Comparative Approaches to Religion and Violence Unit

CARV invites individual papers and pre-organized panels that critically examine any aspect of the nexus between religion and violence. In particular, our unit encourages work that explores how religion and violence mediate this year’s presidential theme of freedom. 

While all submissions will be considered, CARV maintains an active interest in two specific areas this year.

(1) Entangled Freedoms, Religion, and Violence

“Entanglement” now saturates the pages of articles and monographs across disciplines, usually signifying alternate (and more terrestrially attuned) ontologies to the A=A of Western (Aristotelian and Abrahamic) notions of identity grounded in Being (or a Being). Whether from the works of New Materialists, proponents of Actor Network Theory, cyberneticists, Earth and life scientists (ecologists, micro-biologists, and Earth system scientists especially), eco-feminists, and/or Indigenous thought and praxis (from which many theorists draw their examples and inspiration), re-orienting to the fundamental reality of “entanglement” in its varied iterations is presented as the sine qua non for “living well together,” including non-human species. In ontologies of entanglement, the valence of “freedom” shifts toward relationality, obligations, de-centered and distributed agency, and circularity—a far cry from libertarian notions of “freedom” that permeate much public discourse and activism in the West. 

CARV’s interest in entanglement scholarship focuses on how its diverse conceptions of freedom emerge from—or threaten to devolve into—violence, broadly defined (theological, philosophical, polemical, political, bureaucratic, etc.). This includes reactionary violence committed by proponents of traditional Western ontologies, who may find entangled ontologies threatening. 

With this in mind, CARV invites papers that:

• interrogate/elucidate the varied meanings of “freedom” purveyed in ontologies of entanglement, and the relations of such meanings with religious ideas (theism/s, atheism/s, animism/s, etc.);

• examine political presuppositions and (speculative and/or real) consequences of entanglement as a political model on multiple scales, with a focus on individual/collective freedoms;

• locate (proto-)ontologies of entanglement within the history of Western philosophy and religious thought and assess notions of freedom in light of contemporary discourses on entanglement;

• assess the status of Indigenous thought and praxis in contemporary ontologies of entanglement, whether as exemplary, as ignored, or otherwise, and evaluate notions of “freedom” in light of neo-colonial and/or decolonizing practices in academe and beyond;

• explore trajectories of “New Animism” in Religious Studies, its impact on discourses of entanglement, and its contrast with modernist theorizing about animism as a retrograde phase of humanity on its path to rational freedom; and

• other topics that engage discourses of entanglement and freedom.

(2) Religion, Revolution, Revenge

In the last decade, we have witnessed large-scale progressive social movements calling for greater freedoms that, within months or years, resulted in intensified authoritarian policies and state violence, whether in Turkey, Iran, Brazil (under Bolsonaro), Hong Kong, Egypt, among others. These “failed revolutions” of the 2010s—staged under the banners of freedom, democracy, and social justice—seem to bode ill for future protest movements even within democratic regimes, as the lurch rightward across the global North continues apace. What can these recent failures teach us about the prospects for future large-scale dissent in democratic and/or authoritarian regimes? What role/s might religion play in the impact of progressive protest movements grounded in calls for greater freedom (for women, from police violence, for economic, racial, or climate justice, etc.)? What reactionary or supportive roles did “religion” play (or not) in recent failed social movements, and how did this participation influence the outcome? 

Put differently: what happens when pathways to freedom trigger calls for revenge? And what happens when revenge becomes legitimated as a political tactic in the throes or wake of civil war?

Religious studies is attuned to the many ways in which “revenge” has been expressed and made conscionable and/or ethically sustainable by religious traditions. As a way to address past wrongs and create pathways to justice, “revenge” is often seen to be a necessary tactic, albeit one often framed as a short-term measure meant to eventually cede to less violent avenues of political and societal repair.

CARV warmly invites proposals that unpack these and related themes. It particularly wishes to feature a diversity of topical and methodological approaches.

CO-SPONSORSHIP-"Freedom By Another Name: Medicine & Healing in the Era of Slavery,"