Program Unit Online June Annual Meeting 2025

Global-Critical Philosophy of Religion Unit

Call for Proposals

Liberation Philosophy of Religion

We seek individual papers and panel proposals organized around topics that consider the material conditions of poverty and connected forms of oppression. How might the methods and tools of conventional philosophy of religion think with, and for liberation from, poverty? What conditions or limits must the field work with to articulate a pedagogy of the oppressed? What can philosophers of religion write with a preferential option for the poor? How might they do so?

Statement of Purpose

The Global-Critical Philosophy of Religion (GCPR) Unit seeks to globalize and otherwise diversify the contents, categories, and methods of philosophy of religion, by critically reflecting on current practices of the field, by developing conceptual frameworks for cross-cultural philosophizing, and by exploring innovative methods for cross-pollination between religio-philosophical traditions.

GCPR is “global” and “critical” in distinctive ways—global, in facilitating panels and sessions that are always populated by scholars representing different religio-philosophical traditions; critical, in interrogating the vocabularies and methodologies used to carry out such cross-cultural, inter-religious philosophizing. Our two key goals follow from this mission: first, to offer and reflect on new categories of inquiry for cross-cultural, inter-religious philosophy of religion; second, to explore and implement new methods for philosophizing about religion cross-culturally and inter-religiously. This, in turn, involves experimenting with session formats that are designed to foster conversations that go beyond “description” or “presentation” to interactive philosophizing about religion, including the pre-circulation of papers, designing sessions that cultivate engagement between panelists, and empowering moderators to lead conversations into “deeper” hermeneutic, phenomenological, comparative, and evaluative topics and issues.

Chair Mail Dates
Nathan R. B. Loewen nrloewen@ua.edu - View
Marie-Helene Gorisse m.gorisse@bham.ac.uk - View
Steering Member Mail Dates
Andrew Irvine andrew.irvine… - View
Agnieszka Rostalska arostalska@gmail.com - View
Maki Sato esg.maki@gmail.com - View
Timothy D. Knepper tim.knepper@drake.edu - View
José Eduardo Porcher jeporcher@gmail.com - View
Fritz Detwiler fdetwiler@adrian.edu - View
Arvind Mandair amandair@umich.edu - View
Review Process: Participant names are visible to chairs and steering committee members at all times
The Review Process will be a continued dialogue between the chairs and the members of the steering committee.