Religions in the Latina/o Americas Unit
Religions in the Latina/o Americas invites proposals for individual papers and pre-arranged panels on any topic related to the interdisciplinary study of religion in Latin America and Latinx religion in North America. Related to this year's presidential theme on violence, non-violence, and the margins, we are particularly interested in proposals that challenge the concept of borders and the center-periphery dichotomy as static elements in the Americas. This includes an interest in how indigeneity, race, and diasporic identities are transformed by movement or displacement. With the recent flourishing of works in Latin American, Latinx, and Chicanx religion, we would also be excited to read proposals describing how you have been incorporating new research into your teaching.
Emerging Scholars Session
Each year we try to dedicate one panel to emerging scholars, which includes advanced graduate students and recent PhDs who work in our field. Please do not hesitate to submit your work to our unit even if it is early in its development or exploratory; we provide a critical but encouraging environment for the professional development of early career scholars.
Co-Sponsored Sessions
Please also see our co-sponsored calls with our colleagues in the Sociology of Religion Unit on shifts in Latinx Religiosity and with the Secularism and Secularity Unit on transformations in secularism in Latin America.
This Unit fosters interdisciplinary and theoretically innovative analyses of Latina/o and Latin American religiosities and spiritualities in the Americas. We explore the richness and diversity of religious traditions in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States, highlighting the complex and often explosive relations between religion and politics in the region, the centrality of religion in the Americas since pre-Conquest times, and the global significance of religious events and lived religion in the region. Our goal is to advance knowledge and ways of knowing that expand traditional areas of religious studies throughout the Americas, mindful of transnational and global realities. Thus, we encourage studies that explore non-Western beliefs and practices, including the indigenous, the African diasporic, Buddhist, and Islamic, as well as those that advance more complex understanding of culturally hybrid Christianities. We encourage feminist- and queer-centered perspectives as well as thought rooted in community experience. Diverse disciplinary and methodological perspectives are highlighted in presentation of this scholarship.