Faculty and administrators in religion graduate programs are well practiced in providing traditional academic advising to their students. But how should that advising change when many graduates will seek careers beyond the tenure track or beyond the academy at all? The good news is that the skills necessary to prepare students for a diversity of careers are also essential for faculty in twenty-first-century higher education. The panel brings together faculty and staff members from diverse institutional settings to discuss how best to prepare students for the many varied careers ahead of them.
Annual Meeting 2023 Program Book
Deriving its theoretical concerns from the disciplinary intersection of Religious Studies, Queer Studies, and Area Studies, this panel encompasses papers that mobilize methodological approaches ranging from ethnographic fieldwork to textual analysis, to raise and map out the varied dimensions of queerness in various religious traditions spanning across the geographical areas of Nepal, Srilanka, South India, and Thailand. Adopting varied methodological pursuits and theorizing on both pre-modern and modern conceptions of complexities of gender, sexuality, and body in South Asian religion, this panel is an invitation to scholars of South Asian Religions whose research spans varied geographical boundaries and methodologies in rethinking questions of queerness and lived religion.
Papers
This presentation combines original ethnographical interview material with a literature analysis of the works by Shyam Selvadurai, Hungry Ghosts (2013), and Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (2022). This will be expanded through research with queer people active in organizations such as Equal Grounds Sri Lanka and the Jaffna Queer Festival in Sri Lanka and from abroad. The focus will be on the experience and shifts of religiosity of queer agents and their ongoing relation to queer activism and religiosity in Sri Lanka. Further, I will use this analysis to explore the theoretical implications, possibilities, and limits of queer studies in religion, especially religions of South Asia. How does this influence the way we conceptualize religion? What do we deem as “folk religion”, how can a queered lens inform our understanding of multi-religiosity? How can queer theories enhance our understanding of religious identities?
Religion as a both marked and unmarked analytical category and axis of identity in South Asian queer lives and activism remains largely unexplored. This is symptomatic of the contested relationship between religious studies and Anglo-American-centric queer studies, as many queer theorists “regard religion as inimical to their purpose” (Wilcox 2020). In the South Asian context, both the “institutionalized presence of hijra” and the “spatio-intellectual hegemony of India” (Hossain 2018) have long dominated but also circumscribed discussions of nonnormative gender and sexuality. In this presentation, I employ a queer studies in religion framework to examine the role of religion in Nepali queer lives and activism through the examination of Nepal’s LGBTIQ+ NGO Blue Diamond Society and its engagement with two prominent Hindu festivals in Nepal—Gai Jatra and Teej—to explore the imbrication of religious, queer, and ethnic identity formations and practices in modern secular Nepal.
Drawing from an ongoing ethnographic inquiry that explores the Hindu dimensions of religious practice among members of Bangkok’s queer community I consider the ways in which two queer ritual specialists—Ajarn A and Ajarn I—amalgamate conventional Thai Buddhist beliefs with devotion towards the Indian Hindu gods Ganesha and Kali. This allows them to better serve clients who share their LGBTIQ+ identity. My analysis of the syncretic strategies that guide their engagement with these deities supplies an important case study for two growing bodies of scholarly literature: (1) the characterization of Thai religion as what cultural historian Peter Jackson has called a polyontological field comprised of distinct cosmological and ritual systems that maintain differentiated identities and (2) the construction of a queer religious identity premised on developing emotionally-affirming relationships with distant Hindu divinities in urban Bangkok
The male Āḻvārs (6th to 9th century CE), in their devotional poetry, adopt the voice of women and presume the possession of a female body, singing in love and longing to their beloved God Nārāyaṇa. These poems use tropes steeped in earlier Caṅkam Tamil literary tradition. In making a canonical corpus out of these poems, the śrīvaiṣṇava tradition composed elaborate commentaries that explain, contextualize, theorize, and theologize these voices. My presentation studies a portion of the commentary of the 13th-century theologian Periyavāccāṉ Piḷḷai, who presents a theological premise of a man singing to male God in love from a man’s body. I attempt to answer three primary questions; how does the śrīvaiṣṇava tradition complicate the relationship between the self, body, gender, and desire? Does it have its own theoretical lens to view the complexities of religious desire? How does this translate to lived experience in śrīvaiṣṇava lives today?
