Centers for Religion in Public Life: Networking and Dialogue Opportunities
2 PM – 5 PM | $35
An important networking and dialogue opportunity for anyone involved in leading or supporting a research, public engagement or educational center or program focusing on the impact of religion in public life, comprising opportunities to share best practice, pool ideas and develop collaborations.
Organizer:
Professor Andrew Davies, Ph.D., University of Birmingham, UK
Comparative Hagiology: Teaching Hagiography in a New Way
1 PM – 5 PM | $50
The workshop will function as a way to explore ways in which a comparative and collaborative approach to studying “hagiography,” or perhaps more accurately, “hagiology,” can be brought to the classroom. The workshop thus builds on past AAR pre-conference Comparative Hagiology workshops, which focused primarily on (re)defining a theory and method for the study of hagiographic sources in a comparative and cross-cultural perspective. Moreover, while theorizing and writing about hagiology is valuable, teaching forms the backbone of the duties of many scholars of religion. To that end, this workshop asks, among other questions: 1) what is the value of teaching the comparative study of religious life writings in a global perspective; 2) how may this be done comparatively, and to what benefit; and 3) how do we make the material, theories, and methods of collaboration and comparison that engage students of all levels using culturally relevant pedagogy?
Organizers:
Nikolas O. Hoel, Ph.D., Northeastern Illinois University
Massimo Rondolino, Ph.D., Carroll University
THATCamp (The Humanities and Technology Camp)
9 AM – 4 PM | $35
THATCamp is an open meeting welcoming anyone interested in technology and humanities of all skill levels and experiences. It is an unconference: participants propose and determine what sessions to offer at the meeting. It is informal and focuses on productive collaboration and learning. THATcamp has Talk sessions (discussions about issues or questions), Make sessions (participants collaborate to complete a project), and Teach sessions (how to use tech in research or the classroom).
THATCamp is the place for you: if you are doing something interesting with technology and want to share it or to discuss its use or implications (should I turn Skynet on?); if you know of a product or resource that you want to share with other faculty members; or if you want to hang out with others who are interested in the intersection of technology and humanities. Lunch is not included, though a lunch break is provided.
Coordinators:
Younus Mizra, Georgetown University
Adam Porter, Illinois College
Motherhood & Religion: Consolidating Matricentric Perspectives
1 PM – 5 PM | $45
After our first two online workshops on the intersection of motherhood and religion, our current goal at the 2022 AAR meeting is to reflect more deeply on two aspects of such scholarship: first, on the notion of engaged scholarship and on the relevance of such a topic in today’s world, and, second, on specific avenues to present and publish our work on mothers, motherhood, and mothering in religious studies or theology, whether through historical, archaeological, material, anthropological, sociological, literary, or other approaches that integrate a matricentric focus. The first part of the workshop will provide researchers at various stages of their career an opportunity to establish or consolidate their networks and to briefly present their research to peers in similar areas of studies. We will then welcome a guest speaker who will share her experience relating her scholarship on motherhood with contemporary issues in religion and society. Finally, a last section of the workshop will identify publications venues for works in religious studies and in theology that center on motherhood, as well as organizations outside of religious studies or theology who welcome such work as part of their own conferences and meetings.
Keynote Speaker:
Stephanie B. Crowder, Professor of New Testament and Culture, Chicago Theological Seminary
Co-organizers:
Florence Pasche Guignard, Université Laval, Québec, Canada
Pascale Engelmajer, Carroll University, Wisconsin, USA
Public Scholarship and Practical Impacts Workshop: Media Training and Work Outside the Academy
1 PM – 4 PM | $35
Join the Applied Religious Studies Committee for this workshop that will empower scholars of religion to communicate about their work in the public sphere. During the first part of the workshop, a panel of experts will discuss the ways that several scholars of religion are engaging with the general public, emphasizing social impact. During the second part, panelists will join registrants in small groups to discuss registrants’ current projects.
This workshop is designed for those seeking an opportunity to talk to experienced public scholars about reaching general audiences through various media. We will pay particular attention to challenges faced by scholars off the tenure track and outside the academy who are committed to communicating about the relevance of religious studies scholarship to interdisciplinary and general audiences.
Panelists:
Andrew Mark Henry, Founder, Religion for Breakfast
Simran Jeet Singh, Executive Director, Religion & Society Program (Aspen Institute)
Religion and Media Workshop: Mediating Catastrophe and Repair
11 AM – 5 PM | $80
There is no doubt that we are in a moment of catastrophe, which we are experiencing on several registers on every scale. However, we are not passive recipients of this moment but active participants in its development and possible outcomes. Therefore, this workshop seeks to theorize disaster while offering methods by which catastrophe might be otherwise. Rather than a traditional panel, this workshop brings together a group of scholars working in religion and media who focus on restorative and reparative ways we might engage our shared world through a series of roundtable discussions, presentations, and shared readings. In particular, we interrogate the potential of religion to amplify and/or mitigate catastrophe as well as how the experience of catastrophe is mediated. Thus, we seek to explore dynamic intersections of religion and media in a broad sense to conceptualize spaces of repair and glimmers of hope amidst ongoing catastrophes. Lunch is included in the workshop fee.
Featured Speakers:
Nabil Echchaibi: Associate Professor Media Studies, Associate Director - Center for Media, Religion and Culture, University of Colorado Boulder
Deborah Whitehead: Associate Professor, Chair, Department of Religious Studies, Senior Resident Fellow - Center for Media, Religion and Culture; Faculty and Research Fellows - Center for Media, Religion and Culture - University of Colorado Boulder
Theology and Ethnography Workshop: Teaching and Supervising Qualitative Research
1 PM - 4 PM
We invite educators, researchers, and PhD students into a social learning collaboration to share unique challenges and effective practices for teaching and supervising qualitative research. Together, we will examine practices and strategies of research and address critical questions that emerge in the process of teaching qualitative methods—questions such as: Have ethnographic research approaches changed the ways we teach and supervise? What creative research methods do we teach and use in the field, and how are these interrelated? How do students in theology and religious studies acquire research competencies both individually and in teams? How do we teach and supervise students to conduct research of ecclesial, church-related and/or religious practices at different educational levels (undergraduate, graduate, doctorate) and how do these levels matter? How do educators teach and supervise through the tensions inherent to ethnographic research (e.g. use of theory, histories of harm, self-reflexivity and accountability, etc.)?
Presiding: Rachelle Green, Fordham University, and Hendrik Pieter De Roest, Protestant Theological University
Panelists:
Jeffery L. Tribble, Columbia Theological Seminary
Emmanuel Lartey, Emory University
Elisabeth Tveito Johnsen, University of Oslo
Sabrina Muller, Zurich University