Anthropology, Psychology and Religion

2022 Call for Papers

Dylan Belton, Villanova University (PA)

dylan.belton@villanova.edu

Jay Martin, University of Notre Dame (IN)

jmarti27@nd.edu

For this year’s  Anthropology, Psychology, and Religion section, we are excited to engage the convention theme, “‘Why We Can’t Wait’: Racism and the Church.” Following the statement of the convention theme, we are particularly interested in interdisciplinary, constructive, and reconstructive approaches that engage with (but certainly are not limited to) anthropological, psychological, psychoanalytical, sociological, ethnographic, and other social scientific and philosophical disciplines and methods. Suggested areas of inquiry include:

Engagements with contemporary anthropology, psychology, sociology, and other social scientific and philosophical disciplines on the category of race and whiteness:

 

●       What can theologians learn from these disciplines regarding the current status of race and whiteness? What are some of the major debates within these disciplines regarding race and whiteness?

●       How does an analysis of society in terms of “whiteness” relate to other means of social-cultural analysis? What are some of the challenges facing the category of whiteness in light of other modes of analysis? What does whiteness add that is missing from other modes of social-cultural analysis?

●       The relationship between contemporary Marxist/Marxian class analyses of society and analyses that focus primarily on whiteness.

●       Ethnographic research exploring the impacts of racism within religious communities.

 

Theology and its explicit or implicit collusion or complicity with racism and/or colonial attitudes, categories, and logics:

 

●       Theological engagements with theories of race, including the thought of J. Cameron Carter, James Cone, M. Shawn Copeland, Frantz Fanon, Saddiya Hartman, Willie Jennings, Audre Lorde, Fred Moten, Christina Sharpe, Cornel West, Frank B. Wilderson, III, and others. 

●       Engagements with anti/de/post-colonial and anti-racist visions of theological anthropology (e.g., Joseph Drexler-Dreis & Kristien Justaert (ed), Beyond the Doctrine of Man).

●       Engagements with racism in the sciences, its history, and its connection to theological/biblical categories (e.g., Terence Keel, Divine Variations; Joseph L. Graves Jr. The Emperor’s New Clothes). How have the Bible and the Christian theological tradition been appropriated by and  implicated in racism and how have they been represented sources of resistance to it?

●       Does theology have anything substantial to add theoretically to how we understand socio-cultural categories such as “whiteness” and/or “structural racism”?

 

 

Panel Proposals

●       We are interested in the possibility of a panel proposal, wherein multiple scholars engage a particular book, author, or tradition of thought that examines the annual convention theme, especially with respect to  categories such as sin, forgiveness and grace in light of structural racism and whiteness. An ideal panel proposal is one in which a complement of theological, philosophical, theoretical, and methodological perspectives are represented.

 

Please submit proposals to both conveners by December 15, 2021. They should be no more than 500 words in length and include the presenter’s institutional affiliation, position, and contact information, as well as any requests for AV support, and preliminary preferences for participating in person or virtually.  Ordinarily, presenters should be members of the CTS at the time of the meeting in June 2022.

 

Decisions will be communicated by January 15, 2022 at the email address provided.