In his 1979 essay, “Towards a Fundamental Theological Interpretation of Vatican II,” Karl Rahner contends that the council must be understood as the “first official self-actualization” of the church as “world church,” while acknowledging that it must become inculturated throughout the world to realize this identity in the fullest sense. His thesis includes an interpretation of the changing epochs of Christian history. This session will explore the continuing significance of Rahner’s interpretation for understanding Vatican II and its reception; Vatican II’s rethinking of the church-world relationship; the nature of epochal shifts and disruptions in human history and their implication for the social location, self-understanding, and mission of Christianity; the growing importance of decolonization for the full inculturation of the church in the contemporary context.
Papers
In the conversation on decolonization, the Roman Catholic Church occupies a unique space, both because of its historical participation in the processes of colonization, but even more so because it is a religious home to both the colonized and the colonizer. My contention in this paper is that the theologies that come out of Vatican II have resources for a “decolonial turn” with a refocues attention on a pneumatological ecclesiology, which is characterized by a theology attentive to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Church, both as the Body of Christ and in each individual soul. I will use Karl Rahner and Yves Congar in conversation with decolonial thought to explain how pneumatological ecclesiology lends itself to the decolonial turn through the acknowledgement of multiple experiences.
Karl Rahner’s 1979 proposal about the entrance of the contemporary Roman Catholic Church into the epoch of the World Church he ends with a recognition that this is an initial insight that is “but dimly envisaged” (727). Like all proposals, it is limited by the author’s location and habits of thought. So it stands open to development. Engaging with Rahner’s broader thought, alongside analysis of tradition from Anne M. Carpenter and Willie Jennings, along with contemporary post-colonial ecclesiologies including Cyril Orji, this paper will argue that Rahner’s proposal must be reworked in light of the non-Roman history of the Church and contemporary developments, including Pope Francis’ call to synodality. Doing so will lead to a new ecclesiology, or at least the thematization of one that is emerging, that will understand Roman Catholic Christians alongside other ancient Christianities and the breadth of Catholic Christianities in the World (Catholic) Church.
Integrating formulations of Karl Rahner and Pope Francis, this presentation argues for a polyhedral model of the global post-conciliar Church to enter a new synodal epoch by dismantling the ongoing legacy of colonization. Decolonial thinkers Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh describe the lingering effects of colonization as a set of dominating relationships known as the colonial matrix of power (CMP). Decolonial action dismantles the CMP through pluriversality, a mutual interdependence on local cultures rather than the “universality” of European colonization. To work to dismantle the CMP, Rahner prioritizes a sacramental model of the Church incarnated within local cultures. Likewise, Francis’s ecclesiology focuses on a polyhedral model of reality, undoing structures of domination disrupting right relationship between human and non-human creation, and incarnating the praxis of solidarity formed in relationship via the culture of encounter. This model would allow a synodal Church to meet the pastoral needs of a global community.
Friedrich Schleiermacher’s place in the history of modern theology is well-established, but what resources does his thought offer for contemporary reflection on theology and the place of religion in contemporary society? And what new avenues exist for evaluating his work? This session considers developing trends in Schleiermacher scholarship in two important areas: discussions of his theological method, and emerging debates surrounding his political theory. Both reflect contested aspects of Schleiermacher’s thought. Within both theology and religious studies, Schleiermacher’s theological method was long viewed as centering on a conception of private and interiorized religious feeling, an interpretation more recently challenged by scholars engaging his wider philosophical and theological works. Likewise, Schleiermacher’s innovative political thought signals an area of growing interest among Anglophone and German scholars, charting a political theory that does not easily align with dominant school of modern political thought, and which is subject to widely varying interpretations.
