Papers - Grad Conference

McGill–CREOR Graduate Students’ Conference

Friday & Saturday, 26 – 27 March, 2010
Montreal, Quebec

Call For Papers

Keynote Speakers

Travis Kroeker McMaster University

Messianic Ethics and Diaspora Communities:
Upbuilding the Secular Theologically from Below

Johannes C.Wolfart Carleton University

Religion, Government and Political Culture in
Early Modern Germany: Lindau 1520–1628

EXTENDED
DEADLINE
Friday 12 Feb 2010
We warmly invite your
proposals for short paper
presentations (20 minutes).
Proposals should include the
following:

Abstract (500 words max)

Biographical sketch or CV including your institutional affiliation and contact info

Technical requests, such as audio/visual equipment
Send proposals, questions & requests for further details to:

gradconference.relgstud@mail.mcgill.ca

All applicants will be notified by Monday, 15 February 2010.

Publishing Possibility

To further promote the aims
of the conference, the
Journal of the Faculty of
Religious Studies of McGill
University (ARC), has offered
to publish a select number of
high quality papers
showcasing superior insight
and academic potential in
their contribution to the
conference and scholarship
at large.

Our Goal We have chosen a topic that is relevant to the interdisciplinary study
of religion, while providing a reasonably limited guide for discussion. The aim of
the conference is a) to give graduate students an opportunity to present research
papers in front of a sympathetic audience, b) to share and refine our research
with the larger graduate student community, and c) to become better acquainted
with our current and future colleagues. We also hope to foster graduate student
membership in the new and exciting multidisciplinary organization, The Centre for
Research on Religion / Centre de Recherche sur la Religion (CREOR), which aims to
create a broad academic platform to coordinate and support research on the
identities of the main religions of the world, their differences and their common
grounds, and how they contribute to a better understanding of past and present-
day culture, ethics and politics. We are interested in contributions from all
disciplines, including, but not limited to, philosophy, political science, religious
studies, law, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, ritual studies, art history.

The Problematic At first glance, religion might appear antithetical to
revolution. In fact, in the discourse of contemporary Western secularism,
religion is often spoken of as inherently conservative, in that it upholds outdated
principles and ideals, and so, does nothing to substantially disrupt the status quo.
Religions themselves often participate and help to shape this vision, painting
themselves as the last bastions of ‘traditional values’, islands in a sea of change.
A closer look at religious thought and practice reveals that they can and often
have been revolutionary, providing some of the most severe, sustained and
ground-breaking critiques of the prevailing social order. As such, both
contemporary and historical religious movements have, and continue to radically
reshape the social world, whether it be that of the individual practitioner, the
religious community, or society at large.

Though this conference takes as its starting point the Study of Religions, we
welcome and encourage an interdisciplinary approach to the problematic. Thus,
we are looking for papers that address questions such as: How have particular
religious movements challenged established worldviews through (re)education?
How have they provided a space to deconstruct and/or reconstruct identity? Can
religious conversion be thought of as revolutionary? In what ways has religion
involved itself in, or been usurped by revolutionary political movements? What
linguistic and methodological revolutions have been associated with religion?

Updates, downloads + more
rsgs.mcgill.ca/gradconference
We welcome all papers that duly engage with the study of religious
perspectives as revolutionary.