style for all submitted journal articles. We
are pleased to offer a conversion service for authors who used a different scholarly referencing system. For a modest fee, we will
convert your citations to follow the Chicago Manual of Style guidelines.
What We Do
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Change references—internal citations and end-of-article references—to confirm proper use of the sixteenth edition of
The Chicago Manual of Style, using either the author-date or notes and bibliography format of The Chicago Manual of
Style.
Check for typos and formatting inconsistencies within the citations.
The Conversion Process
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Email us at support@commongroundpublishing.com to express your interest in having your references converted.
For articles under 5,499 words (excluding titles, subtitles, and the abstract), the charge for reference conversion is $50.
If your article is more than 5,000 words, please contact us for a quote.
Within 14-21 business days of your confirmed payment, you will receive a copy of your article with the revised
references. We can also upload the revised copy for you, and any pending submission deadlines will be altered to
accommodate the conversion timeline.
Contact us at support@commongroundpublishing.com to request a quote or for further information about our services.
Translation Services
Common Ground is pleased to offer translation services for authors who would like to have their work translated into or from
Spanish or Portuguese. Papers that have undergone peer review and been accepted for publication by one of Common
Ground’s journals are eligible for this translation service. Papers can be translated from Spanish or Portuguese into English and
published in one of Common Ground's English-language journals. Or they may be translated from English into either Spanish or
Portuguese and be published in one of Common Ground's Spanish and Portuguese-language academic journals. In this way we
offer authors the possibility of reaching a much wider audience beyond their native language, affirming Common Ground's
commitment towards full internationality, multiculturalism, and multilingualism. All translations are done by certified professional
translators with several years of experience, who are highly educated, and have excellent writing skills.
The Process
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Contact support@commongroundpublishing.com to express your interest in having your article translated.
Our editorial team will review your article and provide you with a quote based on the paper’s word count.
Once you accept the quote, a translator will be assigned to your article.
Within 14-21 business days of your confirmed payment, you will receive a draft of your translated article. You will have
a chance to communicate with the translator via the draft using Word’s “track changes” function. Based on that
communication, the translator will supply you with a final copy of your translated article.
Common Ground is setting new standards of rigorous academic knowledge creation and scholarly publication. Unlike other
publishers, we’re not interested in the size of potential markets or competition from other books. We’re only interested in the
intellectual quality of the work. If your book is a brilliant contribution to a specialist area of knowledge that only serves a small
intellectual community, we still want to publish it. If it is expansive and has a broad appeal, we want to publish it too, but only if it
is of the highest intellectual quality.
We welcome proposals or completed manuscript submissions of:
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Individually and jointly authored books
Edited collections addressing a clear, intellectually challenging theme
Collections of articles published in our journals
Out-of-copyright books, including important books that have gone out of print and classics with new introductions
Book Proposal Guidelines
Books should be between 30,000 and 150,000 words in length. They are published simultaneously in print and electronic
formats and are available through Amazon and as Kindle editions. To publish a book, please send us a proposal including:
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Title
Author(s)/editor(s)
Draft back-cover blurb
Author bio note(s)
Table of contents
Intended audience and significance of contribution
Sample chapters or complete manuscript
Manuscript submission date
Proposals can be submitted by email to books@commongroundpublishing.com. Please note the book imprint to which you are
submitting in the subject line.
Call for Book Reviewers
Common Ground Publishing is seeking distinguished peer reviewers to evaluate book manuscripts submitted to The Religion in
Society Book Imprint.
As part of our commitment to intellectual excellence and a rigorous review process, Common Ground sends book manuscripts
that have received initial editorial approval to peer reviewers to further evaluate and provide constructive feedback. The
comments and guidance that these reviewers supply is invaluable to our authors and an essential part of the publication
process.
Common Ground recognizes the important role of reviewers by acknowledging book reviewers as members of the Religion in
Society Book Imprint Editorial Review Board for a period of at least one year. The list of members of the Editorial Review Board
will be posted on our website.
If you would like to review book manuscripts, please send an email to books@commongroundpublishing.com with:
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A brief description of your professional credentials
A list of your areas of interest and expertise
A copy of your CV with current contact details
If we feel that you are qualified and we require refereeing for manuscripts within your purview, we will contact you.
These and other books are available at religioninsociety.cgpublisher.com/
Spiritual Formation: A History of Mysticism
Donald Gates and Peter Steane
Spiritual Formation: A History of Mysticism portrays a spiritual
pilgrimage. The eighteenth-century Enlightenment saw mystics,
such as John and Charles Wesley, emphasize a “social
holiness” evidenced in social action, such as Wilberforce’s AntiSlavery Crusade. The authors argue that spiritual leaders, poets,
and musicians satisfy Matthew Fox’s definition of a mystic as
holding a “vital belief in a transcendent reality … as they can
communicate with that reality by direct experience”. This book
provides a framework for ministry, social justice action, and
policy with practical disciplines for the spiritual journey.
An Actor/Preacher Prepares: Bill Graham Performs the New
Revivalism
Kurt Edwards
Taking a cue from Constantin Stanislavski’s An Actor Prepares,
this book, An Actor/ Preacher Prepares, reintroduces a familiar
figure of recent history and elucidates the social and
performative transitions essential to Billy Graham’s journey to
cast himself as an appropriate evangelist.
Terrorism, Justice, and Tolerance: A Study of Islam, Muslims,
and the West
Cameron Iqbal
This book provides knowledge and understanding by examining
terrorism in Islam and the Quran. It also examines how Western
media and governments mislead the world as to the true roots
of terrorism and how numerous Western governments created
an atmosphere of terrorism by contributing to the increasing
terrorism problem throughout the world to further their foreign
policies.
Recent Books Published by Common Ground
These and other books are available at http://theuniversitypressbooks.cgpublisher.com/
Democracy and Democratization in Africa
Lembe Tiky
Unlike other studies of democracy and democratization in Africa
that start the investigation with postcolonial developments, this
book is a comprehensive study that investigates political
developments in African colonial and postcolonial states.
Writing the Body: Studies in the Self-images of Women in Indian
English Poetry
Arnab Bhattacharya
This edited collection of fifteen chapters attempts to study how
Indian women write their bodies while writing poetry in English in
order to construct their self-images, and/or to fight the physical,
emotional, and epistemic violence of the patriarchic demon.
Conference Principles and Features
The structure of the conference is based on four core principles that pervade all aspects of the knowledge community:
International
This conference travels around the world to provide opportunities for delegates to see and experience different countries and
locations. But more importantly, the Religion conference offers a tangible and meaningful opportunity to engage with scholars
from a diversity of cultures and perspectives. This year, delegates from over 51 countries are in attendance, offering a unique
and unparalleled opportunity to engage directly with colleagues from all corners of the globe.
Interdisciplinary
Unlike association conferences attended by delegates with similar backgrounds and specialties, this conference brings together
researchers, practitioners, and scholars from a wide range of disciplines who have a shared interest in the themes and concerns
of this community. As a result, topics are broached from a variety of perspectives, interdisciplinary methods are applauded, and
mutual respect and collaboration are encouraged.
Inclusive
Anyone whose scholarly work is sound and relevant is welcome to participate in this community and conference, regardless of
discipline, culture, institution, or career path. Whether an emeritus professor, graduate student, researcher, teacher,
policymaker, practitioner, or administrator, your work and your voice can contribute to the collective body of knowledge that is
created and shared by this community.
Interactive
To take full advantage of the rich diversity of cultures, backgrounds, and perspectives represented at the conference, there must
be ample opportunities to speak, listen, engage, and interact. A variety of session formats, from more to less structured, are
offered throughout the conference to provide these opportunities.
Session Descriptions
Plenary Sessions
Plenary speakers, chosen from among the world’s leading thinkers, offer formal presentations on topics of broad interest to the
community and conference delegation. One or more speakers are scheduled into a plenary session, most often the first session
of the day. As a general rule, there are no questions or discussion during these sessions. Instead, plenary speakers answer
questions and participate in informal, extended discussions during their Garden Sessions.
Garden Sessions
Garden Sessions are informal, unstructured sessions that allow delegates a chance to meet plenary speakers and talk with them
at length about the issues arising from their presentation. When the venue and weather allow, we try to arrange for a circle of
chairs to be placed outdoors.
Talking Circles
Held on the first day of the conference, Talking Circles offer an early opportunity to meet other delegates with similar interests
and concerns. Delegates self-select into groups based on broad thematic areas and then engage in extended discussion about
the issues and concerns they feel are of utmost importance to that segment of the community. Questions like “Who are we?”,
”What is our common ground?”, “What are the current challenges facing society in this area?”, “What challenges do we face in
constructing knowledge and effecting meaningful change in this area?” may guide the conversation. When possible, a second
Talking Circle is held on the final day of the conference, for the original group to reconvene and discuss changes in their
perspectives and understandings as a result of the conference experience. Reports from the Talking Circles provide a framework
for the delegates’ final discussions during the Closing Session.
Paper Presentations
Paper presentations are grouped by general themes or topics into sessions comprised of three or four presentations followed by
group discussion. Each presenter in the session makes a formal twenty-minute presentation of their work; Q&A and group
discussion follow after all have presented. Session Chairs introduce the speakers, keep time on the presentations, and facilitate
the discussion. Each presenter's formal, written paper will be available to participants if accepted to the journal.
Colloquium
Colloquium sessions are organized by a group of colleagues who wish to present various dimensions of a project or
perspectives on an issue. Four or five short formal presentations are followed by commentary and/or group discussion. A single
article or multiple articles may be submitted to the journal based on the content of a colloquium session.
Workshop/Interactive Session
Workshop sessions involve extensive interaction between presenters and participants around an idea or hands-on experience of
a practice. These sessions may also take the form of a crafted panel, staged conversation, dialogue or debate – all involving
substantial interaction with the audience. A single article (jointly authored, if appropriate) may be submitted to the journal based
on a workshop session.
Poster Sessions
Poster sessions present preliminary results of works in progress or projects that lend themselves to visual displays and
representations. These sessions allow for engagement in informal discussions about the work with interested delegates
throughout the session.
Virtual Presentations
If unable to attend the conference in person, an author may choose to submit a virtual presentation. Opportunities and formats
vary but may be a presentation through our YouTube channel or an online discussion with interested delegates at the
conference. Abstracts of these presentations are included in the online “session descriptions,” and an article may be submitted
to the journal for peer review and possible publication, according to the same standards and criteria as all other journal
submissions.
CONFERENCE PROGRAM AND SCHEDULE
DAILY SCHEDULE
Thursday, 16 April
08:00–09:00
Conference Registration Desk Open
09:00–09:15
Conference Opening—Homer Stavely, Common Ground Publishing, USA
09:15–09:45
Plenary Session—Steven Pfaff, University of Washington, USA
Religious Virtuosity, Spiritual Privilege and the Birth of the Modern Social Movement
09:50–10:20
Break & Garden Session featuring Steven Pfaff
10:20–11:00
Talking Circles
11:00–11:05
Transition
11:05–12:45
Parallel Sessions
12:45–13:45
Lunch
13:45–15:25
Parallel Sessions
15:25–15:40
Coffee Break
15:40–17:20
Parallel Sessions
Friday, 17 April
08:30–09:00
Conference Registration Desk Open
09:00–09:10
Host Opening Comments
09:10-09:40
Plenary Session—Rhys Williams, Loyola University Chicago, USA
Religious Activism and the Making of 'American Exceptionalism’
09:45–10:15
Break & Garden Session featuring Rhys Williams
10:15–11:55
Parallel Sessions
11:55–12:50
Lunch
12:50–13:35
Parallel Sessions—Workshops & Poster Session
13:35–13:45
Break
13:45–15:25
Parallel Sessions
15:25–15:40
Coffee Break
15:40–17:20
Parallel Sessions
17:20–17:50
Conference Closing—Held in Krutch Theatre
CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS
Featured Sessions
Publishing Your Article or Book with Common Ground
Thursday, 16 April—15:40-16:25 in the Krutch Theatre
Friday, 17 April—12:50-13:35 in Room 4
Ashley McBride, Community Editor, Common Ground Publishing
Description: In this session the Community Editor for the International Journal on Religion and Spirituality in Society will present
an overview of Common Ground's publishing philosophy and practices. She will also offer tips for turning conference papers in
to journal articles, present an overview of journal publishing procedures, and provide information on Common Ground's book
proposal submission process. Please feel free to bring questions - the second half of the session will be devoted to Q&A.
