This session invites all interested in Transhumanism and Human Enhancement, newcomers and established researchers alike, to join an online conversation hosted by the unit steering committee. We will be discussing access to research and sharing our best and favorite resources. We aim to connect scholars of all levels of experience from across the world, and to make space for the curious about or new to the field. Unit members will provide some of their favorite resources on teaching transhumanism for the classroom, and in congregational settings. Additionally, unit members will share the research practices that inform their work, and the research and professional associations that connect and support them. We aim to bring the audience fully into the conversation, expanding the online round table as widely as possible into a lively forum on supporting and encouraging current and future directions for research in human enhancement.
The role of human enhancement technologies in ongoing wars, genocides, and political battles make it clear that the transhuman is a matter of urgent moral reasoning. How may technological enhancement protect mere humans, even in pursuit of a less violent humanity? This session, beginning with our first paper, interrogates the progress of moral enhancement in explicit consideration of race and slavery. Our second paper investigates the violent implications of Nietzsche’s “superhuman” for merely human life and suggest better transhumanist visions in the interest of humanity. The (lack of) appeal of human enhancement in African traditions is developed in our third paper. With this session, we push past weighing the risks and benefits of technological enhancement in order to more critically analyze the morality of mere humanity. Such work is urgent to address the challenges of technological enhancement in service of just peace.
With augmentation and AI technologies undergoing accelerated development and coming to market, we must ensure that the cosmovisioning around such technologies is not monopolised by a single “transhumanist” movement. Jacob Boss contrasts “punk” transhumanists with “profiteers” – punk is oriented toward the aesthetic and to the “world-renewing” destruction of norms, while the profiteers look to commodify enhancement through incorporating it into the mainstream. This roundtable session will explore the productivity of Boss’ punks/profiteers distinction for contemporary transhumanism scholarship, considering both the contentious classification of transhumanism movements and some of the overlooked strands of transhumanism. The panel will offer a critique of contemporary narratives of transhumanism that focus exclusively on elite academic and/or commercial iterations. Boss’ scholarly intervention into the underlying commitments that drive divergent transhumanist communities of practice points to alternative futures with these technologies, foregrounding the expansion of sensory capacities, reproductive choice, kinship and other social forms.
Pretas are best known as “hungry ghosts,” pitiful beings with miniscule mouths and bloated stomachs who reap the fruits of stinginess sown in a former life. But they were not always portrayed this way. In Of Ancestors and Ghosts (OUP: 2024), Adeana McNicholl traces the construction of the Buddhist realm of the pretas not through doctrinal treatises, but through narrative literature. Far from mere morality tales or simple scare tactics to promote Buddhist ethics, McNicholl argues that preta tales help model and elicit aesthetically informed embodied experiences that are themselves ethically formative. As a result, this literature speaks to the vast range of embodied experiences in the Buddhist cosmos, including the intersection of human/non-human and class, caste, gender, and sexuality. This roundtable brings together scholars of Buddhism and karma, caste, gender, and aesthetics to reflect on the role of cosmology and ghosts in ethical reflections on karma.
Sacred sites and religious spaces can employ material, narrative, and ritual associations to link themselves into a global network across time and space. Following this broader perspective of religious sites and devotional spaces, this panel explores different ways of making sacred ground and the making of Buddhist sites in varying cultural geographies ranging from India and Central Asia to China and Nepal. The panel organizes the four papers into nodes in the lifecycle(s) of religious shrines and objects, from the birth of a shrine, its reproduction beyond the geography of its origin, and finally, the treatment of “expired” shrine objects. While the first three papers deal with the creation of Buddhist sites for devotion, the last paper is about the Manichaean-influenced creation of repositories for the “sacred waste” generated in devotional and religious lives.