Papers
This paper argues for a distinctive intermediary approach to understanding the relationship between Introduction and material dogmatics in Schleiermacher's seminal theological work, Der christliche Glaube, which reflects a more adequate understanding of Schleiermacher’s dogmatic method as a whole than is commonly offered in contemporary Anglophone scholarship. This paper contains two major parts. The first will survey contemporary scholarship in relation to Schleiermacher’s dogmatic method, before the second part outlines a further and distinct interpretation of Schleiermacher’s method by delineating the two “hands” or “moments” in the method and their relationship to the Introduction and the material dogmatics. The result is an understanding of Schleiermacher’s dogmatic method that highlights the importance of both the Introduction and material elements in the Glaubenslehre, identifies the distinctive levels of analysis operative in each, and describes the way each provides “warrant” for the other.
Kant's Perpetual Peace (1795) marks a significant watershed in the history of modern political thought, introducing a vision of international stability centered around the formation of states with republican constitutions that continues to influence liberal visions of politics and international law today. Fichte's The Closed Commercial State (1800) complicates Kant's vision by arguing that the international stability that Kant sought could only be achieved if states possessed an economic sovereignty corresponding to their legal sovereignty. Developing a distinct trajectory in conversation with both Kant and Fichte, Schleiermacher's own political theory strikes out in a direction that cannot be easily categorized as either simply liberal or communitarian and which offers ample resources for constructive engagement with contemporary political and theological concerns. Closer attention to Schleiermacher's political philosophy sheds new light on old debates and offers new trajectories for thinking about some of the pressing concerns of our day.
Respondent
It has become popular to describe intractable divisions between domestic factions as cold civil wars. Our panel seeks to retheorize this heuristic category with studies of the QAnon conspiracy complex (USA); the Christians for National Liberation movement (Phillipines); and President Erdogan's theological rhetoric (Turkey).
Papers
This paper addresses urgent questions surrounding the popularity and persistence of contemporary conspiracy theories. The rise of conspiracy theories like “Pizzagate” and “QAnon” have inspired both rhetorical and physical violence while promoting ideological division tantamount to a “cold” civil war. This paper seeks a more comprehensive understanding of this issue by exploring the religious dimensions animating the perpetuation of conspiracy theories in the face of disaffirming evidence. I aim to contribute a more nuanced analysis of conspiracy theories by examining phenomenological features related to the experience of unmasking secrets. While building on classic approaches to conspiracy theory and failed prophecies, this paper will contribute a phenomenological approach by utilizing Michael Taussig’s theory of the production of the sacred through the unmasking of secrecy. Through this exploration of the religious dynamics of conspiracy theories, I will argue that the power of conspiracy theory lies in the experiential power of revelation.
In the aftermath of colonialism several liberation movements emerged with an intention to displace colonial structures and governance. They heralded a different vision of the state that counters the colonialists’ vision. In my paper I ask how theology is utilized, shaped, and translated in the political agenda of liberation movements, and consequently in the same simultaneous process, how liberation movements are shaped, influenced, and changed by theology. The experience of Christians for National Liberation in the Philippines is a case where the dynamic simultaneous process of theology shaping liberation movements and liberation movements shaping theology is happening. In the process, revolutionary violence as a means of reclaiming subjectivity is justified. This paper suggests that theology provided for the people an organizing framework that gives justification for armed resistance and revolutionary violence in a postcolonial condition.
On February 6, a 7.8 earthquake struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria; nine hours later, a 7.5 quake hit, destroying or severely damaged over 200,000 buildings, with an official death count of 56,000. The vocalized fury at state failure—its woeful unpreparedness in a known earthquake zone and inadequate emergency response—prompted a rare apology from President Erdogan. At the same time, he invoked the Islamic notion of *kader*—destiny, the will of Allah—to frame the disaster as beyond human responsibility, suggesting that blame itself is an act of impiety. But framing the earthquakes as *kader* failed to resonate even with supporters, and officials have since abandoned evocations of “destiny” as the cause of devastation. The abortive attempt to frame the disaster as *kader* may reflect a diminution of the intensity of the religious aspects of the “cold civil war” that has fractured Turkish society during the past decades.