Special Events
Conference Dinner
Thursday, 16 April—19:00 at Le Bateau Ivre
Description: Join your fellow delegates for an evening of conversation and a delicious French-inspired 3 course dinner at Le
Bateau Ivre Restaurant, Cafe and Coffeehouse, a Berkeley landmark. Established in 1972, Le Bateau Ivre was originally a
residence built in 1898 by a French architect. Enjoy the warm and comfortable ambiance of a French home and good
conversation at a time when many of our speakers are able to come together for more intimate conversations over great food
and wine.
*The conference dinner is an optional activity, and prior registration is required to attend. Please visit the registration desk for
additional information.
PLENARY SPEAKERS
Steven Pfaff
Religious Virtuosity, Spiritual Privilege and the Birth of the Modern Social Movement
Steven Pfaff (Ph.D. New York University, 1999) is Professor of Sociology at the University of
Washington. His research focuses on historical and comparative sociology, in particular religion
and politics, social movements, and social change. His book Exit-Voice Dynamics and the
Collapse of East Germany (Duke University Press, 2006) was a study of the role of migration and
collective action in the fall of Communism in 1989. He has also written on religion and society in
post-Communist Europe, on the diffusion of the Evangelical movement and the political economy
of the Reformation in Central Europe, and on religion and contemporary politics.
Pfaff’s current research is in two directions. The first explores spirituality and cultural change, in
particular the role that spiritual innovation and virtuoso activism play in the genesis of new religious movements. The
second explores the reasons why people take part in radical and uncertain forms of collective action, ranging from
contemporary student strikes to naval mutinies during the age of sail.
Pfaff teaches courses on the sociology of religion, sociological theory and comparative case-based methods in the
social sciences. In addition to his appointment in sociology, he holds adjunct and affiliate appoints in comparative
religion, political science, Germanics and in Scandinavian studies. He has served on the editorial boards of several
journals and is actively involved in the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics and Culture (ASREC). His work
has been honored by the American Sociological Association, the Social Science History Association and the European
Academy of Sociology.
Rhys Williams
Religious Activism and the Making of 'American Exceptionalism’
Rhys H. Williams (Ph.D. University of Massachusetts, 1988) is Professor and Chair of Sociology
at Loyola University Chicago. His research interests focus on religion in American politics and
culture, particularly focusing on religiously based social movements. He has written on both
liberal and conservative social movements and his current research includes both a study of antiimmigration discourse and an edited collection on progressive religion and social activism.
Williams has two current research projects in progress. One is a study of young adults'
involvement with religious organizations, and the development of personal, social, and religious
identity. He has been comparing young adult groups in white and black churches, and the
involvement of second generation Muslim and Hindu immigrants in their religious institutions. The
second is an examination of the public attitudes and political language about immigration and immigrants in
contemporary American politics. He teaches both graduate and undergraduate classes in religion and society, religion
in American politics, and sociological theory.
Along with research and teaching, he was co-editor of the journal Social Problems from 1996-99 and the editor of the
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion from 2003-08. In 2010 he was president of the Association for the Sociology
of Religion, and in 2012 he was president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.
GRADUATE SCHOLARS
Jon Burrow-Branine
Jon Burrow-Branine is a PhD candidate in the department of American studies at the University of Kansas. Burrow-Branine’s
work focuses on power, body practices, and identity in American popular religious movements. For his dissertation project he is
working on an ethnographic study of the politics and practices of the LGBT Christian movement in mainline and evangelical
discursive communities in the American Midwest. Prior to coming to the University of Kansas, he received a master of arts in
cultural anthropology where he wrote a thesis exploring the practice of Holy Spirit possession as a strategy of identity formation
and community maintenance in Pentecostal communities. His most recent published work, “Blogging while Gay and Christian:
Andrew Sullivan and the Production of the Religious, Secular, and Sexual,” can be found in the journal Culture and Religion.
Burrow-Branine also lectures as a graduate instructor in the humanities and western civilization program at the University of
Kansas. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his wife and his dog, running, baking unhealthy things, and playing in his
tiny garden.
Charis Cheung
Charis Cheung received her bachelors in social science and master of philosophy at the University of Hong Kong where she
concentrated in psychology, counseling, and life and death education. After this, she worked five years on research projects in
life education and spiritual education in both NGO and university institutions and finished her part-time master of arts in values
education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She later spent another one and a half years teaching liberal studies in high
school before returning to graduate school at CUHK. She has served as chairperson in the Society of Values Education (Hong
Kong) from 2009-2011. Cheung has participated in the civic dissidence movement of “Occupy Central with Love and Peace” in
Hong Kong as a volunteer since 2013, and she is now one of the core members of a community working group formed after the
Umbrella Movement. Currently, Cheung is a doctoral candidate in the graduate program in educational psychology at CUHK.
She is interested in the development of alternative education, critical pedagogy, and civic spirituality in Asia.
Haley Feuerbacher
Haley Feuerbacher received her bachelor of arts from the university scholars program at Baylor University where she
concentrated in religion, literature, and philosophy. After this, she began graduate studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and
finished her masters in theological studies at Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University. She spent two years teaching
and coaching at a college preparatory high school and working in vocational ministry before returning to graduate school at
Southern Methodist University. Currently, Feuerbacher is a doctoral candidate in the graduate program in religious studies at
SMU where she is concentrating in religion and culture, and is a graduate certificate student of the women's and gender studies
program. She serves on various boards at SMU and in the community geared towards gender justice, and she teaches in the
women's and gender studies department and sociology department at SMU. Her research interests are postcolonial theory,
world Christianities, social and gender justice, and effects on single mothers of the intersection of neoliberalism, theology, and
metanarratives of the nuclear family structure. Outside of school, Feuerbacher works as a youth minister and writes for the online
journal State of Formation. Her personal interests include running, sports, outdoor adventures, and the arts.
Tuhina Ganguly
Tuhina Ganguly is a PhD candidate at the department of anthropology at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Ganguly
completed her MA and MPhil in sociology from the department of sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi,
India. Her current project focuses on the narratives of travel and practices of dwelling among Western spiritual practitioners in
Puducherry, India. She is particularly interested in how the space of ‘spiritual India’ is constantly made, remade and challenged
through the narratives and practices of Western spiritual practitioners in India. Ganguly is the recipient of the UC Doctoral
Scholarship, and was awarded a travel grant by the New Zealand India Research Institute to carry out fieldwork in India. Her
academic interests are interdisciplinary ranging from the anthropology of travel and tourism to religion and spirituality in the
South Asian context.
Kyung S. Hong
Kyung S. Hong is a PhD candidate in the graduate division of religion at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Kyung earned
both a master of divinity and a master of anthropology and sociology of religion at Drew University. Her dissertation topic
involves an ethnographic study of the practice of Korean diasporic shamanism in the context of the predominantly protestantized
Korean immigrant community, specifically centered on the metropolitan areas near New York City. Her academic interests are in
ethnographic studies, anthropology of religion, cultural studies, religion and diasporic community, Asian American studies, new
religions, and particularly folk religions contextualized in the process of transmigration. Kyung is currently co-chairing a panel as
a graduate representative at the Mid-Atlantic regional meeting of the American Academy of Religion.
Asima Iqbal
Asima Iqbal is a third-year PhD scholar at the University of Warwick, UK. Her research focuses on Muslim head teachers
working in state schools in England and Pakistan. She is particularly interested in looking at the various principles the head
teachers use in their everyday leadership practices. It is a cross-cultural study which aims to find out how head teachers’ own
religiosity as well as the religious profiles of their country shape the underlying principles which inform their leadership practices.
Her research interests include: studying the influence of religion, religious and spiritual beliefs, and spirituality in school
leadership. Prior to this research, Iqbal completed her MPhil degree in Lahore, Pakistan, in 2012, with a distinction. In her
research, she looked at the emergence of contemporary Islamic schools in Lahore, Pakistan. Apart from her research, Iqbal is
involved in a number of extra-curricular projects in and outside the University of Warwick. She is one of the key organizers of the
annual interdisciplinary conference, Crossing Boundaries, hosted by the Centre for Education Studies at the University of
Warwick. Iqbal also works as a tutor for The Brilliant Club, which is an award winning non-profit organization that exists to widen
access to top universities for outstanding pupils from non-selective state schools. Working as a Brilliant Club tutor since 2013,
she is part of a national movement that mobilizes doctoral and postdoctoral researchers to engage in challenging schools and to
address educational disadvantage in the UK more broadly.
Rachel Lim
Rachel Lim is a PhD student in the ethnic studies department at the University of California, Berkeley. After receiving her BA in
American studies and English literature at the University of Virginia, she spent two years as a Fulbright English teaching assistant
in South Korea. She is interested in the rise of global Christianity and the transnational dimensions of Asian-American
Christianity.
Jeremy Jacob Peretz
After studying anthropology as an undergraduate at UCLA, Jeremy Peretz worked for four years in Los Angeles public schools
and for the California Department of Developmental Services supporting students with various abilities and special needs.
Returning to UCLA as a graduate student in the culture and performance studies program, his work examines intersections of
global and local health and healing, and their connections to religion and politics. Primarily situated within both south Asian and
African diasporas, his current project explores these issues of health, religion, and politics in the Caribbean with a specific focus
on Guyana, Britain’s former South American colony. Peretz is also a student of Ayurveda and will soon receive a certification
after many years of study and practice. In May 2014 he was elected co-editor-in-chief of UFAHAMU, UCLA's graduate student
journal of African studies, after serving on the journal's editorial board.
Trevor B. Williams
Trevor B. Williams is an MA in religion student at Pepperdine University where he studies the Hebrew Bible. He received his BA
in biblical studies from Hope International University in May 2014. Williams has been honored with several awards for his
dedication to writing and theology including the Zondervan Excellence in Theology Award, and the Knofel Staton Christian
Communication Award. At this conference, Williams will be presenting a paper focusing on the Satan’s narrative function in the
book of Job’s prologue with an eye on helping to form an ethical framework for Christians to think thoughtfully about
disinterested righteousness. The particular research interests Williams occupies his time with include wisdom literature, virtue
ethics, postmodern philosophy, apocalyptic literature, Christian origins, and the portrayal of mortality in biblical (and
deuterocanonical) narratives. Another point of interest for Williams is his concern to integrate academic insights into the life of
religious communities. For Williams, research is done for the sake of learning, but he also seeks to share it with others as much
as possible; consequently, he enjoys discussing all things religion and politics. When Williams is not studying, most of his time is
spent working as a graduate assistant for the Convocation Office and for the religion division at Pepperdine. He is also the oncampus student representative for the Society of Biblical Literature at Pepperdine. Williams hopes to continue graduate school
and looks forward to future research projects.
THURSDA
HURSDAY
Y, 16 APRIL
8:00-9:00
REGISTRA
EGISTRATION
TION DESK OPEN
9:00-9:15
CONFERENCE OPENING AND HOST COMMENTS
Homer Stavely, Common Ground Publishing, USA
9:15-9:45
PLENAR
LENARY
Y SESSION
Steven Pfaff, University of Washington, USA
"Religious Virtuosity, Spiritual Privilege and the Birth of the Modern Social Movement"
9:50-10:20
BREAK & GARDEN SESSION
10:20-11:00
TALKING CIRCLES
Room 1: Religious Foundations
Room 2: Religious Community and Socialization
Room 3: Religious Commonalities and Differences
Room 4: The Politics of Religion
Room 5: Social Movements and Faith (conference special focus)
11:00-11:05
TRANSITION
11:05-12:45
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Krutch Conflicting V
Visions
isions
Theatr
Theatree She's W
Watching
atching Y
You:
ou: Mentorship for African-American Girls in Their Homes
Dr. Pamela Chandler Lee, Department of Management and Business Administration, Saint Leo University, Virginia Beach,
USA
Overview: Addressing the cycle of poverty and single parenthood among African Americans, this paper offers a model for
mother/daughter mentoring, based on Jochebed and Miriam, (Moses’ mother and sister).