Presentations in this panel revolve around passages drawn from Śikṣānanda’s early eighth-century Chinese translation of the *Laṅkāvatārasūtra* (Taishō no.672), which is the focus of a new translation project. The *Laṅkāvatārasūtra* is well-known as an influential if also unorthodox source of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda thought that was particularly impactful in East Asia. With reference also to other versions of the text, the panel will attend to key passages from Śikṣānanda’s version concerning aspects of earlier Buddhist thought inherited by the *Laṅkāvatārasūtra* and (re)formulated by it, including the substratum consciousness (*ālayavijñāna*), karmic ‘seeds’ that burden it (*bīja*), and some notion of ‘buddha-nature’ (*tathāgatagarbha*). In discussion, the panel will reflect on questions arising from translating Śikṣānanda’s Chinese into English: how best to render its philosophical and doctrinal profundity (and obscurity); what distinguishes it from our other versions of the text, and the perennial difficulties surrounding the translation of what are already translated Buddhist texts.
Pretendians, that is, individuals claiming to have Native heritage who in fact have none, are a matter of serious concern. They effectively steal resources from Native American scholars. They may claim to speak for a Native American community when they have authority to do so. They may publicly discuss matters a Native American community may not want to made public. They may violate the sovereignty of Native nations to decide who can claim citizenship in the given nation. So, the issue of Pretendians in the academy deserves open, frank, and serious discussions. This roundtable will start that process. We will engage in a discussion of the issues and propose that the American Academy of Religion develop a statement on the issue of ethnic fraud and develop a policy concerning those who engage in academic dishonesty in making false claims of Native American identity.
This panel brings together complex Indigenous perspectives on transcendence, cultural resource management, and relational ties to land. The first paper introduces the "ethics of belonging," emphasizing kin relationality and ecological belonging as foundational to Indigenous notions of transcendence. The second paper focuses on Indigenous nations’ engagement with the National Forest Service to address neglected religious claims in consultations and suggest ways to rectify inherent asymmetries. The third paper investigates land-based epistemology of 18th-century Mohican and Lenape Moravian Christians, showcasing their resilience in sustaining cultural practices and connections to land despite displacement. The fourth paper analyzes Traditional Cultural Resources (TCRs) to combat epistemic violence in cultural resource management policies, highlighting Indigenous communities’ advocacy efforts for their cultural legacy and well-being. Collectively, these papers offer critical insights into Indigenous resilience, engagement, and cultural preservation strategies while navigating relationships with the environment and federal entities amidst colonial legacies and rights-based legal structures.
The United States is undergoing paradigmatic demographic, religious, social, and political shifts. One of many resultant trends is the decline in certain historical institutions (religious, educational, etc.) and the rise and growth of others. Chaplaincy is not immune to these realities. Though historically linked to institutionally based health and clinical settings (hospitals, hospices, etc.), chaplaincy is quickly growing in new spaces: community, corporate, educational, athletic, etc. Bringing together insights from ACPE educators, administrators in theological education, and chaplaincy practitioners from different theological streams, along with empirical data, this roundtable will explore emerging spaces for spiritual care training and provision toward transformation and social justice. The panel will examine questions arising from these shifts and opportunities, such as how to define chaplaincy, models for forming and educating chaplains, and economically sustainable models of chaplaincy, with a particular focus on community chaplaincy.
This panel explores the role of faith traditions in addressing contemporary global challenges related to international development, environmental conservation, social justice, and peacebuilding. Through four papers, it investigates how faith-based perspectives and initiatives contribute to sustainable development, environmental stewardship, equitable social practices, and the fight against modern slavery and human trafficking. The panel examines diverse case studies, such as the environmental conservation efforts among Cambodia's Bunong community, the nuanced roles of Muslim-led humanitarian INGOs in conflict zones, the contributions of faith communities to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the work of religious sisters in combating human exploitation. By bringing together scholars, practitioners, and faith leaders, this panel fosters a rich dialogue on the evolving role of faith in addressing global challenges, highlighting the importance of understanding and inclusion of religious perspectives in international development agendas for a just, sustainable, and peaceful world.
