Law, Religion, and Culture Unit
As always, the Law, Religion, and Culture Unit welcomes proposals for individual papers, papers sessions, and roundtable panel proposals, including author-meets-critics sessions, on any aspect of the cultural, historical, critical, and comparative study of the intersections of law and religion globally. This year we are particularly interested in work that pursues:
Conflicts of national laws, including questions of statelessness, law of war, emerging or soft law on climate change, and attention to the Global South. We would welcome proposals related to the following topics:
- For possible co-sponsorship with the Religion, Holocaust, and Genocide Unit: on issues of statelessness and lack of citizenship documentation, the violence of states (including their legal bureaucracies and processes thereof) as well as the understanding of statehood as a means of survival. The tensions between utopian or even religious visions of the unstately and practical aspirations (among those most subject to violence) for the protections of the state will hopefully be addressed.
- For possible co-sponsorship with the Religion in Europe Unit: on issues of “free speech,” broadly and globally defined (including controversies thereof, rhetorical use of the idea in politics, legislation and activism under that rubric, etc.).
- Issues of education and educating the public, as related to the teaching of race, history, and values.
Statement of Purpose:
This Unit is interested in the cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, and comparative studies of the interrelationships of law and religion. The terms “law” and “religion” are broadly conceptualized and our interests have extended to include ancient and contemporary contexts and a wide variety of critical approaches. We hope to instigate consideration of religion and law issues at the AAR beyond issues concerning religious freedom and the United States Constitution.