Theme: Religious Community and Socialization
Conflicting V
Visions:
isions: The W
Women's
omen's Movement and State Religious Authorities in Israel
Dr. Patricia J. Woods, Department of Political Science; Center for Jewish Studies; Affiliate, Center for Global Islamic
Studies; Affiliate, Center for Women's Studies and Gender Research, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
Overview: The women's movement and state religious authorities define the parameters of debate in the religious-secular
conflict in Israel, which is often driven by them as opposing poles in the society.
Theme: Politics of Religion
Discourse and the Religious Imaginary: Apophatism in the Thought of Mohamed Arkoun and Ibn Arabi
Dr. Ben Hardman, Philosophy and Religion, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, USA
Overview: Mohamed Arkoun’s description of the development of religious discourse and the thinkable/unthinkable
dichotomy coincides with some mystical thought of Ibn Arabi. This can be a starting point for inter-religious dialogue.
Theme: Religious Commonalities and Differences
THURSDA
HURSDAY
Y, 16 APRIL
11:05-12:45
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Room 1 Politics, Religion and Race
Religion in the Politics of Souther
Southern
n White W
Workers
orkers in the Post-W
Post-World
orld W
War
ar II Era
Dr. Elizabeth Fones-Wolf, History Department, West Virginia University, Morgantown, USA
Dr. Ken Fones-Wolf, Professor of History, West Virginia University, Morgantown, USA
Overview: This paper explores how changes in southern religious culture shaped the responses of white working people
to labor and liberalism in the years following World War II.
Black Fr
Freethought
eethought and Black Power in the United States
Dr. Christopher Cameron, History, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, USA
Overview: This paper explores the intersection of African American humanism in churches and the Black Power
movement of the 1960s.
Obeah, Politics, and Emancipation: Celebrating Fr
Freedom
eedom while Captive in Guyanese Cultural Struggles
Jeremy Jacob Peretz, Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los
Angeles, USA
Overview: This paper explores ritual performances commemorating the 1838 Emancipation of enslaved Africans in
Guyana, focusing on how Obeah, Comfa, and other local religions are employed in performing memory and politics.
"Those Mur
Murder
derous
ous Monks" and Their Mission: Building an Inclusive Community for all People in Rural Florida,
1886-1960
Dr. Heather Parker, Social Sciences Department, Saint Leo University, Saint Leo, USA
Overview: At at time when Florida was steeped in poverty and bigotry, a small group of Benedictine monks built and
supported a thriving community in the most unlikely of places.
Room 2 Science and the Foundations of Faith
Using Scientific Fact to Refine Religious Belief and Religious Experience to Counter Scientific Dogmatism:
Truth Matters
Dr. Richard Burky, Dept. of Geography and Anthropology, Calif. State Polytechnic Univ., Pomona, Altadena, USA
Overview: This paper is about the necessity of bringing religious belief into harmony with known scientific facts while not
allowing extrapolated scientific dogmatism to destroy faith.
Theme: Religious Foundations
Zer
Zero
o Information Practice: The Foundation of Spiritual Experience
Dr. Jonathan Doner, DP/DS (sole proprietorship), Keswick, USA
Overview: An information-based perspective explains how spiritual experience can be sui generis yet also continuous with
normal experience. The theory finds support in both scientific and religious perspectives.
Restoring Inner Peace in a Science Dominated Society
Dr. Sukhmander Singh, Department of Civil Engineering, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, USA
Prof. John Finnemore, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Santa Clara University, Cupertino, USA
Overview: Pitfalls of materialistic and hectic paced science dominate society causing the erosion of inner peace. Analyses
and its restoration by reconnecting with nature/religion and spirituality are presented.
Can States Exist W
Without
ithout Gods? Another Unfinished Revolution
Dr. Ronald A. Harris, Department of Public and Nonprofit Administration School of Management, University of San
Francisco, San Francisco, USA
Overview: This essay discusses possible future states of the world in which gods do not exist. Scientific ignorance among
the masses prevents human progress by inhibiting reason.
THURSDA
HURSDAY
Y, 16 APRIL
11:05-12:45
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Room 3 Challenging T
Traditions
raditions
The Ramifications of Clerical Marriage for the Post-Reformation Diocese of Durham, England
Dr. Diana Rosemary Newton, History, Teesside University, Middlesbrough, UK
Overview: The ramifications of clergy marriage for the post-Reformation diocese of Durham (England), its impact on
relations between the clerical and secular communities and analogies with current relations between the two.
Liturgical T
Traditionalism
raditionalism and Spiritual V
Vitality?
itality? T
Transforming
ransforming Congr
Congregational
egational Practices in the Evangelical
Lutheran Chur
Church
ch in America
Maren Freudenberg, Graduate School of North American Studies, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Overview: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is attempting a fundamental transformation of its congregational
culture, encouraging spiritual vitality in ways that stay true to its communal, liturgical tradition.
Exotic and Stigmatized W
Ways:
ays: The Path of Sustainability and Health Dictated by Divinized Extraterr
Extraterrestrials
estrials in
Brazil
Leonardo Breno Martins, Department of Social Psychology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Dr. Wellington Zangari, Department of Social Psychology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Overview: The article discusses the apparent paradox of how large UFO religious groups in Brazil propose broad social
transformations by means of generating social stigmatization.
Transcendence and Music: T
Trance
rance and Ecstasy Brain Pr
Processes
ocesses
Dr. Mladen Milicevic, Recording Arts Department, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, USA
Overview: Music is used creating a state of mind that surpasses physical existence. Sensory overload provokes trance-‐like state (Pentecostals) and sensory deprivation creates meditation-‐induced experiences (New Age Spirituality) are both
examined.
Room 4 Psychoemotional Elements of Spirituality
The Impact of Social Support on the Psychological W
Wellbeing
ellbeing of Atheists
Justin Potter, Social Work, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, USA
Overview: I investigated how perceived social support (or lack thereof) impacts the psychological well-being of atheists
using the Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-being.
Concepts of Selfhood: Buddhism and Social Theory
Saul Tobias, Liberal Studies, California State University Fullerton, Fullerton, USA
Overview: This is a comparative exploration of Buddhism and western social theory's approaches to theories of the self,
with particular emphasis on implications for epistemology and ethics.
Motives for the Pursuit of Righteousness: V
Virtue
irtue Ethics and the Book of Job
Trevor B. Williams, Pepperdine University, Malibu, USA
Overview: Pursuing ethics solely for heavenly rewards distracts from the real struggles of life. It is by contemplating the
satan’s charge and Job’s righteousness that more meaningful questions for ethics arise.
“So Long as W
Wee Ar
Aree Not Mystics”: The Management of Inner Multiplicity in the Personal Art of W
Williams
illiams James
and C.G. Jung
Rev. Katie Givens Kime, Graduate Division of Religion, Emory University, Atlanta, USA
Overview: Comparing the art of C.G Jung and William James provokes fresh examination of our inherited conceptions of
the psyche as singular/multiple, and of the false dichotomy of empiricism and mysticism.
THURSDA
HURSDAY
Y, 16 APRIL
11:05-12:45
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Room 5 Sexuality and Social Movements and Faith
The Sexual and Religious Politics of the Evangelical Gay Christian Movement
Jonathan Burrow-Branine, Department of American Studies, University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA
Overview: This paper examines religion as a mode of social and political criticism by analyzing how the gay Christian
movement positions itself in relation to the LGBT community and queer politics.
Theme: Special Theme: Social Movements and Faith
A Queer Hermeneutic of Suf
Suffering:
fering: An Interr
Interrogation
ogation of Martyr
Martyrdom
dom and Meaning in Christianity
Dr. Jane Grovijahn, Department of Theology and Spiritual Action, Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, USA
Overview: In response to a startling rise in suicides of queer youth in the U.S., this work poses an interrogation of religious
meanings and applications of martyrdom within mainstream Christianity.
Light and Shadow: Changes in a Pentecostal Chur
Church's
ch's Discussions of Homosexuality
Megan Geiger, Department of Religion, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
Overview: This is a discussion of one classical Pentecostal minister's shifting discourse on the topic of homosexuality
over a period of thirty years.
Room 6 Ethics, Discrimination, and Faith
How Conservative Christians Can Support Marriage Equality: A Theological Framework
Matthew Brake, Philosophy Department Religious Studies Department, George Mason University, Vienna, USA
Overview: I will argue that conservative Christian groups can support marriage equality by divesting themselves of
Christian nationalist goals, loving the Other, and adopting a blessing ethic toward the LGBTQ community.
An Analytical Study on Religious Minorities and the State
Rev. Pijus Barua, Mahamakut Buddhist University, Bangkok, Thailand
Overview: Everyone has equal rights to live in this world with sustainable-psychic quality for the proper meaning of
humanity with each other by having a crucial understanding which indicates to law.
A Roman Catholic Perspective on Simple Case Assisted/Artificial Repr
Reproduction
oduction
Dr. Corey Harris, Humanities Department, Alvernia University, Reading, USA
Overview: This is an exploration of moral viability of simple case assisted/artificial reproduction (AIH) from a Roman
Catholic perspective addressing language, moral methodology, inherent complications, and allocation of health care
resources.
Interfaith Marriages and Their Ef
Effects
fects with Regar
Regard
d to Islamic Law
Dr. Shahzadi Pakeeza, Department of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Islamic and Oriental Learning, Fatima Jinnah Women
University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Overview: The Interfaith marriages in Islam, their permissibility, implications on society and their effects on children, in light
of Islamic law, is the main focus of this research.
12:45-13:45
LUNCH
THURSDA
HURSDAY
Y, 16 APRIL
13:45-15:25
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Krutch Science and Religion
Theatr
Theatree College Education and Religious TTolerance:
olerance: Barbour's Models of Interaction between Science and Religion
among UV
UVA-W
A-Wise
ise Students
Dr. Witold Wolny, Department of History and Philosophy., The University of Virginia's College at Wise, Wise, USA
Overview: This paper discuss findings of a research on Barbour’s typology of interaction between science and religion
with a focus on UVA Wise students.
The W
Wesleyan
esleyan Quadrilateral and the Hermeneutical Cir
Circle:
cle: A Four
Four-dimensional
-dimensional “Quadri-lectical” as a Modified
Theological Method for Social T
Transformation
ransformation in Envir
Environmental
onmental Ethics
Dr. Christopher Myers, Philosophy & Religion, American Public University, Cedar Falls, USA
Overview: I discuss the Wesleyan's Quadrilateral refigured as a Four-dimensional Quadri-lectical structure and theological
method for social transformation in environmental ethics.
The Distinction between Science and Theology in Cosmology
Eugen Ganţolea, Faculty of Orthodox Theology, Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu, Romania
Overview: Science and theology are covering two distinct domains of reality: physics and metaphysics, using two
methods of investigation: epistemology respectively gnoseology.
“Accumulate! Accumulate!”: Historical Materialism and Christian Libertarianism
Steven Snow, Government and Politics, Wagner College, New York, USA
Overview: This paper examines Christian libertarianism from a Marxist perspective.
Room 1 Catholicism and Religious Socialization
Navigating Catholic Faith-making: Individual Agency and Institutional Power
Emily Bartlett, Educational Studies, Tufts University, Medford, USA
Overview: Findings in this ethnographic study show that young Catholics in this parish navigate between exercising their
agency through various acts of resistance and bolstering the institutional church’s power structure.
