Online Program Book

This is the preliminary program for the 2024 in-person Annual Meeting, hosted with the Society for Biblical Literature in San Diego, CA - November 23-26. Pre-conference workshops and many committee meetings will be held November 22. If you have questions about the program, contact annualmeeting@aarweb.org. All times are listed in local/Pacific Time.


	A23-144 Women and Religion Unit Theme: Feminist Intersectional Approaches to Transforming Violence: Perspectives from Emerging Scholars Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Deborah Fulthorp, Grand Canyon University, Presiding This session, sponsored in collaboration with the AAR/SBL Women’s Caucus, highlights the research of emerging scholars exploring the critical intersections of gender, religion, and violence. Engaging with the conference theme “Violence, Nonviolence, and the Margin,” the panelists offer perspectives on how women and women-identifying people confront and resist the multifaceted dimensions of violence justified by religious and societal norms. Through intersectional analyses that incorporate class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, this session delves into the new ways in which religion, spirituality, and theological reflections empower responses to violence and envision nonviolent praxis. From the postcolonial contemplative practices of Filipinas and the healing altars of La Virgen de Guadalupe among survivors of intimate partner violence, to the incarnational theology as a foundation for non-violence and the reimagined ecclesial hospitality practices informed by feminist trauma theology, this session investigates the role of religion in both perpetuating and challenging structures of violence. Diane Francesca Oliveros, Boston College A Postcolonial Practice of Contemplation for Filipinas Abstract The Christian practice of contemplation can be a resource for Filipinas to resist violence caused by patriarchy, coloniality, and clericalism as overlapping forms of oppression pervading both society and the church in the Philippines. This practice is drawn from the reflections of Constance FitzGerald and Beverly Lanzetta on the writings of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross and how these spiritual works can offer women possibilities for flourishing today. These reflections are placed in conversation with the feminist theological works from the Philippines, which are concerned about gender dynamics and stereotypes detrimental to women’s well-being and offer a reimagining of theological anthropology. This dialogue proposes opening up spaces for contemplation to encounter God as Gracious Mystery who desires women’s flourishing, affirms women’s dignity, pays attention to their embodied nature, and offers a nuanced approach to suffering in the world that is caused by physical and epistemic violence. Natalie Readnour, Connecting to God After Abuse: Altars of La Virgen de Guadalupe Among Survivors of IPV Abstract This paper uses a feminist Latin American liberationist perspective to explore how Marian veneration and theology help Mexican women experience hope and resist feelings of religious isolation after intimate partner violence. Many women who speak up about domestic violence experience a shunning from their religious community, thus losing their major ties to her community and to God. After examining a few cultural factors that impact the Mexican experience of intimate partner violence, I will use the example of home altars to La Virgen de Guadalupe to show how women who have experienced violence still turn to Mary for religious hope and healing without needing the church, the congregation, or the pastor. Through private and popular worship of Mary, Mexican women have developed a practice of hope that can help them overcome violent and marginalizing contexts. Misty Krasawski, Yale Divinity School The God-Bearing Body as Demand for Non-Violence: Of Vulnerability and Incarnational Theology Abstract What response might Christianity offer to the problem of violence? The cross has often been upheld as a symbol of non-violence. Yet it has also been upheld as the symbol of those who promote colonization, patriarchy, and oppression. Little scholarship exists exploring the idea of non-violence’s foundation in the womb of a woman rather than the cross built by man. This paper will argue that in the incarnation, we see God’s embrace of and entering in to the universal vulnerability of humanity that makes violence insupportable under any circumstance. Christian calls to nonviolence, then, begin not at the cross, but within the womb of Mary, the mother of God. Elizabeth Lee, University of Divinity, Melbourne Trust, Truth, Justice and the Right Relationship to Underpin Ecclesial Practice of Hospitality Abstract Informed by feminist and trauma theologies and formed by contemplative spirituality, this paper offers an evolving innovative approach to explore and transform ecclesial hospitality such that it is attentive to the aftermath of violence in a faith community. The methodology adopted for this doctoral research is shaped by the particularities of my own context, shaped by my contemplative spiritual practices, and my commitment to nonviolence in a violent world. Through a series of difficult yet crucial contemplative dialogue circles, participants from the study community will critically reflect on the assumptions and beliefs underpinning current ecclesial practices before envisioning new approaches in the light of feminist trauma-sensitive scholarship embedding in trust, truth, justice and right relationships, for the flourishing of all.
