"Deprovincializing Political Theology: Postcolonial and Comparative Approaches" is a workshop organized by Vincent Lloyd (Villanova University) and Robert Yelle (LMU Munich), to be held October 26-27, 2019 at LMU Munich. The Call for Proposals is pasted below and can also be found here. Proposals consisting of a brief vita and a 150-250 word abstract of the work to be presented are due September 9. Proposals should be sent to both vincent.lloyd@villanova.edu and robertyelle@hotmail.com.
here & there
Announcements, events, and opportunities related to topics of interest to TIF readers are posted here. Additionally you may find round-ups of news items and brief commentary on current events.
For a listing of all of the events announcements, click here.
For a listing of announcements regarding books, click here.
RFP | The Sociology of Science and Religion: Identity and Belief Formation

Rice University and the University of California, San Diego announced a new re-granting initiative, funded through the Templeton Religion Trust and coordinated by The Issachar Fund. The “Science and Religion: Identity and Belief Formation” project, led by Elaine Howard Ecklund (Rice University) and John H. Evans (University of California, San Diego), will specifically fund sociological […]
Call for Applications | Claremont Prize for the Study of Religion

The Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia University is seeking submissions to its new Claremont Prize for the Study of Religion. The prize is dedicated to the publication of first books by early career scholars working in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences. Submissions can be on any aspect of the study of religion, including the study of secularism. Prize-winners will be invited to IRCPL to participate in a workshop and the books will appear in IRCPL’s series, “Religion, Culture, and Public Life,” published by Columbia University Press.
Religion and Social Justice Movements in Transatlantic Perspective
Friday, May 17, 2019, 10 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Religion and Social Justice Movements in Transatlantic Perspective is a full-day event focused on religious responses to exclusionary populisms, including racial and religious exclusions, anti-immigrant movements, and responses to the global refugee crisis more broadly.
CFP | AAR Seminar “Contextualizing the Catholic Sexual Abuse Crisis”

"Contextualizing the Catholic Sexual Abuse Crisis" is a five-year seminar of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) working towards greater understanding about clergy sexual abuse and the range of questions that it raises. The inaugural call for papers for the 2019 AAR Annual Meeting (November 23 - 26, San Diego, CA) is pasted below. Proposals should be submitted via the online PAPERS portal by the AAR deadline of Monday, March 4.
Call for Applications | Postdoctoral Fellow at Institute of Islamic Studies

The Institute of Islamic Studies at the University of Toronto invites applications for a two-year postdoctoral fellowship on the study of Islam and Muslims in Canada. This postdoctoral fellow will be primarily responsible for pursuing independent scholarship and research on the study of Islam and Muslims in Canada. The postdoctoral fellow would also organize a monthly research-oriented workshop on the central theme; and support Institute research incubation on the central theme. Closing date for applications: October 1, 2018.
CFP | Sovereignty and Strangeness

The Northwestern Department of Religious Studies graduate students invite young scholars to submit paper proposals for “Sovereignty & Strangeness,” a graduate conference to be held October 19-21, 2018 in Evanston, Illinois. Proposals are due May 6, 2018. You can get more details and view the full CFP at our website. This conference aims to explore the constitutive relationship between sovereignty and that which is strange, queer, or illegible. How might the language of sovereignty be useful for thinking about power in religious or secular contexts when spiritual communities, charismatic individuals, and state institutions make claim to and perform supreme authority over populations and territories? And how might the language of strangeness help trace the disruptive potential of places, practices, and bodies that exceed the logic of sovereignty?
CFP | Rethinking Politics and Religion: Studies in Honor of Professor Saba Mahmood

On the sad news of the passing of Saba Mahmood, the editorial board of the journal Sociology of Islam has decided to organize a special issue to honor the work and legacy of our distinguished colleague for the study of global politics and religion. Saba Mahmood’s anthropological work shifted debates on secularism and religion, gender and politics, the rights of religious minorities, and the impact of colonialism in the Middle East. Her conceptual engagement with these pertinent social and political issues, however, has opened up broader questions about the politics of religious difference in a secular age beyond the Middle East and Muslim majority countries. This special issue of Sociology of Islam intends to bring to the fore the scope of these contributions in order to assess the cross-disciplinary and trans-regional magnitude of her work.
Call for Applications | IRCPL Postdoctoral Research Scholar

The Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia University invites applications for postdoctoral research scholars for a period of three academic years beginning on September 1, 2018. The Institute plans to make two appointments (pending funding), with one position focused on Africa and the other on South Asia. The yearly renewal of the position(s) is contingent upon funding and performance. The postdoctoral research scholar(s) will actively participate in the intellectual development and program activities related to the project "Rethinking Public Religion in Africa and South Asia." The project envisions a partnership between IRCPL, the Institute for African Studies, and the South Asia Institute for research, programming, and coursework on the changing dynamics of interactions among religious communities in the modern world, considering the ways in which religion becomes public through diverse forms of encounter, with a focus on inter-regional differences and flows across South Asia and Africa.
Remembering Saba Mahmood

On March 10, 2018, University of California-Berkeley anthropologist Saba Mahmood died from pancreatic cancer at the age of 56. Mahmood, a former member of the editorial board of The Immanent Frame and longtime contributor, was a prominent scholar in the study of secularism, feminist theory, ethics, and the politics of religious freedom. Her first book, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject won the Victoria Schuck Award from the American Political Science Association. ... Saba Mahmood changed the course of scholarship on religion and secularism. The editors of TIF, the editorial board, and TIF’s many contributors are grateful for her ground-breaking work, and saddened by this tremendous loss to us all as an intellectual community.