Christian Martyr
Martyrdom
dom in Japanese Contexts: The Amakusa-Shimabara Revolt and Christian Martyrs
Dr. Yoshiko Okuyama, Department of Languages, Humanities Division, University of Hawaii at Hilo, Hilo, USA
Overview: This paper features my fieldwork on the 1637 Catholic Christian uprising by 37,000 villagers against the
government authority and explores what martyrdom signifies in Japan’s contemporary socio-cultural contexts.
Radices et Alae: Catholic Contributions to Schooling Ar
Aree Mor
Moree Than Just Public
Kevin James Stockbridge, College of Educational Studies, Culture and Curricular Studies, Chapman University, Long
Beach, USA
Overview: Looking at Catholic Social Teaching, this paper challenges the silencing of religious perspectives in teacher
education by arguing that, by doing so, the academy stifles robust possibilities for justice curricula.
Pr
Project
oject Zacchaeus: A Mexican Gr
Group’
oup’ss Desir
Desiree to be Recognized as Catholic and Gay
Alfonso Gomez-Rossi, School of Arts and Humanities, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Puebla, Mexico
Overview: This paper analyzes the creation of a Catholic support group for men and women that broke off from Courage
Latino.
THURSDA
HURSDAY
Y, 16 APRIL
13:45-15:25
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Room 2 Religion and Identity
Beyond the Religious-Secular Divide: New Forms of Identity Construction
Burin Yildiztekin, Department of Sociology and Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Overview: I destabilize the approach of identities as either secular or religious in secularization theories and intermarriage
literature. Self-identifications of Jewish-Muslim couples point in a new direction that is "faithful secularity."
Religious Conversion in Prison: Comparative T
Transformations
ransformations in Islam and Christianity
Dr. Malcolm L. Rigsby, Department of Sociology, Human Services and Criminal Justice, Henderson State University,
Arkadelphia, USA
Overview: This is a qualitative study of inmates converting to either Islam or Christianity and their life narratives about their
transformations.
It's All About Zor
Zoroastriansim?
oastriansim?
Dr. Priscilla Starratt, History Program Department of Social Inquiry, University of Wisconsin-Superior, Superior, USA
Overview: I explore links between Zoroastrianism and other Abrahamic faiths. Important research concepts include the
day of atonement, number of daily prayers, and concepts messiah and paradise.
Br
Brewing
ewing Cof
Coffee
fee Party Activism in T
Tea
ea Party T
Territory:
erritory: Faith and Politics in Rural America
Dr. Alisa Garni, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Kansas State University, Manhattan, USA
Dr. L. Frank Weyher, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Kansas State University, Manhattan, USA
Tayler Christian, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Kansas State University, Manhattan, USA
Overview: How does religion inform politics within a left-leaning, religiously diverse group that is politically active in an
otherwise highly conservative area?
Room 3 Religion's Histories
The Costa Rican Catholic Chur
Church
ch and the Civil W
War
ar in 1948
Dr. Brett Troyan, History Department, State University of New York at Cortland College., Cortland, USA
Overview: This paper will examine the role of the Catholic Church during the Reformist period of Costa Rican history in
the 1940s as well as its alliance with the Communist Party.
Revisiting the Roots of Indigenization in Philippine Pr
Protestant
otestant History: The IEMELIF Experience, 1909-1933
Asst. Prof. Kristoffer Esquejo, Department of History, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines
Overview: Though Protestants are the most Americanized Filipinos, local churches such as IEMELIF have asserted their
desires to be autonomous from the missionaries in the early stage of American colonial rule.
Contemporary Religious Aphorisms and Its Social Functions in T
Taiwan:
aiwan: A Study on Jing Si Aphorisms of
Master Cheng Y
Yen
en
Kai-wen Cheng, The Graduate Institute of Religious Studies, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan
Overview: This paper will discuss Taiwanese Buddhist leader, Master Cheng Yen of Tzu Chi Foundation, and focus on her
“Jing Si Aphorisms,” an ordinary but amazing sayings in contemporary Chinese society.
Fr
From
om “Fides et Ratio” to “Moralistic Therapeutic Theism”: Fr
From
om Doctrinal Communities to Feeling Communities
Dr. George Worgul Jr., Theology Department, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA
Overview: Fides et Ratio will be contrasted with Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. The shift from reason/doctrine to feeling will
be underscored as well as possibilities and limits for social change.
THURSDA
HURSDAY
Y, 16 APRIL
13:45-15:25
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Room 4 Special Issues: Islam and the Muslim W
World
orld
Sport within Muslim Organizations in Norway: Ethnic Segr
Segregated
egated Activities as an Ar
Arena
ena for Integration
Kristin Walseth, Faculty of Education and International Studies, Oslo and Akershus University College, Oslo, Norway
Overview: The paper reports on a research project which examine the role of Muslim organizations in Norway in the
development of social capital and integration through sport.
The Natur
Naturee of Man in Islam
Dr. Recep Dogan, Islamic Studies, Centre for Islamic Sciences & Civilization (CISAC), Sydney, Australia
Overview: The purpose of this study is to examine the meaning of humankind from Isamic perspective in relation to the
rest of creation.
Social Movements of Religious Life in Indonesia: The Study Jamaah An-Nadzir as Non-mainstr
Non-mainstream
eam Muslim
Community
Dr Mustaqim Pabbajah, Faculty of Education, University Technology of Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Overview: An-Nadzir is one of the religious movements to actualize Islamic values in public life. Although in religious
practice, An-Nadzir methodologically shows different movements to the mainstream.
Room 5 Values and Aspirations
Still Hymns: Cutting acr
across
oss Cultural, Chr
Chronological,
onological, and Geographical Boundaries
Tim S. Pack, School of Music, University of Oregon, Eugene, USA
Overview: Cutting across creeds, cultures, and chronologies, hymns more than any other form of sacred music have
been an essential component of worship in numerous religions worldwide for over three millennia.
Interpr
Interpreting
eting Islamic Concept of T
Taqwa
aqwa into Ar
Architectur
chitecturee
Seyed Mahdi Khatami, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Prof. Michael Tawa, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Overview: This paper attempts to clarify the interlinear version of Quran in its traditional context in order to extract
potential architectural layers of the Islamic concept of taqwa.
Animals in Religious Context: A Parable fr
from
om San Rafael
Frank E. Bayham, Department of Anthropology, California State University, Chico, Chico, USA
Overview: The relationship between people and animals can express spiritual truths of different religions. Through Catholic
tradition with reference to San Rafael, I explore the role of animals in healing.
An Investigation of How Religious and Spiritual V
Views
iews of Muslim Headteachers Influence their Leadership
Styles
Asima Iqbal, Centre for Education Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
Overview: This research aims to describe the leadership approaches used by Muslim headteachers in state schools and
investigate how these leadership approaches are influenced by their religious and spiritual views.
Room 6 Spirituality
Spirituality,, W
Wellbeing,
ellbeing, and Socialization
Faith and Remission in Psychosis
Edoa Mbatsogo Helene Carole, Departement of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Crissier, Switzerland
Overview: This study aims to examine the place and function of faith in the remission process of psychotic patients seen
in psychiatric institutions in Cameroon.
Har
Harnessing
nessing the Sacr
Sacred-Secular
ed-Secular Nexus: Immersive Experiences in the 21st Century Art Museum
Dr. Nico Roenpagel, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Einbeck, Germany
Overview: Art museums in contemporary society emerge as rare, secular environments conducive for "slowing down" and
inviting contemplative, if not spiritual, experiences, independent of visitors' particular belief systems.
The Comparative Role of Religious Inter
Internalization
nalization and Social Support in Alcohol Use in a Conservative
Christian University
Wendy Thompson, School of Social Work, Jackson State University, Jackson, USA
Overview: I examine the relative statistical explanatory power of internalization of religious values and social support in
understanding alcohol use in a student population at a conservative Christian university.
15:25-15:40
COFFEE BREAK
THURSDA
HURSDAY
Y, 16 APRIL
15:40-17:20
Krutch
Theatr
Theatree
This session will
be held from:
15:40-16:25
Room 1
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Publishing Y
Your
our Article or Book with Common Gr
Ground
ound Publishing
In this session the Community Editor for the International Journal on Religion and Spirituality in
Society will present an overview of Common Ground's publishing philosophy and practices. She will
also offer tips for turning conference papers in to journal articles, present an overview of journal
publishing procedures, and provide information on Common Ground's book proposal submission
process. Please feel free to bring questions - the second half of the session will be devoted to Q&A.
Political Systems: Friend or Foe
The Role of Religion in Political Participation of Educated Indian W
Women
omen
Dr. Bhawna Bhawna, Sociology Department, Mahila Maha Vidyalya P.G College Kidwai Nagar Kanpur, Kanpur, India
Overview: This is an empirical study of 100 educated women belonging to four religions and their political participation in
religion, society and politics.
Defining a Secular Identity in an Incr
Increasingly
easingly Religious W
World:
orld: EU and US For
Foreign
eign Policy in Comparison
Dr. Anne Jenichen, Center for European Studies (CEuS), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
Overview: The paper compares discourses on religion in EU and US foreign policy to understand how ideas about religion
in politics form the background against which "secular" foreign policies are defined.
Room 2 Counterpoints in Belief Systems
Roots of the Spirit: What Etymology Reveals about Spiritual Experience
Dr. Charles Burack, B.A. Psychology Program, John F. Kennedy University, Pleasant Hill, USA
Overview: By exploring the Indo-European roots of “spirit” and its more than one hundred semantic cousins, we get a
more concrete, palpable, and vital sense of how spirit has been experienced.
Hindu Spirituality: A Theory of Everything
Dr. Indira Y. Junghare, Institute of Linguistics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA
Overview: This paper is about Hindu worldview, and a pragmatic theory of cosmopolitianism for modern living.
Gospel-Cultur
Gospel-Culturee Relationship of T
Traditional
raditional Filipino Religion and Catholicism
Prof. Fides del Castillo, Theology and Religious Education Department, De La Salle University Manila, Manila, Philippines
Overview: The indigenous Filipinos had their own worldview and religion before the Catholic missionaries came to the
Philippines.Despite the limitations, the Catholic religion took root in the Philippines and prospered.
The T
Tension
ension between Religion Gr
Group
oup and Secular Education: Perspectives of Max W
Weber
eber and Émile Durkheim
Yuhai Chen, St. John's University, Taiwan, New Taipei City, Taiwan
Overview: Through the theories of Sociologist Max Weber and Émile Durkheim, I analyze the essence of the conflict
between Religion Group and Secular Education.
Room 3 Politics of Religion: Sexuality
Forming Citizens by T
Teaching
eaching Religious Literacy in Sexuality Education
Katia Moles, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, USA
Overview: I argue that democratic sexuality education incorporates Moore’s cultural studies approach to religion because
it encourages students to become engaged citizens by examining how religious values influence sexual politics.
Polygamedia: Reality T
Television
elevision as an Impetus for Social Change
Lindy Demarest, Department of Comparative Religion, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, USA
Overview: Combating negative portrayals of polygamist lifestyle, the popular TV show, Sister Wives has challenged the
constitutionality of laws against bigamy and widened the discourse surrounding polygamy.
True to T
Tradition
radition and T
True
rue to the Pr
Present
esent Moment: Re-r
Re-reading
eading St. Paul thr
through
ough Luther for a Revitalized
Theology of the Human Person
Jill Cox, Centre for Religious Studies, School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies, Monash University,
Melbourne, Australia
Overview: Using Martin Luther’s situational hermeneutic, paired with postmodern thought, we can re-read St. Paul to
understand queer people as having faith and exercising love.
THURSDA
HURSDAY
Y, 16 APRIL
15:40-17:20
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Room 4 Social Science and Religion
Does the Pledge of Allegiance Pr
Prepar
eparee Students for Ef
Effective
fective Citizenship?
Dr. Terri Susan Fine, Department of Political Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, USA
Overview: The Pledge of Allegiance as a mechanism for teaching effective citizenship is analyzed. College student
reactions to the 1954 change adding “under God” to the pledge is also considered.