	A23-145 World Christianity Unit Theme: World Christianity and the Environment Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Briana Wong, Phillips Theological Seminary, Presiding This panel explores the relationship between Christianity and ecological concerns in the Global South. The first paper investigates the activities of twentieth-century Congregationalist missionary Ray Phillips in South Africa and connects the environmental consequences of gold mining to the broader program of western subjugation all too often expressed through missionary endeavors. The second draws on the work of two African women theologians, Wangari Maathai and Afua Kuma, which amplifies the voices of contemporary African women affected by climate change. The third analyzes Ling Ma’s 2018 novel, Severance, through the lens of religion and focuses on the novel’s uncanny prescience concerning the emergence and effects of COVID-19. The fourth highlights and engages the phenomenon of green churches in Korea, which seek to restore relations with non-human creation. The fifth highlights the American Marathi Mission’s attempts to mobilize transnational evangelical assistance during the famine of 1899–1901 in the India’s Deccan Plateau. Richard Pryor, Princeton Theological Seminary Men on the Mines: The Environmental Consequences of Missionary Masculinity Abstract For over a decade in the first half of the twentieth century, the Congregationalist missionary Ray Phillips worked with men on the mines of South Africa, attempting to combine both social control measures and evangelistic programs. This paper considers Phillips’s pre-1930 activities on the mines as representative of the larger missionary population and the violence inherent in their activities – both in social control and the remaking of indigenous minds, as well as in the environmental consequences of gold mining, and argues that they are related as part of the same program of western subjugation, through combining theories and practices from colonial/imperial studies, missiology, ecotheology, and history. David Lewis, University of Edinburgh Wangari Maathai and Afua Kuma: Prophetic Activism and Creation Care Abstract This paper will argue that Wangari Maathai and Afua Kuma represent two African women with significant theological insights, neither of whom were formally trained in theology, and illustrate a prophetic activism that promotes creation care, acknowledging the presence of Christ within his creation. By drawing on their works, I intend to demonstrate their prophetic warnings and prophetic hope which I will argue fuels an activism which challenges existing powers and lifts up the poor and oppressed, whilst also turning our eyes to the rest of creation. Their works declare theological truths that we desperately need to hear in an era of climate crisis. Their contributions also give voice to contemporary African women, particularly those suffering the effects of climate change, leading towards an egalitarian theological emphasis that cares for creation and for people who groan along with it. Jin Lu, Purdue University Northwest Religion on the Move: Migration, Globalization and Post-Apocalypse in Ling Ma’s Severance Abstract Ling Ma’s 2018 debut novel, Severance, weaves intimately three types of fiction: the storyline of a post-apocalyptic survival narrative, interlaced with the coming of age tale of the narrator/protagonist (Candace Chen) struggling to find meaning and make a living in a globalized economy that was posing increasing ecological threats to its inhabitants, and through the flashbacks of her memory, a traumatizing story of her immigrant parents and her own childhood facing unfathomable heart-breaking tragedy. Religion permeates each of those three strands. Published in the year before Covid-19, Ling Ma’s Severance offers an uncanny and unsettling depiction of the spread of a global pandemic and humanity’s chaotic response to it. While seamlessly rooted in the trajectory of a Chinese-American immigrant family, Severance can be placed in the long line of what Father Marc Rastoin (2018) termed “post-apocalyptic genre” in recent decades in which religion constitutes an important dimension. JONGSEOCK SHIN, A Call for Creation Care: Korean and North American Green Churches in the Fight Against Environmental Violence and for Liberating Nature from Collective “Han” Abstract I will argue that churches are to embody a messianic fellowship, uniting in solidarity to grapple with environmental exploitation and violence. This mission seeks to heal the natural environment by expanding the collective ‘han’—the deep-seated grief stemming from unresolved frustrations to the natural world. This embraces the natural environment and non-human creatures into a “bapsang community” or a table community of Jesus Christ. In so doing, I will explore the engagement of local churches across various denominations in Korea, known as green churches selected by the Christian Environmental Movement Solidarity with green theology and practice, in dialogue with similar ecological churches in North America. I will highlight the need for organic solidarity among counterparts in Korea to enhance the effectiveness of their ministries by drawing upon core ideas of Minjung theology and expanding their scope into the natural environment. The green churches in North America provide viable examples for helping the Korean counterparts stand in solidarity, while also drawing insights from the Korean green churches to enrich the efforts in North America. Dax Mathew, Loss of Lives and Livelihoods in the Deccan: American Marathi Mission Response to Famine, Plague and Drought 1899 – 1901. Abstract Deccan in the last quarter of the nineteenth century experienced nine famines, two of which were great famines. The second great famine happened over the turn of the century in 1899, de-populating the region of human life and livestock. Neil Charlesworth’s monograph Peasants and Imperial Rule points out that along with the natural phenomena, the implementation of a flawed land revenue settlement policy accentuated the agrarian crisis. Scarcity of food and credit capital had left multitudes dependent on moneylenders. Amartya Sen in Hunger and Public Action has asserted that famines are triggered by the collapse of exchange entitlements rather than food availability decline. Based on archival research, this paper will highlight largely unexplored work of the American Marathi Mission in the famine period. The paper will focus on the actions taken by AMM missionaries to mitigate the immediate suffering of the famine population and efforts in mobilizing evangelical transnational help. Business Meeting Janice McLean-Farrell, New Brunswick Theological Seminary, Presiding Briana Wong, Phillips Theological Seminary, Presiding