This session aims to provoke debate on the state of the religions and development field as a whole. The papers in the session interrogate the nuanced nature of FBOs to explain both the positive and negative aspects of their involvement, demonstrate a way to measure the relevance of faith in development work, and explore the roles of young people in religious engagement in high-level policy spaces. These papers show the breadth of research possible within the field of religions and development. As a field with much applied research, they also showcase practical methods and approaches to working with faith actors in development. These papers reflect on the implications of religious engagement at policy and practice levels, from the local to the national and global.
Our popular Interactive Workshop returns! We offer pairs of brief presentations (10 minutes) designed to stimulate substantive conversation on critical issues in Interreligious and Interfaith Studies and engagement. Our topics this year address: New Directions in the Field, Engaging the Senses, Pedagogies, Applied Contexts, and Interspirtuality.
Presentations unfold simultaneously at separate tables (and repeat), with attendees selecting the conversations in which they would like to participate. Our business meeting immediately follows the workshop.
A roundtable discussion using Marianne Moyaert's recent work, Christian Imaginations of the Religious Other: a History of Religionization (Wiley-Blackwell, 2024), aiming to explore its broader applications in interreligious studies, religion-racialization, and comparative theology.
Moyaert's book traces the genealogy of religionization, examining how Christians historically established religious normativity and created categories of non-Christian "otherness." Addressing various processes and contexts, the work analyzes the intersections of religionization with racialization, sexualization, and ethnicization. The interdisciplinary panel will extend the discussion, evaluating religionization's significance for interreligious relations and its applicability beyond Christianity. Delving into North America's approach to religious diversity, particularly amid color-based racism and white Christian hegemony, the panelists will reflect on the interplay between religion and race. Exploring theological implications, the panel will discuss integrating religionization into interreligious dialogue and anti-racist theologies. Lastly, the pedagogical impact will be examined, discussing effective ways to teach the history of religionization in theological and interreligious settings. The interreligious and interdisciplinary panel aims to foster a comprehensive discussion, critically engaging with religionization's broader implications for understanding interreligious relations, drawing on perspectives from comparative theology, interreligious studies, and critical race studies.
Antisemitism and Islamophobia have been rising dramatically across Europe and North America. While there are distinct underlying social structures, political dynamics, and cultural phenomena that have fueled the emergence and evolution of antisemitism and Islamophobia, especially from country to country, they are often intertwined in certain ways and echoed across contexts. In light of these troubling trends, this panel will explore the complex roots and interreligious intertwinings of antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe and North America. The papers offer reflection on these concepts from a range of perspectives, including: Du Bois' exploration of race, religion, Zionism and Antisemitism in the US; gender the transnational roots of Islamophobia in Protestantism in Britain and the US; and the oft-overlooked relationship between 20th century Jewish and Catholic revival in Europe. In the discussion portion, special attention will be drawn to how global events affect the rise of and relationship between antisemitism and Islamophobia and/or interreligious relations in contemporary or historical contexts.
Over the past six years, this seminar has brought together racialized scholars of Hindu studies to critically examine the state of the larger field and ways in which this field reifies Islamophobia, casteism and white supremacy. This examination has led to new innovations in disciplinary formations, pedagogical interventions and scholarly trajectories. During the roundtable, Critical Hindu Studies scholars will reflect on the interventions of this seminar, delineate what still needs to be examined, and propose some new directions for this new field.
The 2024 IGW session will be a non-traditional position paper session that aims to engender a conversation about the current state of women and gender studies in Muslim contexts past and present. We invited participants to engage with three broad themes: the study and practice of Muslim and Islamic feminisms, decolonial approaches as they intersect with Islam and gender, and the role of "tradition" and athority in the study of Islam and gender. Four scholars offer short position papers on the divine feminine between decoloniality and tradition, Muslim #MeToo, ordinary women as producers of Islamic knowledge and doctrine, and the reproduction of religious practice in Islamic law. The short presentations will be followed by a facilitated discussion with those in attendance at the session on wider repercussions of these papers and the direction(s) our field is moving in.