Traveling Eastwar
Eastward
d for Spirituality: Narratives of W
Wester
estern
n Spiritual Seekers in Sri Aur
Aurobindo
obindo Ashram, India
Tuhina Ganguly, Department of Anthropology School of Language, Social and Political Sciences, University of Canterbury
(UC), Christchurch, New Zealand
Overview: Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper looks at the (re)production of "spiritual India" through Western
spiritual seekers’ travels to India, their faith and individual locations within global political asymmetries.
Always Reforming? Evangelical Feminism and the “W
“Women
omen in Chur
Church
ch Of
Office
fice Issue" in the Christian Reformed
Chur
Church
ch
Tamara Van Dyken, Department of History, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, USA
Overview: Gender reformers in the Christian (Dutch) Reformed Church developed an evangelical feminism rooted within
their own particular ethnic and theological tradition and shaped by the broader feminist movement.
The "Ripple Gr
Group"
oup" as a New Form of Social Change: The Case of American Catholicism
Maureen K. Day, Ethics and Social Theory, Graduate Theological Union, El Cerrito, USA
Overview: This paper will cover the major features of a new type of change organization. The "ripple group" is well-suited
for fragmented and professional populations and dovetails with contemporary Christian ideas.
Room 5 Diversity
Diversity,, T
Tolerance,
olerance, and Understanding
Ethics, Dharma and Secularism: The T
Transcendental
ranscendental Social of Bengali Muslims
Fernande Pool, Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Sciences, London, UK
Overview: Findings from research among Bengali Muslims demonstrate why the natural category "transcendental social"
should replace the use of the cultural categories "religion" and "secularity" in the comparative study of societies.
Untangling the Relationship between Religion and Inter
Inter-gr
-group
oup Conflict: An Evolutionary Perspective
Dr. Russil Durrant, Institute of Criminology School of Social and Cultural Studies, Victoria University of Wellington,
Wellington, New Zealand
Overview: In order to better understand the relationship between religion and intergroup violence, an evolutionary model
highlighting direct and indirect pathways is presented.
Was Jesus a Feminist? Theological Reflection on the Significance of the Christian Faith for Gender Equality
M. E. Muonwe, Diocesan Secretariat Staff, Catholic Diocese of Awka, Awka, Nigeria
Overview: This paper argues against the opinion that Christianity is inherently misogynist and patriarchal. It demonstrates
how Christianity’s core message is liberation from every form of oppression, including gender-based ones.
Why Business Executives Should Be Concer
Concered
ed with Religious Fr
Freedom
eedom
Dr. Paul Godfrey, Department of Organizational Leadership and Strategy, Brigham Young University, Provo, USA
Overview: Issues of religious freedom have tremendous impact on global corporations. Internal challenges such as hiring/
balancing a diverse workforce and external opportunities in products and markets represent areas of advantage/
problems.
THURSDA
HURSDAY
Y, 16 APRIL
15:40-17:20
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Room 6 Power
Power,, Institutions, and Politics
The Spiritual Crisis of Early Capitalism
Prof. Stephen Alan Strehle, Depatment of Philosophy and Religion, Christopher Newport University, Newport News, USA
Overview: In the seventeenth century, the Jansenists recognized that self-interest contained societal benefits. This early
emphasis of capitalism engendered a secular interpretation of life's forces and spiritual crises among its followers.
Has Iconoclasm Ended ? Blasphemous Arts and the Of
Offense
fense of Religious Sensibilities in the Era of
Globalization
Dr. Eleni Polymenopoulou, Brunel Law School, Brunel University, London, UK
Overview: The paper discusses the case of "blasphemous arts." It argues that globalized controversies triggered by
artworks cannot be considered solely in their legal dimension.
Faith in Ferguson
Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad, Religious Studies Global Studies Africana Studies, Warren Wilson College, Asheville, USA
Overview: "Faith in Ferguson" describes the theologies of clergy involved in anti-police brutality protests in Ferguson,
Missouri. Not since the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 have street protests sustained such momentum.
17:20
END OF DAAYY
FRIDA
RIDAY
Y, 17 APRIL
8:30-9:00
REGISTRA
EGISTRATION
TION DESK OPEN
9:00-9:10
HOST OPENING COMMENTS
9:10-9:40
PLENAR
LENARY
Y SESSION
Rhys Williams, Loyola University Chicago, USA
"Religious Activism and the Making of 'American Exceptionalism'"
9:45-10:15
BREAK & GARDEN SESSION
10:15-11:55
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Krutch Religious T
Texts
exts and Sacr
Sacred
ed Sour
Sources
ces
Theatr
Theatree Islam as "Her
"Heresy"
esy" in Early Christian W
Writings
ritings
Dr. Ramez Maluf, Department of Communication Arts, The University of Balamand, Beirut, Lebanon
Overview: The paper will explore how early Christian writers on Islam viewed the new religion.
"This is My Body Br
Broken
oken for Y
You":
ou": Commodification and Objectification of Bodies and the Crucifixion as a
Cautionary T
Tale
ale
Haley Feuerbacher, Religious Studies Religion and Culture Women's and Gender Studies, Southern Methodist University,
Dallas, USA
Overview: This paper explores possible connections between the commodification of women in contemporary
advertisements and predominant Christian interpretations of the Eucharist that emphasize the crucified body as an object
of exchange.
One God: A Commonality in W
World
orld Religions
Dr. Saba Yunus, Sociology Department, C.S.J.M. University, Kanpur, India
Overview: There are roughly 4,200 religions in the world. However, in researching six major religions of the world I found
there is one similarity among them, which is “Oneness of God."
Room 1 Commonalities
The Forgotten Practice of the Spiritual Jour
Journey
ney,, T
True
rue Love and the Purpose of Life thr
through
ough Self-awar
Self-awareness:
eness:
Spiritual Jour
Journey
ney
Sukru Serdar Demirci, Interfaith Spiritual Path, Inc, Concord, USA
Overview: This paper is about the forgotten practice of spiritual journey, true love and the purpose of life through selfawareness
Saint Thomas Aquinas and Imam Al-Ghazali on the Attainment of Happiness
Rania Shah, Center for Islamic Studies, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, USA
Overview: This paper examines the virtue theories of Saint Thomas Aquinas and Imam Al-Ghazali, both spiritual masters
of the Catholic and Islamic faiths and inheritors of Aristotle’s philosophy of virtues.
The Religious and Moral Relevance of Car
Caree and Compassion
Dr. Lloyd Newell, College of Religious Education, Brigham Young University, Provo, USA
Overview: Authentic religiosity and moral living involves care and compassion for others. Recognizing and appreciating
humankind’s inherent diversity acknowledges the need for a universal moral code that applies to all peoples.
“T
“Truth
ruth Wher
Wherever
ever It Is”: Hip Hop as a Critical Category for the Study of Religion and Spirituality
Dr. Roy Whitaker, College of Arts and Letters, Department of Religious Studies, San Diego State University, San Diego,
USA
Overview: Alongside other faith movements, Hip Hop should be appreciated anew as a critical category for the
contemporary study of religion and spirituality—particularly, its consciousness of its doctrines and practices.
FRIDA
RIDAY
Y, 17 APRIL
10:15-11:55
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Room 2 Histories of Faith
Medieval V
Voices,
oices, Moder
Modern
n Mystic: The Continuing T
Tradition
radition of Female Mystical W
Writing
riting in the 20th Century Diary
of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska
Kenneth DiMaggio, Humanities, Capital Community College, Hartford, USA
Overview: St. Faustina's Diary engages a mystical discourse with Jesus. But do these 21st century saint's visions reflect
a medieval, mystical, literary tradition from writers such as Julian of Norwich?
Mystical Qur’anic Exegesis and the Canonization of Early Sufis in Sulam
Sulamī’’s ?aq
?aqā’iq
’iq al-T
al-Tafs
afsīrr
Sara Abdel-Latif, Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Overview: This paper investigates how ?adīth master Sulamī established Sufi saints as qur'anic authorities in 11th
century Persia by claiming Sufi mystical experience as a legitimate form of scriptural interpretation.
Room 3 Community and Belief Systems
Spirituality and T
Trreatment Outcomes for Justice Involved V
Veterans
eterans
Amy James, UConn School of Social Work, Research Division, Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction
Services, Hartford, USA
Overview: One hundred Veterans in Connecticut Involved in the Criminal Justice System were studied for 12 months.
Baseline spirituality was examined with regard to outcomes.
Meditation as an Ef
Effective
fective Therapeutic T
Technique
echnique
Chand R. Sirimanne, Department of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia, Sydney, Australia
Overview: Today mindfulness meditation is a mainstream psycho-therapeutic tool in the West. Its limited efficacy and
attrition rate could be due to its disengagement from its source, Buddhist teachings.
Family
Family,, Friends, and Religious Communities: Examining Patter
Patterns
ns of Social Support among Asian and Latino
Immigrants
Dr. Amelia Derr, Department of Anthropology, Sociology, and Social Work, Seattle University, Seattle, USA
Overview: This paper examines the influence of social support systems on immigrant health and mental health. Religious
communities emerge as an important locus of social support.
Climate Change and the Evangelical Response
Dr. Jack Goodyear, The Gary Cook School of Leadership, Dallas Baptist University, Dallas, USA
Overview: The theological influences on evangelical leadership concerning the politics of climate change is the focus of
this research.
Room 4 Politics, Socialization, and Communities of Belief
Apocalyptic Catastr
Catastrophe,
ophe, and the Intensity of Information in the Mediapolis
Dr. Steven Knowles, Theology and Religious Studies Dept, University of Chester, Chester, UK
Overview: This paper specifically examines the way information in "rapture cultures" is received and interpreted in print
and online and correlated inline with eschatological expectations--the end of the world.
Historical Survey on the Relationship between Muslims and Other Religious Communities in the Early Islamic
Society
Prof. Salah Al-Haideri, History Department, University of Soran, Erbil, Iraq
Overview: After the emigration of the prophet Muhammad to Medina, he tried to build a new society. Caliphs, who came
after him, treated the Non-Muslims as the prophet did.
A Critical Examination of Non-Native Practice of Native American Spirituality
Allison Goar, Department of Ethnic Studies, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, USA
Overview: This paper explores non-Native participation in indigenous spiritual practice. This project is guided by the
question: What are the experiences and perceptions of non-Natives who practice Native American influenced spirituality?
"T
"Taigs"
aigs" and "Pr
"Prods":
ods": Catholic and Pr
Protestant
otestant T
Tribal
ribal Identities in Norther
Northern
n Ir
Ireland
eland
Dr. Michael Stephens, English Department, Johnson & Wales University, Charlotte Campus., Charlotte, USA
Overview: In Northern Ireland religion is a central indicator of cultural identity. Each individual's inherited religious
denomination as either a Protestant or Catholic connects them to an indelible tribal allegiance.
FRIDA
RIDAY
Y, 17 APRIL
10:15-11:55
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Room 5 Change and Change Agents in Social Movements and Faith
Finding the Kingdom of God in the City of Cain: Undoing the Augustinian Dualism of the Individual and the
Recovery of an Urban and Social Spirituality
August Higgins, The Institute for the Study of Contemporary Spirituality Christian Spirituality, Ph.D program, The Oblate
School of Theology, San Antonio, USA
Overview: Today, humanity exists in an increasingly urban context, I argue that Stan Grenz's social reading of the imago
Dei may offer us something redemptive to an urban and holistic spirituality.
Pope Francis's "New Evangelization" and the Demands of Christian Social Ethics T
Today
oday
Dr. Trent Davis, Faculty of Education, St. Mary's University, Calgary, Canada
Overview: This paper derives a Christian social ethic for today from Pope Francis's Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii
Gaudium, or "The Joy of the Gospel."
Pr
Protest
otest as Prayer: Paul Ricoeur’
Ricoeur’ss Symbolics and the Surplus of Political Meaning
Dr. Timothy Harvie, Humanities, St. Mary's University, Calgary, Canada
Overview: Using Paul Ricoeur's work on symbols and ethics, this paper argues that protest for social justice may take the
form of prayer in Christian communities.