	A23-146 Yoga in Theory and Practice Unit Theme: New Books in Modern Yoga Studies Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Christa Kuberry, Yoga Alliance, Presiding The field of yoga studies has seen a number of new publications in the past year, particularly in the field of modern yoga studies. This panel therefore brings together the authors of four new leading books in modern yoga studies in order to share the significance of each work with the academic community: _Like a Tree Universally Spread: Sri Sabhapati Swami and Śivarājayoga_ by Keith Edward Cantú _Flexible India: Yoga's Cultural and Political Tensions_ by Shameen Black _The Body Settles the Score: Yoga and the End of Innocence_ by Paul Bramadat _Embodying Transnational Yoga: Eating, Singing, and Breathing in Transformation_ by Christopher Jain Miller Each author will hear from scholar reviewers who will highlight the scholarly significance of each of these individual works for the field. Following the responses, the authors will each briefly respond to respondents’ comments and engage in a conversation about their new books with the audience. Panelists Keith Cantu, Harvard University Paul Bramadat, University of Victoria Christopher Miller, Arihanta Institute Shameen Black, Australian National University Responding Seth Powell, Harvard University Patricia Sauthoff, Hong Kong Baptist University Laurah E. Klepinger, Patton Burchett, College of William and Mary Business Meeting Anya Foxen, California Polytechnic State University, Presiding Christopher Miller, Arihanta Institute, Presiding
	A23-102 AAR's Platonism and Neoplatonism Unit & SBL's Mysticism, Esotericism and Gnosticism in Antiquity Unit Theme: Theosis and the Bounds of Being Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:30 AM Karmen MacKendrick,, Presiding Theosis is a consummate expression of transcendence in the mystical, Gnostic, Platonic, and Esoteric traditions from antiquity to the present. As such, borders, limits, and edges characterize it, and the overcoming of these. It challenges the delimitations of knowledge, cosmos, and contemplation and strains at the very boundaries of experience. Theosis challenges epistemological limitations, bending and breaking ways of knowing, and complicates the boundaries between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, as expressed in the statement of Athanasius that ‘the Son of God became man, that we might become god’. This joint panel encourages submissions exploring the boundaries that characterize theosis, where they are, whether they exist, what they may be, how they function, and how they constrain, restrict, enable, and inspire. Clelia Attanasio, University of Bonn Exploring the Theosis Process through the figure of Moses in the Works of Philo of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Pseudo-Dionysius Abstract The term theosis (θέωσις) refers to the concept of divinization or deification, and it can be traced both in the Neoplatonic and Judaic/Christian tradition. In particular, the term theosis is also usually associated to the journey of contemplation taken in order to reach the union with God. Aim of this speech is to show the central role of theosis in the contemplative path, and how Philo of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite not only evidenced in their treatises the centrality of this transformative path, but also used the figure of Moses to “symbolise” the ideal archetype to reach deification. Joshua Gentzke, Monmouth College The Ecological Darkness of the Divine: Theosis as Radical Interrelational Possibility in the Works of Jacob Böhme Abstract The Neoplatonic-Christian notion of theosis, the deification of humankind, has been understood to sever humans from nature. However, this reduces the diversity of interpretations to a caricature. I argue that theosis is a concept that opens a space of interrelational possibility. Engaging with François Laruelle, I examine an inversion of theosis that turns human consciousness toward radical immanentism. I argue Laruelle’s work paradoxically produces its own transcendental position and obscures paths for cultivating empathetic relationships with nature. However, the Neoplatonic tradition does offer resources. I then address a version of apophaticism in the works of Paracelsus and Jacob Böhme, wherein the language of theosis in conversation with the esoteric notion of the “feminine” aspect of Divinity, Sophia, gives rise to a unique speculative realist position with an earthly orientation. I maintain that this discourse challenges both the vertically transcendental orientation of classic apophaticism and the flattening immanentism of postmodern appropriations. Dan Chitoiu, Overcoming Bounds of Knowledge in Theosis: Spiritual Perception in Isaac of Nineveh and Gregory Palamas Abstract I will discuss two approaches in describing the ways of surpassing bounds of human knowledge in theosis by gaining spiritual perception, both having a great impact on the Christian East. One was formulated by Plotinus and later by Maximus the Confessor or Gregory Palamas, having as a major concern theorizing the outlines of spiritual perception. The other one gained its expression starting from practice, from the very experience in questing/acquiring spiritual perception, the most influential author being Isaac of Nineveh. Both accounts had an exceptional role in terming supra-intellectual knowledge, the deified perception. Lucas Depierre, University of Chicago Divinity School Theōsis and Individual Identity in Eriugena: Beyond Human Nature Abstract