This roundtable takes the theme of encounter—between and within religious traditions, between religion and other spheres of social life, and between humans and the divine—as a frame to reimagine the place of religion in the study of Myanmar, and the place of Myanmar in the study of religion. Attending to moments of religious contact, exchange, circulation, comparison, and (mis)translation, our panelists consider and rethink some of the conceptual binaries that shape how religious life in Myanmar is approached: majorities/minorities, inside/outside, nation/foreign, selves/others, centers/peripheries, homogeneity/heterogeneity, conflict/coexistence. In the wake of the Rohingya genocide, the 2021 military coup, and the emerging revolution, we consider what attention to such encounters, past and present, might tell us about “Burmese religion” as a lived world and as an object of academic study—and about the relation between the two.
The rise of right-wing political groups across Europe - as seen for example in the October 2022 election of Giorgia Meloni in Italy, or the December 2022 attempted coup in Germany - has served as a reminder of the importance of understanding how religion informs the goals and grievances of nationalist movements and far-right political agendas. This panel will explore the various ways that religion and/or religious narratives inform and intersect with European political movements, whether in the form of religious nationalism or political narratives against particular religious traditions (i.e. anti-Semitism). Case studies highlighting Hungarian pilgrimages promoted by the right-wing, Turkish diaspora nationalism in Germany, the political influence of the Polish Catholic Church, and anti-Semitism in Finland will come together with the goal of sparking new conversations about the role of religion in today's increasingly polarized and conservative European politics.
Papers
The current state of politics in Poland can be traced to the efforts of Cardinal and Primate of Poland Stefan Wyszynski and Karol Woytyla (later Pope John Paul II) to give Poland a sense of national pride in the midst of Soviet oppression. Their influence on the Polish Catholic Church, which represented the majority of Poles, crafted a narrative of Polish identity, drawing from the heroes of Poland’s past, marrying that identity to the Church and strengthening that identity through liturgical practices. That has meant that anything that doesn’t fit into what the Church deems “Polish” is an enemy to be opposed. The Law and Order Party has taken this as a means to gain power, pushing Poland to the far right. This paper will examine the history of the Church during Communism, and how its objectives, meant to bring good, are now working against the best interests of Poland.
Discourse about Christian nationalism as a concept has increased substantially in recent years with the advent of a series leaders and parties whose rhetoric and political base represent this ideology. This paper argues that these movements ought to be seen as representative of a kind of Christian pan-nationalism with intellectual and financial connections going beyond religion yet reliant on neo-Christendom rhetoric for legitimation. It will use as its case study Catholic integralism represented by thinkers such as Adrian Vermeule, Thomas Pink, and Thomas Crean, which seeks to reconstitute a pan-nationalism along the lines of traditional notions of “Catholic Europe” (though it has appealed to Protestant and Orthodox thinkers and politicians also) over the objections of many church leaders and the stated teaching of the Catholic Church. This intellectual movement has had robust political connections to Christian nationalist parties in Europe, particularly in Poland and Hungary. (cont.)
Across the globe, reactionary political formations are rising, often connected through nostalgic, philosophical conceptions of social morality and state stability. This paper explores the phenomenon of “trad nationalism” (the blending of far/alt-right European philosophies of social purity with nationalistic, curatorial, even bespoke, worldbuilding projects) in the Euro-American context. Using case studies of Orthodox far-right actors in the transatlantic context, I show how digital networks and social media communities help create, sustain, and spread reactive ecologies aimed at alternative political futures in both the United States and Europe.
