Verehrte Listenmitglieder,

anbei der Hinweis auf eine Summer School in Göttingen, 10.-17. August 2014

"Cityscapes and New Religiosities in Asia"

http://www.dorisea.de/de/node/1502

Bewerbungsmöglichkeiten bestehen bis Ende Februar.

Mit Gruß

Peter J Braeunlein
DORISEA - Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia
Berliner Str. 28
D-37073 Goettingen
https://uni-goettingen.academia.edu/PeterJBräunlein
www.dorisea.de/en

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Call for Applications

Summer School "Cityscapes and New Religiosities in Asia"

Goettingen/Germany, August 10-17, 2014
Application Deadline: 28 February 2014

Theme

China, Southeast Asia and India are entangled not only through complex
histories, but also through multi-faceted contemporary ties in the
political, religious, economic and cultural sphere. India and China
now boast strong and steadily growing economies and are already global
political and economic players, while the Southeast Asian states are
eager to follow them: ASEAN as a politically and economically
ambitious alliance has become an actor to be counted for in Asia. The
booming Asian economies have not only affected the economic sphere.
Rapid urbanization, the emergence of an aspiring middle-class, the
spread of consumer culture and a growing civil society are also
features of these transformations. Cities are the future in Asia: the
World Development Bank estimates that within the next 20 years, 1.1
billion people will move to cities in Asia. In 2030, 55 per cent of
Asia's population will live in urban environments.

While modernisation was long believed to result in secularism, Asian
modernities refute this thesis as euro-centric: far from becoming
secular, Asian societies see a revival, a reformulation and
transformation of religion in modernity, and striking religious
dynamics. Religion is not an antithesis to modernity but is in complex
interaction with it. Since modernity implies a number of far-reaching
social, political, and economic changes, it results in not only new
aspirations and practices, but also in new constraints and fears.
These are articulated and addressed in religious practices and ways of
expression, in new conceptualisations of religion or, in extreme
cases, in acts of religiously motivated violence. Cities are spaces of
longing in Asia, as they promise a modern lifestyle, economic
opportunities, global connectedness, entertainment and educational
upward mobility. At the same time, they stand for the loss of social
and economic safety nets, for changing norms and values and the loss
of close social relationships. Religious life in the city is an answer
to these hopes and fears and to the changing social make-up of
communities.

The Summer School "Cityscapes and New Religiosities in Asia" brings
the contexts of 'religion' and 'urbanity' in Asia to the centre stage.
It will engage with urban spaces and religiosities through case
studies especially in India, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, and
the Philippines. While paying attention to the specific contexts and
ethnographic details of the case studies, we will also make visible
their transnational and transurban connections, as urban spiritual
lives and spirit worlds have been informed by the changing cultural
maps of migration, adaptation, and transformation across Asia.
Metropolitan centers are particular receptacles and laboratories for
such global encounters, as they interweave with middle-class consumer
power and diasporic identities.

The summer school therefore invites participants to engage with, and
develop, their own work through an exploration of three key thematic
intersections, including (1) transformations of religious sites in
contexts like architecture, city planning, heritage, urban
place-making and re-habitation; (2) religious communities, in which
different classes, castes, generations, ethnicities and genders
intersect; and (3) religion and media, exploring how spirituality is
visualised, sensed, communicated, staged or experienced across urban
landscapes.

With this explicitly transurban focus, we also acknowledge the growing
imperative for a "global-studies" perspective in postgraduate
research, through which new demands are placed on students to manage
the disciplinary boundaries of "regional" or "area studies", while
wondering what actual research tools they need to do so effectively
and competently within the limited time frame of a thesis.

Speakers will include, among others:

· Lily Kong (National University of Singapore)

· Dan Smyer Yü (Max Planck Institute for the Study of
Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen)

· David A. Palmer (University of Hong Kong),

· Julius Bautista (National University of Singapore)

· Andrew Alan Johnson (Yale-NUS College)

· Rupa Viswanath (University of Göttingen)

· Michael Dickhardt (University of Göttingen)

While keynotes and morning lectures will provide theoretical frames
and ethnographic snapshots from diverse Asian cityscapes, the summer
school's main focus will be on small working and reading groups
moderated and mentored by each of the invited speakers over two-day
units. Mandatory readings for these sessions will be shared in
advance. Participants will have the opportunity to introduce their own
work, especially through a poster but we do not expect full
presentations. Instead, students will be invited to use the working
groups to connect their research to each of the three theme blocs, in
order to develop new ideas and learn new approaches for their own
work. All students will have to actively participate in the working
formats of all three topics to gain a comparative perspective and to
broaden their horizons beyond the limits of their own PhD-projects.
While the two-day units take off with a strong input from outside, the
students are expected to work with growing autonomy over the course of
the unit.

As a follow-up to the summer school, we will also feature an essay
competition for interested participants, with the best paper selected
for submission in an edited volume prepared by DORISEA in 2014.

About the organizers
DORISEA and CETREN are two key platforms building research, network
and outreach capacities in the study of religions at Göttingen
Research campus (GRC). Bringing together scholars in the humanities
and social sciences for inter-disciplinary dialogue, the networks in
particular foster an appreciation of regional diversity and intra- and
cross-regional entanglements in Asia. With DORISEA's expertise on
Southeast Asia and CETREN's core competence in China and India, both
networks complement each other, join creative forces and pool their
excellent academic networks to organise this summer school.DORISEA and
CETREN as interdisciplinary area study research networks opt for a
Summer School with a decidedly transregional studies character.
Instead of limiting the study of religion in Asia to one discipline
alone, we strive to combine the disciplinary competences of social and
cultural anthropology, history, sociology, media and visual studies,
religious studies, and area studies.

Applications

We invite applications from interested doctoral and research-based
masters' students of all cultural-studies disciplines, whose work
relates to East, South and/or Southeast Asia. We offer expertise
especially in social and cultural anthropology, history, sociology,
media and visual studies, religious studies, and area studies. The
number of participants is limited to 20.

Applicants should submit an abstract of their thesis or dissertation
(max. 500 words), a statement of motivation (max 1 page), a brief
statement by the applicant's supervisor, as well as proof of current
university enrollment.

Scholars of DORISEA and CETREN will select the participants. Free
accommodation will be provided. A participation fee of 250 Euros will
be charged. Fee waivers and travel stipends will be available to fund
participants otherwise unable to attend due to the financial burden of
travel costs. Please e-mail your application to Karin Klenke at
[log in to unmask]

Application deadline: February 28, 2014.

Successful applicants will be informed by mid-March.

Please see our Summer School website at http://www.dorisea.de/de/node/1502.