Men, Masculinities, and Religions Unit

The Men, Masculinities, and Religion seeks panel proposals and experimental panels that use short, creative presentation formats. We are particularly interested in roundtables, and brief provocations that open up conversation between panelists and audience members, and presentations that creatively use and present objects, media clips, art, music, sounds, social media etc. We encourage proposals of full panels and roundtables and paper proposals on the following topics:

Masculinity and Celebrity

We are interested in celebrity–from musicians and CEOs, to politicians and influencers, and explorations of how gender, secular and religious authority and performance, and public personas intertwine. 

Global Muscular Christianities

We are interested in proposals and panels that revisit, complicate, and revise the concept of Muscular Chrisitanities and bring new methodologies and sources, geographic focuses, communities, and novel considerations of race, body, sport, religion, nation on this movement/concept. 

Fashioning Masculinities: Lightning Session

We invite proposals for 5-7 minute presentations that creatively consider the fashion and the fashioning of masculinities. (We invite 200-300 word proposals rather than the full proposal length.) What objects, garments, grooming practices/tools, jewelry and adornments, hair styles etc. shape religious masculinities? A panel on fashioning masculinity may invite short, creative and visually-driven presentations to open up conversation about masculinity and embodiment, consumer and popular culture, religious and secular authority, and sexualities. 

Masculinities & Music/Music Scenes

We are interested in papers/roundtables/panel proposals on religion, masculinities and music: including but not limited to hip hop, reggaeton/perreo, funk, hardcore/punk, jazz, salsa and merengue etc. What sounds, songs, and artists might open up conversations about gender, religion, and music? Panelists or papers might center on a specific artist or even a song. A panel on masculinities and music might creatively invite the audience to listen to songs along with short papers/panelist comments.

Religion, Masculinities, & Social Media/Internet Discourse 

From incels to TikTokers, how do conversations on masculinities, romantic relationships, race, and the body circulate on social media? How do the forms/formats of particular social media platforms shape performances of masculinity or the formation of particular publics and discursive communities? Do different communities, generations, etc. use and engage with social media platforms to develop religious and gender identities, critiques, and discourses on race, gender, and sexuality? 

Masculinities and Carceral Christianities

We invite proposals that explore carceral Christianities, gender and policing, histories and contemporary explorations of imprisonment and surveillance. How do religion and theology interact with the carceral state and mass incarceration? How are experiences of incarceration theologized and racialized, in particular for Black or Indigenous/First Nations communities? 

Masculinities, Healing, and Healers

We invite proposals that think about gender, men, masculinities, and healing or papers that explore healers from the perspective of race, gender, and sexuality. How have different ethnic and racial communities navigated healing? What ancestral knowledge and practices and/or contemporary innovations and movements provide local sources of healing? How might we think about religion, healing, and mental health and its relationship to gender and sexuality?

"Trads": Masculinity Hate Politics in Transnational South Asian Contexts

Potential co-sponsorship between North American Hinduism, Men, Masculinities, and Religions, Hinduism, and South Asian Religions Unit 

This panel explores the hate politics, purity discourses, and identitarian grounding of groups that describe themselves as “Trads” or Traditionalists which operate in transnational contexts. While members of this group reject the Indian Constitution as a Western construct, many of its symbols are imported from the West—the white supremacist Alt-Right in the United States.