Increased anti-trans legislation and sentiment in the U.S., manifested through media and buttressed by conservative Christianities, as well as pervasive reach of control alongside care shape the realities of trans and queer life. This panel addresses the politics of relationality, identity, and activism through theological and ethical disciplinary lenses. Papers that comprise this panel employ diverse methodologies to consider and address these entanglements across diverse contexts.
Papers
On March 8th, 2023, a tranche of emails from anti-transgender activists leaked online. These 2600 emails give an inside look at anti-transgender legislative efforts from 2019-2021. Much can be said about the biological and medical claims made in the emails. However, the question I address is: what role does religion play in mobilizing anti-transgender activism? I found six strategies: mimicking Biblical speech patterns, offering insider connections within the church, referencing ‘underdog’ Biblical narratives, using prayer, selectively invoking religious freedom, and construing detransition as religious conversion. Two responses are considered: framing transgender rights as religious freedom, and narrating transgender theologies.
What connects anti-choice reproductive politics with the current wave of politics targeting LGBTQ Americans, primarily trans persons? Addressing this question, I will first “queer” Chantal Mouffe’s passionate politics by focusing on the passion she overlooks: sex. Democracy needs to defend the equality of all citizens while also reproducing “correctly” The People who are imagined as sovereign. Thus, democracies require securing racialized ethno-national identities, by, as I will add, controlling sexual passions and bodies of women or other pregnancy bearing persons. Second, the U.S.’s reproductive economy that privatizes the cost of bearing and raising children, makes doing so economically irrational. Doctrinally innovative, anti-choice, heterosexist, and anti-trans Christian theologies of “gender complementarity” respond to these contradictory erotic politics. They produce and naturalize exclusive binary heterosex claiming that “men” and “women” are equal while also marking “women’s” reproductive bodies as public property to be uniquely burdened with reproducing The People.
Eva Hayward’s “More Lessons from a Starfish” brings together the bodies of the transsexual and the starfish as forms of sensory beings, most strikingly in her use of the term “fingery-eyes.” Hayward’s lyrical account of trans becoming offers a significant place for the more-than-human in our gendered embodiment; I wish to extend this into a theological register, suggesting that the divine too is entangled in our gendered being. I consider fingery-eyes both as the site of gendered formation and as a mode of relation with God. While this is a risky proposition, opening us up not only to misrecognition but also to the potential for violation, it is an account of gender as inherently reciprocal, existing in the space of touch that is simultaneously robustly material (embodied, phenomenological, felt) and irreducibly more-than-material (entangled in the ethics of recognition and humility).
This paper analyzes Pauli Murray’s life through the lens of their* intersectional identity—as a biracial, trans/gender-fluid, and Christian—revealing a unique use of both an ethic of resistance and an ethic of control to survive in an oppressive society and dismantle its systems. First, I theorize an ethic of resistance, extrapolating from the works of Katie Cannon, Delores Williams, E. Patrick Johnson, and the quare experience. Next, I theorize an ethic of control, using the work of Sharon Welch and Katie Cannon. Finally, utilizing lived theology as a method (Charles Marsh), I exegete Murray’s sermons, autobiography, and historical accounts of their 1940 bus arrest in Virginia, connecting their lived theology to their creative use of both ethics. Examining the theo-ethical impact of Murray’s intersectional identity enables scholars to understand better how identity manifests itself in the outward performance of religious beliefs in a given society.
*To honor Pauli Murray’s gender identity, the author utilizes "they/them" pronouns.
This roundtable establishes an open discussion of the section from The Thirty Verses on Representation and Their Exposition (Triṃśikāvijñaptibhāṣya) on the eleven “wholesome mental factors” (kuśalacaittāḥ). Vasubandhu summarizes these in verses 10d-11c in the words “Faith, shame, embarrassment, the three (non-greed and so on), fortitude, pliancy, attentiveness and what accompanies it, and non-violence are the wholesome”—and Sthiramati provides a remarkably clear and incisive commentary on them over around two pages. This relatively brief passage provides rich fruit for discussion of a Yogācāra understanding of crucial, basic terms in the psychology of the path to liberation.