In this study, *the problem of individual* identity encapsulates the series of inquiries stemming from the basic question: what distinguishes one human being from another? I propose to reconsider how the Carolingian thinker John Scotus Eriugena (d. ca. 877) answers this question by framing his thought under a collective-evolutive model of individual identity, based on the recognizance of theōsis as the cornerstone of Eriugena’s anthropology. Within this collective-evolutive paradigm individual identity is not something given immutably, singularly bestowed at birth. Instead, human beings do not invariably possess individual identity but must long for it (evolutive), and they eventually attain it through the primary reality of human nature (collective). Theōsis challenges the Aristotelian understanding of individual identity, transcending dichotomies and hierarchies involving substance and accidents, primary and secondary substances, individual and universal.
	A23-103 AAR's Religion in Premodern Europe and the Mediterranean Unit and SBL's Art and Religions of Antiquity Unit Theme: Traveling Objects and Objects as Mediators Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:30 AM David Frankfurter, Boston University, Presiding Inspired by Georgia Frank's 2023 book Unfinished Christians, especially chapter 3, we invite papers that discuss portable and shifting objects in lived religions; e.g. that mediate between religious cultures or act as portable signifiers of religious identity, diversity, continuity, and/or transformation. Examples of portable mediating objects might include relics, reliquaries, amulets, icons, talismans, monstrances, elaborate vestments, jewelry, scrolls, codices, holy people, pilgrimage badges, lamps, censors, votive objects, spolia, and other "portabilia." Georgia Frank, Colgate University Lived Religion in a Portable Past Abstract Resume of Unfinished Christians. Dane Scott, Boston University Divine Visitors: Articulating Space and Presence in Ancient Greek Sanctuaries Abstract In her 1989 book Greek Gods and Figurines, the scholar Brita Alroth coined the term “visiting gods” to describe the puzzling phenomenon where travelers to the most popular sanctuaries in the Greek world would dedicate a votive image of one god to another. Drawing on the work of materiality theorists, I argue that these votives can be understood as a means of expressing and instantiating spatial relationships in the ancient Greek landscape. For the ancient Greek pilgrim, “visiting god” votives may have been a way to articulate particular cosmological and mythological connections between the divine resident of the sanctuary and the home community of the human visitor. Complementing this approach, I aim to show that the polysemous iconicity of the image allowed the pilgrim to not only materially mediate the presence of the visiting god, but also their own presence before the residents of the sanctuary. Michael Anthony Fowler, Devotion in Motion: Portabilia and the Itinerant Dimension of Greek Religion Abstract In recent decades, scholars of Greek religion have taken a particular interest in ritualized processions, especially toward major sanctuaries, and the embodied experience of participating in them. Less attention has been directed to individualized itinerant religious practices and experiences, or to the smaller shrines that travelers would have encountered along their journey. In this paper, I focus on portable objects excavated at a selection of roadside shrines on mainland Greece and their implications for understanding the intersection of religion and travel. In keeping with Georgia Frank’s on-the-ground, kinesthetic approach to portabilia (2023), I consider travelers’ origins and the expense of money, effort, and emotion that their journeys across the landscape would have entailed. Intimately connected with travelers’ bodies, portabilia possessed the twofold capacity to materialize personalized acts of religious devotion and to express, through repetition of customary forms of dedication, individuals’ belonging to a community of worshippers. Nazeer Bacchus, New York University Between the Royal Workshop and the Temple Floor: Crafting Elite Devotion through Ritual Portabilia in the Letter of Aristeas Abstract The Letter of Aristeas is a diasporic Jewish work composed in Ptolemaic-era Egypt, likely during the second century BCE. In an under-examined section, Aristeas offers an elaborate ekphrasis of a set of ritual objects that Ptolemy II constructs and sends as gifts to the Jerusalem temple (§§ 51b-82). In this paper, I examine the ekphrastic presentation of ritual portabilia as a strategy aimed at cultivating Alexandrian Jewish identity through a focus on elite craftsmanship and benefaction. I argue that the work adapts the conventions of ekphrasis in order to guide its reader through a mode of "ritualized viewing" that parallels the visually-marked practices of how these objects were piously produced and ritually offered to the Jerusalem temple. The work thus elevates Ptolemy II as a model of elite devotion whose efforts bridge the Alexandrian present with a scriptural past. David Grumett, University of Edinburgh Scriptural Protection and Healing in Early Christian Culture Abstract A wide range of Christian observances testify to the belief that the presence of Christ is mediated by scripture with protective and healing effects. In order to gain a rounded picture of early Christian culture, these need to be considered alongside formal liturgical usage. Portions of scripture have been carried by humans and attached to livestock to give protection from natural harms. Verses have been carved upon lintels to safeguard houses. Such uses intensify the moral and spiritual significance of scripture rather than diminish them. Narrative accounts describe Gospel books being placed by beds or under the head during sleep to promote recovery from ailments, with the latter confirmed by physical wear to book pages. The specific texts that were used tended to reflect the condition from which recovery was sought, whereas during later periods, particular texts such as the Gospel incipits came to be used for multiple purposes.
