Emerging Scholars in an Emerging Field of Interreligious and Interfaith Studies

What marks the edges of the field of interreligious and interfaith studies in our current moment? Representatives from the Emerging Scholars initiative of the Association of Interreligious/Interfaith Studies (aiistudies.org) will lead a discussion on current trends in critical theory and interdisciplinary research for this interactive workshop. Brief examples of graduate-level research that will be presented includes affect theory and Christian supremacy in religiously plural contexts; the liberal politics that characterize many common practices developed by interfaith organizations in North America; and the opportunities and challenges of interreligious approaches to environmental projects. The aim of our discussion is to invite other graduate students, junior scholars, and senior scholars into the conversation, working from the idea that the scholarship emerging from different disciplines could help us understand and identify what is on the cutting edge of critical scholarship in the (still) new field of interreligious and interfaith studies.