PAPERS Resources

AAR Annual Meeting
Denver, CO
November 17-20, 2018

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Moral Injury and Recovery in Religion, Society, and Culture Unit

Statement of Purpose: 

The Moral Injury and Recovery in Religion, Society, and Culture Unit engages interdisciplinary study on moral injury, an emerging concept which attempts to engage the impact of making difficult moral choices under extreme conditions, experiencing morally anguishing events or duties, witnessing immoral acts, or behaving in ways that profoundly challenge moral conscience and identity and the values that support them.

In examining how understandings of recovery from moral injury might illuminate post-conflict situations in many areas of the world, this unit will interrogate how educating a wider public about moral injury might challenge the role of religion in supporting war and the militarization of international and intra-national conflicts, the effects of war on combatants in post-conflict societies, and more effective means for social support in recovery from moral injury.

Contributions are welcome engaging:

• Diverse religious, cultural, and social systems and their sacred texts
• Neuroscientific approaches to ritual, moral formation, and the moral emotions
• Proposed methods for recovery, such as ritual, pastoral counseling, spiritual direction, arts, community life, narrative, and interreligious cooperation
• The roles of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, class, race, and other forms of oppression in relation to personal agency and theories of ethics.

Call for Papers: 

We invite proposals for papers or complete panels on:

• Racial Justice and Moral Injury
Honoring the work of the late Dr. Dale Andrews on the moral injury of anti-racism and the politics of white resentment; interiorized racial oppression and moral injury; silencing of Latinx and/or multiple racial identities and moral injury

• Addressing Collective Historical Moral Injuries as a Public Intellectual
How do we intersectionally address the collective legacies of religious violence and of crimes against humanity such as genocide, systemic racism, economic injustice, patriarchal oppression, hetero-normativity, and ableism?

• Moral Injury, Policy Making, and Activism
How is the concept of moral injury helpful when addressing issues such as climate change, migration, systemic racism, and transphobia?

• Moral Injury and Theology
How is contemporary discussion of moral injury affecting theological constructs such as the imago Dei, sin, and salvation? How can the addressing moral injury help us with the production of theologies that protect life in all its forms?

• Exploring Moral Injury in Sacred Texts
We plan to convene a pre-arranged roundtable, co-sponsored with the Comparative Approaches to Religion and Violence Unit and the Moral Injury and Recovery in Religion, Society, and Culture Unit, on Joseph McDonald ed., Exploring Moral Injury in Sacred Texts (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2017).

Method: 
PAPERS
Process: 
Proposer names are visible to chairs but anonymous to steering committee members
Leadership: 
ChairSteering Committee