Religious Reflections on Friendship Seminar
We invite proposals for papers and panel presentations that address the intersection of religion/s and friendship from any scholarly perspective and religious tradition. We welcome papers that broaden contemporary perspectives on friendship and challenge or enrich dominant perceptions of friendship, as they bring friendship and religion into dialogue with contemporary issues, needs, and challenges. Echoing 2024’s presidential theme “Violence, Nonviolence, and the Margin” we most specifically invite papers that consider:
- Theological discussions of friendship and (non-)violence in religion/s.
- Religious visions of friendship and the re-envisioning of relationships between margins and centers
- Peace and friendship treaties: religious dimensions, visions and practices of coexistence, the violence of dishonoring treaties, possible remedies to the dishonoring of treaties
- The role of relational practices, interfaith dialogue, and/or friendship studies in practicing nonviolence and promoting mutual flourishing
The purpose of this Seminar is to provide a broad forum in which the important but under-studied relationship of friendship can be studied, discussed, challenged, and ultimately enriched from a variety of religious perspectives. Friendship is a relationship that is essential for flourishing. In times characterized by division, conflict, and various forms of othering, we assert that friendship studies contribute towards furthering religious understanding and dialogue. Friendship as a religious topic, broadly and creatively defined, touches on matters of faith, ecclesiology, anthropology, history, politics, philosophy, ethics, race, gender, sex, class, and economics, among others. We welcome papers that explore friendship from diverse disciplines and theological/religious perspectives and are open to a variety of methodological approaches.
Multireligious Perspectives on Friendship: Becoming Ourselves in Community— the first volume emerging from this seminar—was published in 2023, in Lexington Books Religion and Borders Series. Seminar papers are eligible to be considered for inclusion in a subsequent published volume focused on interreligious reflections.
| Chair | Dates | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Anne-Marie Ellithorpe | aellithorpe@vst.edu | - | View |
| Hussam S. Timani | hussam.timani@cnu.edu | - | View |