----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Abby Day <[log in to unmask]>
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----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Abby Day <[log in to unmask]>
Call for Papers
Belief and Identity in Late Modernity:
Transcending Disciplinary Boundaries
University of Sussex, Saturday 8 November 2008 10-4 pm
A Study Day organised by ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr
Abby Day, and Prof. Simon Coleman, Department of
Anthropology, University of Sussex, in conjunction
with the BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group.
What do people believe in and how do we find out? The
question of ‘belief’, usually associated with
‘religious’ belief, is a term that is often used
unproblematically in academic research and writing.
People are said to be ‘believers’ or ‘unbelievers’
without sufficient attention being paid to what the
term ‘belief’ may signify for both researchers and
their interlocutors. The problem becomes more
complicated when the unexplored concept of belief is
then linked to issues of ‘identity’. How can we
understand how someone’s belief forms a sense of who
they are or how they are perceived without being clear
about how and in what context the term ‘belief’ is
being deployed? Crude distinctions between the
‘religious’, the ‘spiritual’ or the ‘secular’ provide
an inadequate explanatory framework in such cases.
Media reports on religion appear almost daily,
sometimes focusing on apparently ‘moral’ issues, such
as whether gay people should be ordained, abortion and
stem cell research should be banned, or Harry Potter
books encourage occult practices. Other debates focus
on links between religion, ethnic identities and
violence, and whether modernity and religion are
incompatible. Such discourse demonstrates that
discussion of secularisation, belief and religion
reaches to the heart of Western understandings of who
we are in ‘modern’ society, and about how it is
possible to be ‘modern’ and religious –especially in
an age where religion and politics seem so
interlinked.
This Study Day is designed to bring together scholars
who are exploring themes of belief and identity.
Papers are invited from the disciplines of sociology,
anthropology, theology, psychology, political science
and others where questions of belief are being
interrogated. We are also interested in presentations
that compare disciplinary approaches to belief.
Empirical, methodological and theoretical papers are
welcomed. The Study Day will be organised as a single
stream so that the day is as much about discussion as
it is about presentation, and therefore the number of
formal papers will be limited.
Abstracts (250 words) for proposed papers should be
emailed to both the Study Day organisers by 1 June
2008: [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask]
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