Faith in Revolt: The Jour
Journal
nal Radical Religion, 1973-1981
Dr. Timothy Scott Brown, Department of History, Northeastern University, Northeastern University, Oakland, USA
Overview: This paper examines the founding, goals, and course of the journal Radical Religion, founded in 1973 by
theology students at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.
11:55-12:50
LUNCH
12:50-13:35
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Hallway Poster Sessions
An Association of Beliefs in Divine Intervention and Moral Foundations
Travis Dumais, Department of Psychology, Rhode Island College, Providence, USA
Dr. David Sugarman, Department of Psychology, Rhode Island College, Providence, USA
Overview: An online survey showed a relationship between belief in intervening divine imagery and moral foundations.
Supporting Refugees in Eur
Europe
ope in Light of Catholic Social T
Teaching
eaching
Dr. Emoke Korzenszky, Faculty of Theology, Péter Pázmány Catholic University, Budapest, Hungary
Overview: The refugee photography exhibition in the European Parliament served a twofold purpose: communicate the
message of the Catholic Church to European politicians, and show the human dignity of refugees.
Render unto Caesar and Render unto God: Dualistic Loyalties of Religious Communities as Barriers to
Monolithic State Power
Lucie Adamski Miryekta, Politics Department, The Catholic University of America, Benicia, USA
Emily Butler, Politics Department, The Catholic University of America, Washington, USA
Overview: This project explores the relationship of religious secondary associations in promoting social diversity while at
the same time promoting a free and open society.
The Cr
Credibility
edibility Structur
Structures:
es: The Case of Mosques in the Czech Republic
Daniel Topinka, Department of Sociology and Cultural Anthropology, Palacky University in Olomouc, Olomouc, Czech
Republic
Overview: The paper deals with the credibility structures around mosques in the Czech Republic. At the time, Muslims
have been founding organizations, establishing themselves in public and attempting to de-privatize religion.
Room 1 Workshop
Spiritual Practices in the W
Workplace:
orkplace: Practical Applications of Mindfulness and Meditation
RuthAnn Ritter, Rossier School of Education, University ofSouthern California, USA
Overview: Learn how applications of spirituality in organizational settings increase productivity and reduce stress.
Experience representative practices inspired by Buddhist mindfulness and meditation that expand present moment
awareness.
Room 4 Publishing Y
Your
our Article or Book with Common Gr
Ground
ound Publishing
FRIDA
RIDAY
Y, 17 APRIL
12:50-13:35
PARALLEL SESSIONS
In this session the Community Editor for the International Journal on Religion and Spirituality in Society will present an
overview of Common Ground's publishing philosophy and practices. She will also offer tips for turning conference papers
in to journal articles, present an overview of journal publishing procedures, and provide information on Common Ground's
book proposal submission process. Please feel free to bring questions - the second half of the session will be devoted to
Q&A.
13:35-13:45
BREAK
13:45-15:25
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Krutch Corruption, Communication, and Change
Theatr
Theatree The Cultural Relations in the Catholic Chur
Church:
ch: Understanding the Evangelization Pr
Process
ocess
Enrique Grez, Bach. en Teología por la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Licenciado) Mag. en Comunicación por la
Universidad Austral de Chile (Estudiante), Instituto Secular Padres de Schoenstatt, Valdivia, Chile
Overview: Catholic Church has developed a way of reflection on the complex relationship between evangelization and
local cultures.
The Role of Buddhist Monks and Politics in Myanmar
Ven. Sumana, Mingalarama Pali Monastery, Thein Phyu Road, Botahtaung Township, Yangon, Myanmar, Mingalarama
Pali Monastery, Yangon, Myanmar
Overview: Monks are a symbol of peace, and "sons of Buddha" in Myanmar that need to build trust to eradicate fear.
Many people are suffering from the political conflicts.
Exploring Holistic Dialogue as Sine-qua-non to solving the pr
problem
oblem of Religious Misunderstanding
Dr. Paul Ademola Ojebode, Department of Christian Religious Studies, Federal College of Education (Special), P.M.B
1089, Oyo, Oyo, Nigeria, Oyo town, Nigeria
Overview: Lack of balanced teaching on Comparative Religion has been the bane of religious conflicts. Holistic dialogue is
proposed to allow for religious tolerance and peaceful co-existence.
Room 1 Budhist Perspectives
The W
Way
ay to Enlightenment: A Case Study of Education for R
Rāhula
hula
Fashi Daofu Shih, Graduate Institute of Religious Studies, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan
Overview: This paper aims to present an integrated work on exploring the education for Rāhula by the Buddha- the
Buddhist pedagogy refers to how to effectively practice to achieve Enlightenment.
Theravada Buddhist Nunnery in the W
Wester
estern
n Context
Dr. Chapla Verma, Department of Philosophy and Religion, American Public University, Bloomington, USA
Overview: This paper is based on my field research of Theravada nunnery in the US, as it exists and functions in 2014. It
looks into their practices, challenges, and assimilation issues.
Being Peace: The Or
Order
der of Interbeing
Alexander Sieber, Religion, Society and Social Change, Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, USA
Overview: While remaining authentically Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing is creating a culture of peace
around the world by making engaged Buddhism accessible to almost anyone.
Cheri Huber’
Huber’ss Zen T
Teachings
eachings on Self-hate
Dr. Jeffrey B. Gold, Philosophy Department, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, USA
Overview: Cheri Huber is a contemporary American Zen Buddhist. My paper explains her views on self-hate and it also
provides an explanation as to why her views cause us discomfort.
FRIDA
RIDAY
Y, 17 APRIL
13:45-15:25
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Room 2 Schools, Education and Religious Practice
Spiritual Intersections: Asian American Evangelicals, College Fellowships, and the Sear
Search
ch for Identity
Rachel Lim, Ethnic Studies Department, University of California - Berkeley, Berkeley, USA
Overview: My paper looks at the construction of spiritual identity among Asian-American Christian college students,
demonstrating that racial and spiritual identity are constitutively constructed in the Evangelical context.
"Y
"Yee Do Err
Err,, Not Knowing the Scriptur
Scriptures":
es": Situating Religious T
Texts
exts in American Studies
Rachel Schwaller, Department of American Studies, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA
Overview: This paper analyzes the use of sacred texts in the study of religion in American Studies. It argues that the lack
of scriptural analysis weakens current scholarship.
Faith Considerations in the Ef
Effective
fective Operation of a Higher Education Campus in Singapor
Singaporee
Dr. Robyn Margaret Anderson, College of Arts, Society and Education, James Cook University, Singapore, Singapore
Overview: A case study conducted at a university campus in Singapore found that including the staff's spiritual beliefs in
campus organization was crucial to the effective operation of the campus.
Fr
Freedom
eedom of Religion and Religious Education: Challenges and Opportunities
Dr. Helena Van Coller, Law Faculty, Rhodes University, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
Overview: The paper will address some challenges and opportunities associated with the right to freedom of religion and
religious observance at public schools.
Room 3 Women, Feminism and Religion
Surr
Surrendering
endering to the Spirit: Gender Dif
Differ
ferences
ences in Religious Experience among Catholic Charismatics in T
Trinidad
rinidad
Raquel L. M. Sukhu, Institute for Gender and Development Studies, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine,
Trinidad and Tobago
Overview: This is a discussion of preliminary findings of feminist phenomenological research on gender differences in
religious experience amongst members of the Catholic Charismatic community in the Caribbean island, Trinidad.
The Compassionate Example of the Blessed V
Virgin
irgin Mary in Dante Alighieri’
Alighieri’ss "Divine Comedy"
Lisa Tortolani, Boston College, Providence, USA
Overview: This paper is an analysis of the role of the Virgin Mary in Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" and the way in
which the author advances his Marian-based theology.
Spiritualizing Mater
Maternity:
nity: Responses fr
from
om the Counter
Countercultur
culturee
Dr. Marianne Delaporte, Philosophy and Religious Studies Department, Notre Dame de Namur University, Belmont, USA
Overview: Ina May Gaskin's Spiritual Midwifery was a revolutionary text in the 1970s. This paper examines the religious
underpinning of the work and the socialization from which it arose.
Singapor
Singaporean
ean Malay W
Women’
omen’ss Utilization of Islam in the Construction of the Ideal Childbirth
Sharifah Huseinah Madihid, Department of Malay Studies Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, National University of
Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
Overview: Having the ideal childbirth experience is dominant in Singaporean Malay women’s narratives of maternity. They
regulate their bodily activities by utilizing Islam as a framework to achieve this ideal.
Room 4 Naming and Boundaries of Faith
What's in a Name? A Comparison of Being Branded a Religious “Cult” in the US and the PRC
Dr. Teresa Wright, Department of Political Science, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, USA
Teresa Zimmerman-Liu, Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, USA
Overview: This paper is a comparison of the process by which a controversial religious group—the Local Churches, or
“Shouters”—was branded a “cult” in the US and China.
Recent Developments in the Chemistry of Life and "Science Playing God": A Critical Study of the Theological
and Moral Aspects of Science's Attempt to Synthesize Life
Dr. Beena Jose, Jesuit School of Theology, Sanata Clara University, Berkeley, USA
Dr. Binoy Jacob, Department of Systematic Theology of the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University,
Berkeley., Santa Clara University, California, Berkeley, USA
Overview: This work is the critical evaluation of the ethical and theological implications of the Chemistry of life and
"science playing God" with special emphasis on Craig Venter’s synthetic cell.
FRIDA
RIDAY
Y, 17 APRIL
13:45-15:25
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Room 5 The Common Good and Social Movements and Faith
Civil Rights Christianity under Pacifist Attack: V
Violence
iolence in Nonviolent Ideology
Gregory Hotchkiss, School of Liberal Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Berkeley College, NJ, Newark, USA
Overview: This article examines the pacifism of the theologian John Howard Yoder insofar as he used it in 1963 to criticize
the Christianity of the civil rights movement.
The Russian Orthodox Chur
Church
ch and Pr
Protest
otest Social Movements: Is Unity Possible?
Yulia Sweet, Division of Global Affairs, Rutgers University, Staten Island, USA
Overview: The Church and social movements distance themselves from each other. Church opinions of the Putin’s regime
discredited it. As a result, protesters did not consider it a valuable ally.
A Pentecostal W
Witness
itness in the Public Spher
Sphere:
e: The Civic Engagement of Four Non-Gover
Non-Government
nment Organizations
among the Most V
Vulnerable
ulnerable People in the City of V
Vallejo
allejo Califor
California
nia
Dr. Joel Tejedo, Department of Theology, Asia Pacific Theological Seminary, Baguio City, Philippines
Overview: This article reports the civic engagement of faith-based organizations among the under-privilege people in the
City of Vallejo.
15:25-15:40
COFFEE BREAK
15:40-17:20
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Krutch Late Additions
Theatr
Theatree Surfing as Deep Blue Religion: The Deification of Miki Dora
Stephen Florian, English Department, California State Univeristy Northridge, Los Angeles, USA
Overview: I am proposing that since surfing is often described in spiritual and religious terms that there is a justification for
surfing to be included as a world religion.
The Role of Diaspora in Kabirpanth
Dr. Purnendu Ranjan, Department of History, Government Post Graduate College for Girls-42, Chandigarh, Chandigarh,
India
Overview: Expansion of Kabirpanth over the last 500 years in several countries has been facilitated by a series of
diasporas forced upon these followers – both of intra-nation and international scales.
Religious “Other” in T
Text
ext and Context: Mapping the People of the Scriptur
Scripturee in Qur’anic Appr
Approach
oach and CID’
CID’ss
Confer
Conferences
ences in Contemporary Iran
Ahmad Moghri, University of Religions and Denominations, Qom, Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Overview: The question of this essay is: how does the Qur’anic approach towards the people of the scripture reflect on
the concept of religious otherness in Iran’s contemporary interreligious dialogue?
