Conference Schedule
- Click here for the full programme (including panels).
FRIDAY March 26th, 2010
Faculty of Religious Studies
Birks Building, 3520 University Street
4:00 – 4:45 REGISTRATION
5:00 – 7:00 KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
7:00 – 8:30 WINE & CHEESE
SATURDAY March 27th, 2010
Thomson House
3650 McTavish Street
9:00 – 9:30 BREAKFAST
9:30 – 11:30 SESSION 1
11:45 – 1:15 SESSION 2
1:15 – 2:30 LUNCH
2:30 – 3:45 SALONS
4:00 – 5:30 SESSION 3
5:45 DINNER
Keynote Address
- This year the conference is lucky to have two distinguished keynote speakers: Travis Kroeker and Johannes C. Wolfart.
Travis Kroeker is a professor at McMaster University in the Department of Religious Studies. His most recent publication is titled "Messianic Ethics and Diaspora Communities: Upbuilding the Secular Theologically from Below."
Johannes C. Wolfart is an associate professor at Carleton University in the Religion department. He is the author of "Religion, Government and Political Culture in Early Modern Germany: Lindau 1520-1628."
Print Material
Goal of the Conference
We have chosen a topic that is relevant to the interdisciplinary study of religion, while providing a reasonably limited guide for discussion. The aim of the conference is a) to give graduate students an opportunity to present research papers in front of a sympathetic audience, b) to share and refine our research with the larger graduate student community, and c) to become better acquainted with our current and future colleagues. We also hope to foster graduate student membership in the new and exciting multidisciplinary organization, The Centre for Research on Religion / Centre de Recherche sur la Religion (CREOR), which aims to create a broad academic platform to coordinate and support research on the identities of the main religions of the world, their differences and their common grounds, and how they contribute to a better understanding of past and present-day culture, ethics and politics. We are interested in contributions from all disciplines, including, but not limited to, philosophy, political science, law, religious studies, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, ritual studies, art history.
Summary of the Problematic
At first glance, religion might appear antithetical to
revolution. In fact, in the discourse of contemporary Western secularism,
religion is often spoken of as inherently conservative, in that it upholds outdated
principles and ideals, and so, does nothing to substantially disrupt the status quo.
Religions themselves often participate and help to shape this vision, painting
themselves as the last bastions of ‘traditional values’, islands in a sea of change.
A closer look at religious thought and practice reveals that they can and often
have been revolutionary, providing some of the most severe, sustained and
ground-breaking critiques of the prevailing social order. As such, both
contemporary and historical religious movements have, and continue to radically
reshape the social world, whether it be that of the individual practitioner, the
religious community, or society at large.
Though this conference takes as its starting point the Study of Religions, we
welcome and encourage an interdisciplinary approach to the problematic. Thus,
we are looking for papers that address questions such as: How have particular
religious movements challenged established worldviews through (re)education?
How have they provided a space to deconstruct and/or reconstruct identity? Can
religious conversion be thought of as revolutionary? In what ways has religion
involved itself in, or been usurped by revolutionary political movements? What
Hosted by CREOR and the McGill University Faculty of Religious Studies
The principal goal of the Centre for Research on Religion / Centre de Recherche sur la Religion (CREOR) is to study the world's religions in their constantly changing historical manifestations. The Centre's aim is to create a broad academic platform to coordinate and support research on the identities of the main religions of the world, their differences and their common grounds, and how they contribute to a better understanding of past and present-day culture, ethics and politics.
McGill's Faculty of Religious Studies is composed of a diverse group of scholars specializing in both Western and Eastern religious traditions, as well as the study of religion qua religion.
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