Cognitive Science of Religion Unit
Current Theories and Applications of the Cognitive Science of Religion
This call is intentionally broad in scope. We invite scholars who are using current cognitive theories and/or applied research in the study of religion, religions, or religious-related phenomena to submit a proposal for a paper or panel session for inclusion in the 2025 AAR-CSR Unit’s sessions.
4E Cognitive Approaches to Religious Phenomena
This past year, the CSR unit hosted a massively successful roundtable on 4E cognition and CSR. Back by popular demand, we are requesting further scholarship in this area. 4E describes cognition as embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended, complicating clear divisions between mind and world. This call seeks papers exploring 4E approaches to religion. This might include instances of applied theory, methodological critics as they relate to religion, or even affinities between religious worldviews and those entailed by 4E.
Contemplative Studies and CSR. CO-SPONSORED by the Contemplative Studies Unit.
From its earliest inception, contemplative studies has relied on cognitive science methodologies to more deeply investigate the phenomena of contemplative practices across traditions. There has been less scholarship, however, exploring intersections between contemplative studies and the subfield of cognitive science of religion specifically. This call invites new scholarship focusing on such intersections. Paper or panel proposals could include applied CSR to contemplative traditions, methodological analyses of how CSR and contemplative studies might be mutually informative, or any other work that topically concerns CSR and contemplative studies.
This Unit is dedicated to advancing cognitive scientific approaches to the study of religion in a critically informed, historically responsible manner. “Cognitive science” designates a broadly interdisciplinary approach to the study of the mind that integrates research from the neurosciences, psychology (including developmental, cognitive, evolutionary, and social psychology), anthropology, and philosophy. The main goal of this Unit is to bring together cognitive scientists, historians of religion, ethnographers, empirically-oriented theologians, and philosophers of religion to explore applications of cognitive science to religious phenomena, as well as religious insights into the study of the human mind. We wish to consider ways in which historical and ethnographic data can be used to test theories and discuss theoretical and methodological concerns that are directly relevant to study design and data interpretation.