Annual Meeting 2024 Program Book

As various critical-theoretical tools and vocabularies on offer within the academy made their way into public discourse, Right-wing activists have resisted not only progressive policy suggestions but the very terms and sources of their criticism of the traditional social order. In the Christian Fundamentalist activism along these lines led by Southern Baptist thinkers, Evangelical Worldview Theory (EWT) grants culture warriors the feeling that they are operating with their own “biblical critical theory.” EWT enables them to frame and criticize opponents’ worldviews over against “the biblical worldview” while rejecting out of hand any feedback coming from beyond the biblicist fold as poorly founded. This paper will demonstrate how EWT drives Right-wing Christians to see a “religious” worldview (rhetorically framed in various ways, ranging from secular humanism to “Utopian Judicial Paganism”) being established in public school curricula, setting up a religious freedom argument for channeling public funds to “other” religious K12 schools.

This study investigates the historical rhetoric of American homeschooling and its impact on contemporary discourses over educational choices and parental rights. Through textual analysis of rare homeschooling periodicals from between the 1980s and 2020s, the research traces the homeschooling movement’s evolution from grassroots activism to a national force advocating for parental autonomy. It details how fears of changing gender norms  shaped the early activists’ resistance to public education. Central figures like Michael Farris and organizations such as the Homeschool Legal Defense Association are shown to have shaped the homeschooling movement’s ethos and its parental rights language. By dissecting their rhetoric’s evolution, the paper renders the movement as both a product and a catalyst of major educational and political trends, and reveals its lasting impact on educational policymaking in the United States.

This paper examines the ways in which Muslim and conservative Christian homeschooling practices in the US promote or impede widely held civil ideals. The rapid growth of homeschooling in the wake of COVID-19, combined with increased activism by powerful homeschool advocacy organizations, has led to greater public and scholarly scrutiny of the practice, and ensuing debates reflect the increasing divisiveness of political discourse and radically different visions of children’s rights and religious freedom. By comparing data from my ethnographic research among Bay Area Muslim homeschoolers to the body of literature on conservative Christian homeschoolers, I have uncovered critical, unaddressed differences in these groups’ practices. In this paper I argue that, because Muslim homeschooling parents seek to foster a faith-based identity that values critical analysis and intellectual curiosity without isolating their children from competing ideas, their practices are much more in line with pluralistic civil ideals than those of conservative Christians.

What is Arun Kolatkar’s reading of Janamejaya’s snake sacrifice and the burning of the Khandava forest, as depicted in the poem, Sarpa Satra (2004)?  If the poem describes the snake sacrifice as “cynical,” a “mockery”, and a “grotesque parody” of a yajna, what would constitute a true, proper yajna?  Why does Jaratkaru advise Astika to stop the sacrifice, not for the sake of the Nagas, but to save “the last vestige of humanity”?  In addressing these questions, I will argue that although Sarpa Satra seems to present an anthropocentric understanding of dharma (in which human beings should live and let other species live), there are materials in the poem that suggest the contours of a non-anthropocentric vision of dharma (as that which sustains and promotes all life and the earth), an ideal that is more fully developed in the critical edition of the Mahabharata.

Translation and retranslation: thoughts on methodology, with respect to the Mahābhārata

This is a report on the present state of the Mahābhārata translation by Primus Books, Delhi, which is the completion of the translation of the Pune critical edition undertaken by the University of Chicago Press more than half a century ago, but now permanently suspended. At this point, more than half a century after van Buitenen commenced that translation and 140 years after Ganguli began the first translation of the complete Mahābhārata in Calcutta, we are best served by viewing the present project as a retranslation. This paper will examine some of the methodologies or retranslation, a subfield of translation studies, in order to appraise how advances in this field will help us to better understand the Indian national epic.