FRIDA
RIDAY
Y, 17 APRIL
15:40-17:20
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Room 1 Socio-economic Issues in Faith Communities
Praxis and the Poor: Latin American Liberation Theology and Easter
Eastern
n Orthodox Social Ethics in Dialogue
Fr. Philip LeMasters, School of Social Sciences and Religion Department of Religion, McMurry University, Abilene, USA
Overview: Latin American liberation theology and Eastern Orthodox social ethics share points of similarity and of
difference on the question of appropriate praxis in response to situations of poverty and injustice.
Power Politics, Biblical Hermeneutics, and the W
Widening
idening Gap between the Rich and the Poor in the US
Dr. LeAnn Snow Flesher, Free standing seminary; member school of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), American
Baptist Seminary of the West, Berkeley, USA
Overview: Religion, the Bible, and theology have been used by US politicians to organize religious socially conservative
masses to vote against their own best interests with regard to US economic policies.
Faith as Social Capital in Britain: How Religious Involvement Contributes to the Integration of Ethnic Minorities
Yinxuan Huang, The Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research (CMIST), The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Overview: This study explores different patterns of religious involvement in Britain and compares their social
consequences for British ethnic minorities.
Religious Ethics and Economy Practices: The Case of Jewish Entr
Entrepr
epreneurs
eneurs in 19th Century Russia
David Schick, Department of Eastern and Southeastern European History, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich,
Munich, Germany
Overview: The interconnectivity of religion and economy is explored empirically by using business correspondence and
business documents that are analyzed applying approaches of cultural history.
Room 2 Childr
Children
en and Families
Par
Parents,
ents, Religion and Childr
Children:
en: The Case Against Restricting a Child's Education on Religious Gr
Grounds
ounds
Dr. Mark Vopat, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Youngstown State University, Youngstown, USA
Overview: I argue that the supposed right to restrict a child’s education in order to protect a particular belief system, is a
conflation of a parental rights with parental privileges.
Investigating Childr
Children’
en’ss Spiritual Development by Using Narratives in Religious Education Classr
Classrooms
ooms
Seema Ali Lalani, STEP Department (Secondary Teacher Education Proramme), Affiliated with Institute of Ismaili Studies
London, working in Ismaili Tariqah and Religious Education Board for Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan
Overview: The study explores children’s spiritual development in religious education classrooms by using religious
narratives. The purpose was to nurture children’s spirituality and to present and discuss their spiritual characteristics.
Pray
Pray,, Plan, Love: Religious Couples Negotiate Planned Par
Parenthood
enthood
Lea Taragin-Zeller, The Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
Overview: An ethnographic study of religious fertility management in Israel reveals how members negotiate and draw
boundaries between modern and scientific knowledge and ancient knowledge rooted in religious authority and texts.
Bridging the Gap in African-Ibibio Socio-r
Socio-religious
eligious Landscape: Spirituality and Social Justice Paradigm in Luke’
Luke’ss
Gospel
Dr. Effiong Joseph Udo, Department of Religious and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Arts., University of Uyo, Uyo, Akwa Ibom
State, Nigeria., Uyo, Nigeria
Overview: Despite the intense religiosity of the African-Ibibio society, its social reality remains largely inhumanising. How
this gap is exposed and bridged, depends on the resource the people’s cosmology is evaluated.
FRIDA
RIDAY
Y, 17 APRIL
15:40-17:20
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Room 3 Religious Socialization
Religious Belongings in Urban Hong Kong Society: Catholic and Buddhist W
Ways
ays to Deal with Hong Kong’
Kong’ss
Contemporary Issues
Mariske Westendorp, Department of Anthropology, Macquarie University, Sydney (Australia), Sydney, Australia
Overview: In my paper I will describe the relationship between religion and Hong Kong’s contemporary society by
discussing how Catholicism and Buddhism provide necessary identity anchors in the complex urban environment.
The Apocalypticism Movement in the China Bor
Border:
der: A Case Study of the Hmong People in Southwester
Southwestern
n
China
Chijui Hu, Graduate Institute of Religious Studies, National ChengChi University, Taipei, Taiwan
Overview: This study examines the Millennialism between the social movement and the historical memory of the Hmong
people who live in the northwest Guizhou, China.
Religion and Spirituality in Nigeria: A Focus on Islamic Movements of Social and Political Inclination
Prof. Sulaiman. M. Jamiu, Kwara State University, Malete, Nigeria
Overview: The research showcases the role played by some Islamic movements in Nigeria as well as the positive and
negative socio-political impacts of the Islamic movements on the Nigerian people.
Room 4 Pr
Profound
ofound Faith
Politicizing an Outlaw Religious Movement
Dr. Laurie Cozad, Division of Interdisciplinary Inquiry, Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences, Lesley University,
Cambridge, USA
Overview: This paper explores a new form of religiosity: cannabis ministries. These ministries have been actively involved
in politicizing their respective movements so that they might be regarded as judicially legitimate.
Religion, Democracy
Democracy,, and the Envir
Environmental
onmental Imagination: Radical Romanticism and Contemporary Civic
Engagement and Activism
Mark Cladis, Department of Religious Studies, Brown University, Providence, USA
Overview: My paper presents a triscopic hermeneutics—located at the intersection of religion, democracy and the
environment—that illuminates salient Romantic texts that have nurtured a contemporary radical environmental imagination
and political engagement.
Restoring a Rhythm of Sacr
Sacred
ed Rest in a 24/7 W
World:
orld: An Exploration of T
Technology
echnology Sabbath and Connection to
the Earth Community
Lisa Naas Cook, Marylhurst University, Marylhurst, Oregon, Hood River, USA
Overview: This phenomenological and multidisciplinary study of perspectives on rest suggests how technology Sabbath
might foster personal and planetary well-being in a 24/7 world.
Walking thr
through
ough the Umbr
Umbrella
ella Movement in Hong Kong
Wing Shan Cheung, Department of Educational Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong,
Hong Kong
Prof. Wan Chi Wong, Department of Educational Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong,
Hong Kong
Overview: Focused in civic spirituality, this study used “the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong” to explored how the civic
dissidents articulate their inner spiritual journeys in social engagements.
FRIDA
RIDAY
Y, 17 APRIL
15:40-17:20
PARALLEL SESSIONS
Room 5 Identity
Identity,, Ritual, and Politics
Seeking a Modus V
Vivendi
ivendi thr
through
ough an Ethics of Debate
Justin Jalea, School of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Ontario and Durham College, Toronto, Canada
Overview: A way of living together in spite of religious diversity requires equitable and sustainable dialogue characterized
by an ethics of debate that refines our methods of engaging with one another.
Armenian Ethno-Religious Identity in the Los Angeles Diaspora
Madlen Avetyan, Anthropology, California State University Northridge, Northridge, USA
Overview: Has the Armenian Apostolic Church maintained its significance in the identity politics of Armenians of the Los
Angeles Diaspora in the twenty first century?
Kor
Korean
ean Exor
Exorcism:
cism: Charismatic Christian Exor
Exorcism
cism or Shamanic Exor
Exorcism?
cism?
Kyung Hong, Graduate Division of Religion, Drew University, Easton, USA
Overview: This paper discusses a form of charismatic Korean Christian exorcism, anchal-kido, focusing particularly on
recent incidents in the Korean diasporic community across the U.S.
Minority Str
Stress,
ess, Spirituality and Psychological Quality of Life for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Individuals
Megan Purser, Clinical Health Psychology, University of North Texas, Denton, USA
Mark Vosvick, University of North Texas, Denton, USA
Overview: This study examines spirituality, minority stress and quality of life in lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people.
17:20-17:50
CONFERENCE CLOSING AND GRADUA
RADUATE
TE SCHOLAR AWARD CEREMONY
Held in Krutch Theatre
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
Abdel-Latif
Sara
University of Toronto
Canada
Ajayi
Segun Oyetunji
Christ the King Rescue Global Ministry
Nigeria
Al-Haideri
Salah
University of Soran
Iraq
Almane
Nasser Mohammed
King Saud University
Saudi Arabia
Alomrani
Aljoharah
Imam Mohammed Bin Saud University
Saudi Arabia
Amin
Yehia
Canada
Anderson
Robyn Margaret
James Cook University, Singapore
Singapore
Avetyan
Madlen
California State University Northridge
USA
Bartlett
Emily
Tufts University
USA
Bayham
Frank E.
USA
Bhawna
Bhawna
California State University, Chico
Mahila Maha Vidyalya P.G College Kidwai Nagar
Kanpur
Brake
Matthew
George Mason University
USA
Brown
Timothy Scott
Northeastern University
USA
Burack
Charles
John F. Kennedy University
USA
Burky
Richard
California State Polytechnic University
USA
Burrow-Branine
Jonathan
University of Kansas
USA
Bussières
Luc
Hearst University
Canada
Butler
Emily
The Catholic University of America
USA
Cameron
Christopher
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
USA
Chen
Yuhai
St. John's University
Taiwan
Cheng
Kai-wen
National Chengchi University
Taiwan
Cheung
Wing Shan
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Christian
Tayler
Kansas State University
USA
Cladis
Mark
Brown University
USA
Cox
Jill
Monash University
Australia
Cozad
Laurie
Lesley University
USA
Crescenzi
Angela
Calgary Catholic School Board
Canada
Davis
Trent
St. Mary's University
Canada
Day
Maureen K.
Graduate Theological Union
USA
DeGusti
Franca
Calgary Catholic School Board
Canada
del Castillo
Fides
De La Salle University Manila
Philippines
Delaporte
Marianne
Notre Dame de Namur University
USA
Demarest
Lindy
Western Michigan University
USA
Demirci
Sukru Serdar
Interfaith Spiritual Path, Inc
USA
Derr
Amelia
Seattle University
USA
DiMaggio
Kenneth
Capital Community College
USA
India
Dogan
Recep
Centre for Islamic Sciences & Civilization
Australia
Doner
Jonathan
Independent Scholar
USA
Dumais
Travis
Rhode Island College
USA
Durrant
Russil
Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand
Elgenaidi
Maha
Islamic Networks Group
USA
Eren
Cervantes-Altamirano
Carleton University
Canada
Esquejo
Kristoffer
Philippines
Febles Perez
Mairim
University of the Philippines Diliman
Research Center of Sociological and Psycologic
Studies
Feuerbacher
Haley
Southern Methodist University
USA
Fine
Terri Susan
University of Central Florida
USA
Flesher
LeAnn Snow
American Baptist Seminary of the West
USA
Florian
Stephen
California State Univeristy, Northridge
USA
Fones-Wolf
Elizabeth
West Virginia University
USA
Fones-Wolf
Ken
West Virginia University
USA
Freudenberg
Maren
Freie Universitaet Berlin
Germany
Ganguly
Tuhina
University of Canterbury
New Zealand
Gantolea
Eugen
Lucian Blaga University
Romania
Garni
Alisa
USA
Geiger
Megan
University of Florida
USA
Gilkeson
Holly
Retired
USA
Goar
Allison
Colorado State University
USA
Godfrey
Paul
Brigham Young University
USA
Gold
Jeffrey B.
East Tennessee State University
USA
Gomez-Rossi
Alfonso
Universidad de las Américas Puebla
Mexico
Goodyear
Jack
Dallas Baptist University
USA
Grez
Enrique
Instituto Secular Padres de Schoenstatt
Chile
Grovijahn
Jane
Our Lady of the Lake University
USA
Hardman
Ben
University of Southern Mississippi
USA
Harris
Corey
Alvernia University
USA
Harris
Ronald A.
University of San Francisco
USA
Harvie
Timothy
St. Mary's University
Canada
Helene Carole
Edoa Mbatsogo
University of Lausanne
Switzerland
Higgins
August
The Oblate School of Theology
USA
Hong
Kyung
Drew University
USA
Hossain
Mohammed Dulal
Rumena Development Society
Bangladesh
Hotchkiss
Gregory
Berkeley College
USA
Hu
Chijui
National ChengChi University
Taiwan
Cuba
Huang
Yinxuan
The University of Manchester
UK
Iqbal
Asima
University of Warwick
UK
Jalea
Justin
University of Ontario and Durham College
Canada
James
Amy
University of Connecticut
USA
Jamiu
Sulaiman. M.
