Music and Religion Unit
The Music and Religion section is perpetually interested in panels that combine performance and scholarly reflection, and/or book panel discussions that advance the field. Our 2025 Presidential Theme is "Freedom," so proposals related to this theme are especially welcome. These ideas can also be incorporated into any of the ideas below (as suggested by unit membership).
- Hymnody and the American Revolution
- Indigenous religious musics from around the World
- Musical representations of religion in children's media
- Anniversary-themed presentations surrounding musical works and music scene
The discipline of religious studies has expanded beyond linguistic rationality to include the importance of musical phenomena in the development of religious communities and religious consciousness. Meanwhile, theological aesthetics is moving beyond the textual to include music as a resource in its own right for constructive and transformative meaning-making. Music, religiously speaking, is no mere adjunct to the study of sacred space, ritual, visual art, liturgy, or philosophical aesthetics; rather, it is a distinct field in its own right — with its own particular content, methods, and norms. By placing the relationship between music and religion at the center of our endeavor, this Unit seeks to serve scholars who operate out of this ubiquitous, but ironically unrepresented, realm of academic pursuit within the guild.
| Chair | Dates | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Alisha L. Jones, Indiana University,… | alj61@cam.ac.uk | - | View |
| Joshua Busman | joshua.busman@uncp.edu | - | View |