While trauma studies are gaining popularity, increased public awareness trades on reductive summaries that elide the moral context of trauma in favor of stress-based models acceptable to modern medicine. This creates unique challenges for integrating trauma studies into morally saturated disciplines like theology, especially when those disciplines foreground existential insights from trauma as with the emerging sub-discipline of “trauma theology.” In this paper, I draw from moral injury research to resource what I call “morally expansive” approaches to trauma theology. Using Bessel van der Kolk’s work as a foil, I suggest that Judith Herman’s recent addition of a fourth stage to her famous threefold stages of trauma recovery signals the need for recovering moral contexts in interdisciplinary trauma research. In van der Kolk’s terms, I conclude that while the body may be the “scoreboard” of trauma, it is the moral center (the heart”) of a person that keeps that score.

This paper will contend with Judith Herman’s recent publication, Truth and Repair (2023) bridging Herman’s emphasis on trauma and justice with best practices of recovery in the aftermath of moral injury. Because moral injury is social-relational in nature, recovery must integrate pro-social reparative action rooted in an engaged, trustworthy and compassionate community. This paper will highlight three community-based reparative action approaches – community service, activism, and Restorative Justice practices. These approaches are effective: (1) by functioning as an engaged, trustworthy, and compassionate community; and (2) by exercising moral responsibility as a collective matter not an individual pathology. The Western clinical-medical paradigm is not capable of fully addressing the needs of the moral injured because it is not designed to respond to the demands created by moral transgressions (i.e. injustices). Without community-based reparative action a person can develop a learned helplessness resulting in worsening social-relational isolation, destructive behaviors, depression, and suicidality.

This paper addresses the issue of moral injury within the American penal system, by exploring its realities in the context of Death Row. Those imprisoned have profound experiences of moral injury, requiring exploration.  It describes the key elements of moral injury in terms of its symptomology and etiology, paying particular attention to the devastation of moral identity through the experience of catastrophic violence. It delineates the ways penal practice exacerbates rather than redresses moral injury, and considers the consequences of this.   It then turns its attention to the voices of the victims of moral injury within our penal system, and to the theorists and practitioners of repair, especially Judith Herman, in order to delineate healing modalities for both practice and policy.  Key informants include insiders on death row, attorneys, judges and other participants in the system, as well as military and Veterans Administration Chaplains, who work with morally wounded warriors.

 Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly pervasive across many global societies with healthcare often at the leading edge. However, the incentives for technical innovation and financial gain driving efficient AI healthcare automation can interfere with patient care and increase health inequity. Focusing on developing compassionate AI reorients AI development to improve patient care, health outcomes, and well-being. Palliative dementia care by AI raises many issues around memory, identity, suffering, end of life, and dying well that are significant for world religions, religious scholarship, and the intertwined religious and cultural values informing secular societies. I examine three religious and ethical concerns in AI exemplary compassionate care of those with dementia: the value of exemplary compassion by AI instead of typical, human-level compassion; the nature and ethics of human relationship with compassionate AI; and the implications for caregiver stress and burnout, especially in the context of aggressive personality change in dementia.

This paper investigates the nuanced relationship between artificial intelligence (A.I.) and religion, focusing on the discourse that elevates A.I. to a status reminiscent of religious artifacts. By examining the application of religious language and concepts to A.I., we propose that viewing A.I. through the lens of "specialness," as defined by Ann Taves, offers a novel approach to understanding societal reactions to technological advancements. Taves's framework helps dissect debates on A.I.'s extraordinary status, contrasting warnings from tech leaders about its potential dangers with skeptics' views of A.I. as mere tools. We argue that disputes over A.I.'s specialness reflect broader perceptions and ascriptions of extraordinary qualities, akin to those attributed to sacred objects. This analysis extends to regulatory appeals and societal dynamics, suggesting that perceptions of A.I. as special have significant implications for its development, regulation, and integration into daily life.

With the steady rise of virtual communication, especially in light of the post-COVID-19 pandemic, we can see a constant rise in televised or online broadcasted sermons worldwide. As a result, for the first time in history, religious scholars have such a quantity of information available for analysis. The question arises- how can we analyze it efficiently while utilizing modern technology? In this paper, I argue that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can and should complement traditional methods like ethnography and textual analysis. Implementation of AI to analyze large data sets of video/audio material will allow scholars to process large quantities of data efficiently and with precision.