Kwara State University
Nigeria
Jenichen
Anne
University of Bremen
Germany
Jose
Beena
Sanata Clara University
USA
Joy
Utsha Barua
Mahananda Sangharaj Bihar
Bangladesh
Junghare
Indira Y.
University of Minnesota
USA
Kakoriya
Brajesh
Guru Gangeshwar Ved Dham
India
Khatami
Seyed Mahdi
The University of Sydney
Australia
Kime
Katie Givens
Emory University
USA
Knowles
Steven
University of Chester
UK
Korzenszky
Emoke
Péter Pázmány Catholic University
Hungary
Lalani
Seema Ali
Institute of Ismaili Studies London
Pakistan
Lee
Pamela Chandler
Saint Leo University
USA
LeMasters
Philip
McMurry University
USA
Lightstone
Jack N.
Brock University
Canada
Lim
Rachel
University of California, Berkeley
USA
Liqueur
Cedric
Performing Arts
USA
Luzny
Dusan
Palacky University
Czech Republic
Madihid
Sharifah Huseinah
National University of Singapore
Singapore
Makanda
Joseph
University of Kwazulu-Natal
South Africa
Maluf
Ramez
Lebanese American University
Lebanon
Martins
Leonardo Breno
University of São Paulo
Brazil
Milicevic
Mladen
Loyola Marymount University
USA
Moles
USA
Moneke
Katia
Damian Mary
Chukwunenye
University of Aberdeen
UK
Muonwe
M. E.
Catholic Diocese of Awka
Nigeria
Myers
Christopher
American Public University
USA
Naas Cook
Lisa
Marylhurst University
USA
Newell
Lloyd
Brigham Young University
USA
Newton
Diana Rosemary
Teesside University
UK
Ojebode
Paul Ademola
Federal College of Education
Nigeria
Okuyama
Yoshiko
University of Hawaii at Hilo
USA
Omotoye
Rotimi Williams
University of Ilorin
Nigeria
Pabbajah
Mustaqim
University of Technology Yogyakarta
Indonesia
Pack
Tim S.
University of Oregon
USA
Pakeeza
Shahzadi
Fatima Jinnah Women University
USA
Parker
Heather
Saint Leo University
USA
Peretz
Jeremy Jacob
University of California, Los Angeles
USA
Pervez
Riaz
Prime Foundation Pakistan Peshawar Medical College
Pakistan
Pfaff
Steven
University of Washington
USA
Polymenopoulou
Eleni
Brunel University
UK
Pool
Fernande
London School of Economics and Political Sciences
UK
Potter
Justin
University of St. Thomas
USA
Purser
Megan
University of North Texas
USA
Ratan Bhikkhu
Bodhi
Dhammadut Buddha Vihar
India
Rigsby
Malcolm L.
Henderson State University
USA
Ritter
RuthAnn
University of Southern California
USA
Roenpagel
Nico
University of New South Wales
Sajedi
Sayyed Hadi
International Institute for Islamic Studies
Germany
Islamic Republic of
Iran
Schick
David
Ludwig Maximilians University
Germany
Schwaller
Rachel
The University of Kansas
USA
Shah
Rania
USA
Shih
Daofu
National Chengchi University
Taiwan
Sieber
Alexander
Claremont School of Theology
USA
Singh
Sukhmander
Santa Clara University
USA
Sirimanne
Chand R.
University of Sydney
Australia
Snow
Steven
Wagner College
USA
Starratt
Priscilla
University of Wisconsin, Superior
USA
Stephens
Michael
Johnson & Wales University
USA
Stockbridge
Kevin James
Chapman University
USA
Strehle
Stephen Alan
Christopher Newport University
USA
Sukhu
Raquel L. M.
The University of the West Indies
Trinidad and Tobago
Mingalarama Pali Monastery
Myanmar
Sumana
Sweet
Yulia
Rutgers University
USA
Tapalla
Raquel
National Teachers College Batangas
Philippines
Tejedo
Joel
Asia Pacific Theological Seminary
Philippines
Thompson
Wendy
Jackson State University
USA
Tobias
Saul
California State University, Fullerton
USA
Topinka
Daniel
Palacky University
Czech Republic
Tortolani
Lisa
University of Rhode Island
USA
Troyan
Brett
State University of New York at Cortland College
USA
Udo
Effiong Joseph
University of Uyo, Uyo
Nigeria
Van Coller
Helena
Rhodes University
South Africa
Van Dyken
Tamara
Western Kentucky University
USA
Verma
Chapla
American Public University
USA
Vesely-Flad
Rima
Warren Wilson College
USA
Vopat
Mark
Youngstown State University
USA
Walseth
Kristin
Akershus University College
Norway
Westendorp
Mariske
Macquarie University
Australia
Weyher
L. Frank
USA
Whitaker
Roy
San Diego State University
USA
Williams
Rhys
Loyola University Chicago
USA
Williams
Trevor B.
Pepperdine University
USA
Wolny
Witold
The University of Virginia's College at Wise
USA
Woods
Patricia J.
University of Florida
USA
Worgul Jr.
George
Duquesne University
USA
Yildiztekin
Burin
Canada
Yunus
Saba
C.S.J.M. University
India
Zimmerman-Liu
Teresa
University of California, San Diego
USA
A Social Knowledge Platform
Create Your Academic Profile and Connect to Peers
Developed by our brilliant Common Ground software team, Scholar connects academic peers from around the world in a space
that is modulated for serious discourse and the presentation of knowledge works.
Utilize Your Free Scholar Membership Today through
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Building your academic profile and list of published works.
Joining a community with a thematic or disciplinary focus.
Establishing a new knowledge community relevant to your field.
Creating new academic work in our innovative publishing space.
Building a peer review network around your work or courses.
Scholar Quick Start Guide
1.
2.
3.
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Navigate to http://cgscholar.com. Select [Sign Up] below ‘Create an Account’.
Enter a “blip” (a very brief one-sentence description of yourself).
Click on the “Find and join communities” link located under the YOUR COMMUNITIES heading (On the left hand
navigation bar).
Search for a community to join or create your own.
Scholar Next Steps – Build Your Academic Profile
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About: Include information about yourself, including a linked CV in the top, dark blue bar.
Interests: Create searchable information so others with similar interests can locate you.
Peers: Invite others to connect as a peer and keep up with their work.
Shares: Make your page a comprehensive portfolio of your work by adding publications in the Shares area - be these
full text copies of works in cases where you have permission, or a link to a bookstore, library or publisher listing. If you
choose Common Ground’s hybrid open access option, you may post the final version of your work here, available to
anyone on the web if you select the ‘make my site public’ option.
Image: Add a photograph of yourself to this page; hover over the avatar and click the pencil/edit icon to select.
Publisher: All Common Ground community members have free access to our peer review space for their courses.
Here they can arrange for students to write multimodal essays or reports in the Creator space (including image, video,
audio, dataset or any other file), manage student peer review, co-ordinate assessments, and share students’ works by
publishing them to the Community space.
A Digital Learning Platform
Use Scholar to Support Your Teaching
Scholar is a social knowledge platform that transforms the patterns of interaction in learning by putting students first, positioning
them as knowledge producers instead of passive knowledge consumers. Scholar provides scaffolding to encourage making and
sharing knowledge drawing from multiple sources rather than memorizing knowledge that has been presented to them.
Scholar also answers one of the most fundamental questions students and instructors have of their performance, "How am I
doing?" Typical modes of assessment often answer this question either too late to matter or in a way that is not clear or
comprehensive enough to meaningfully contribute to better performance.
A collaborative research and development project between Common Ground and the College of Education at the University of
Illinois, Scholar contains a knowledge community space, a multimedia web writing space, a formative assessment environment
that facilitates peer review, and a dashboard with aggregated machine and human formative and summative writing assessment
data.
The following Scholar features are only available to Common Ground Knowledge Community members as part of their
membership. Please email us at support@cgscholar.com if you would like the complimentary educator account that comes with
participation in a Common Ground conference.
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Create projects for groups of students, involving draft, peer review, revision and publication.
Publish student works to each student’s personal portfolio space, accessible through the web for class discussion.
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Evaluate student work using a variety of measures in the assessment dashboard.
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CALL FOR JOURNAL EDITOR
The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society seeks an editor, or team of editors, for a one-year term. This is an
opportunity to make a significant contribution to a group of leading journals and, more broadly, the conference and book imprint
associated with the journal.
The roles of the editor are to:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Suggest a special theme that might become a panel at the conference, a special journal issue, or an edited book.
Select papers addressing the special theme and compile them in an edited book to be launched at the conference at
the completion of the editor’s term. The chapters may be drawn from submissions to the journal during this or recent
years, and other material as considered appropriate.
Suggest plenary speakers for the conference, preferably from the conference locale, and also to contribute papers to
the journal.
Recommend the journal to your colleagues; solicit submissions from members of your professional network.
Serve as an advisor for the selection of the International Award for Excellence and the papers to include in the Annual
Review.
Maintain a significant presence within the community via social media (e.g. via Facebook, Twitter, Community, and our
website and monthly e-newsletter).
The editor will be offered a complimentary electronic subscription to The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in
Society, an electronic subscription to the book imprint, and complimentary registrations to attend the conferences at the
beginning and end of their term.
Interested applications should send the following to journals@commongroundpublishing.com:
•
•
•
Cover letter outlining areas of interest and relevant experience,
Curriculum Vitae (CV),
Suggestion for a special theme with a paragraph explanation or outline.
The deadline for applications is 31 August 2015.
SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON RELIGION
AND SPIRITUALITY IN SOCIETY
CALL FOR PAPERS
23-24 March 2016
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C., USA
2016 SPECIAL FOCUS
Religion in the Age of the Anthropocene: Towards a Common Cause?
A new framework has been presented in recent years to periodize and interpret the effects of
human life on the natural environment: the age of the ‘anthropocene’. By this definition, we
are now in an era when human activities have become a key macro-determinant of the
destiny of the ecosystems of Earth. Critical analyses of this age generally have one of two orientations. One perspective looks back,
re-examining the relationship of human social, economic, and technical developments on the natural environment. Another looks
forward, attempting to build alternative models of human development that put ecological sustainability as a foundational principle.
The natural environment presents itself as a ground for life and a gift of life in all communities of faith and spiritual meaning. In the
‘age of the anthropocene’, how might faith (and explicitly non-faith) communities productively engage in these critical discussions?
Looking backward: could this be an opportunity for productive dialogues between principles of science, economics, and religion?
Looking forward: in what ways might faith communities and other communities of spiritual meaning set agendas for personal and
community action? What principles of stewardship, compassion, or mutual obligation might they offer? How might they provide
leadership on issues of the environment, ecological sustainably, and climate change? Could addressing these concerns also offer a
basis for productive inter-faith dialogue, a locus for the development of unified moral voice across differing belief systems? Could the
age of the anthropocene, as a focal interpretive mechanism for understanding the intersection of human action, science, and faith,
become a site for joining into a ‘common cause’ and a place to share imaginations for the future of human development? Not only
might such an agenda have implications for our relations in the natural environment, but also such considerations of the future might
prompt us to address related questions of inequality, poverty, and human suffering.
CALL FOR PAPERS AND CONFERENCE DETAILS
To learn more about the conference, including speakers, session formats, venue, and registration visit the conference website at
www.religioninsociety.com/the-conference.
RETURNING MEMBER REGISTRATION RATE
We are pleased to offer a Returning Member Registration Discount to delegates who have attended the Religion in Society
Conference in the past. Returning community members will receive a discount off the full conference registration rate. Please visit
the registration page for details at www.religioninsociety.com/the-conference/registration.

View 2015 Post Conference Program

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