Dear fellow list members,
Please note the following AAA 2016 CFP and share widely.
Call for Papers for the 115th Meeting of the American Anthropological
Association, Nov 16-20, 2016 Minneapolis
Session Theme: Anthropology, Christianity, Critique: The Idea of
Christianity in Anthropological Inquiry
Organizers:
Candace Lukasik, UC Berkeley
Aaron Eldridge, UC Berkeley
Discussant: Simon Coleman, University of Toronto
Since 2003, the sub-field of the anthropology of Christianity has sought to
answer the question: “What difference does Christianity make?” Fenella
Cannell and Joel Robbins have spearheaded this sub-field seeking to
reconcile the complex relationship between Christian theology and
anthropological theory. Anthropology is purported to be founded as a
“secular” discipline, a secularity that is thought to engender the capacity
for critique as such, while still incorporating aspects of “ascetic
thinking” into its method of inquiry. In conversation with political
theology, scholars in the sub-field suggest that the seeming inevitability
of secularization and progression toward a global modernity places
Christianity, as an anthropological object of inquiry, as secondary or as a
“known” phenomenon. What an anthropology of Christianity has attempted to
do, then, is take “seriously” the Christianity of informants as a “cultural
fact.” It has attempted to think critically about the relationship between
anthropology and Christianity, considering how the discipline at once
separates itself from theology, while assimilating and subsuming,
particular ideas from Christian metaphysics. If Christian theology stands
at the foundation of anthropological method, how can the discipline inquire
into the difference Christianity makes then?
The “reflexive turn” in anthropology has influenced the grounds by which
Christianity has become a specific object of anthropological inquiry.
Anthropology, as discipline, developed out of encounters with communities
remotely under colonial administration. The encounter of “difference” with
these communities allowed the anthropologist to maintain distance from
their informants—making sure to balance between being “inside” and
“outside.” Anthropological inquiry is thought to be predicated upon this
encounter of difference, one that is founded on a spatial as well as
temporal removal from the place of the anthropologist. However,
Christianity, perceived as a Western construct connected to theories of
secularization, problematizes anthropological notions of encountering the
other. As such, this panel aims to consider two questions: 1) What is the
relationship between anthropology, religion, and Christianity? and 2) How
does the sub-field of the anthropology of Christianity reconcile this
relationship (and does it)?
This panel considers Talal Asad’s “The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam”
(1986) to track if and how Christianity can be considered within a
sub-field of the discipline. Asad emphasizes that: “If one wants to write
an anthropology of Islam one should begin, as Muslims do, from the concept
of a discursive tradition that includes and relates itself to the founding
texts of the Qur’an and the Hadith.” Orthodoxy, not as sect, but practice,
factors prominently into the development of Christianity as a tradition. At
issue in this panel are the ways by which orthodoxy is gauged. Orthodoxy as
a relationship of power, as the power to regulate and correct practices,
varies by the historical context of institutional difference within
Christianity. How has anthropology, as discipline, interacted with
Christianity as an object? Does Christian theology underlie anthropology as
discipline? If so, what does this mean for anthropological inquiry into
Christian experience, practice, and belief?
We invite papers that analyze Christianity as anthropological object from a
variety of ethnographic angles and locations, showcasing alternative
perspectives and genealogies. Please send a 250 word abstract with a title
and five keywords to Candace Lukasik ([log in to unmask]) and Aaron
Eldridge ([log in to unmask]) by April 1st for acceptance by April 5th.
--
Candace B. Lukasik
Graduate Student, Department of Anthropology
University of California, Berkeley
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