	A23-104 AAR's Traditions of Eastern Late Antiquity Unit and SBL's John the Baptist Unit Theme: Book Review: John of History, Baptist of Faith Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:30 AM Abby Kulisz, Indiana University, Bloomington, Presiding This session is co-sponsored with the SBL John the Baptist program unit and will review a very recent book about John the Baptist: James F. McGrath, John of History, Baptist of Faith: The Quest for the Historical Baptizer (Eerdmans 2024) The panelists will be Adela Yarbro Collins (Yale University), Joel Marcus (Duke University), Clare Rothschild (Lewis University), Charles Haberl (Rutgers University), Cecilia Wassén (Uppsala Universitet), and Edmondo Lupieri (Loyola University Chicago). Responding James McGrath, Butler University Edmondo Lupieri,
	P23-109 Colloquium on Violence and Religion Theme: Intersections of Mimetic Theory: Theological Insights and Societal Responses Saturday, 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM Chelsea King, Sacred Heart University, Presiding The first paper explores the relationship between mimetic desire and knowledge, juxtaposing Girard’s theory with insights from the contemplative masterpiece The Cloud of Unknowing. It argues that true knowledge—far from being a mere collection of facts—emerges from the transformation of desire, moving from rivalry to peace. This interdisciplinary approach challenges conventional understandings of cognition, emphasizing the integral roles of affect and embodiment. The second paper stages a critical conversation between Girard’s views on societal responses to disaster and the observations made by Rebecca Solnit in A Paradise Built in Hell. While Girard perceives social disasters as breeding grounds for mimetic violence and scapegoating, Solnit identifies a contrasting human tendency towards altruism, solidarity, and mutual aid in the face of crises. This paper explores the conditions under which these seemingly opposite reactions occur, proposing that societal responses to disaster may hinge on the prevailing social models and narratives. Susan McElcheran, University of St. Michael's College, Toronto School of THeology Contemplation as Positive Mimesis: Desire and Knowledge in The Cloud of Unknowing* and Mimetic Theory* Abstract This paper brings mimetic theory into dialogue with contemplative theology, using resources from both these disciplines to challenge the view that knowledge is merely the acquisition of facts. Such a conception of knowledge ignores increasing scientific evidence that affect, embodiment, and reason are linked in the process of cognition. A view of knowledge that ignores its affective, embodied component is unable to explain why human knowledge is becoming more polarized as factual scientific understanding grows. In this paper I consider the relation of desire to knowledge in René Girard’s mimetic theory and in the contemplative text The Cloud of Unknowing. Mimetic theory analyzes the roots of illusion and self-deception in rivalrous imitative desire. The paper claims that a reading of The Cloud in relation to mimetic theory will discover a way toward freedom from this self-deception, and so to true knowledge, through the transformation of desire from rivalrous to pacific. David Smock, Arizona State University Paradise or Perdition: A Girardian Response to Rebecca Solnit Abstract While my experience in COVR only started in 2021, I have not seen many papers put Girard in critical conversation with authors who may disagree with his concepts. For example: In The Scapegoat and Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, Girard considered social disaster as a toxic cauldron from which mimetic violence spreads. Society, he says, protects itself by blaming and punishing a single victim--a scapegoat. Rebecca Solnit, however, suggests in her book A Paradise Built in Hell that the opposite tends to occur: people respond instead "with altruism, solidarity, and mutual aid." If accepted, this paper will consider Solnit's idea as a counterpoint to Girard, analyzing the merits of each opposing idea and looking for any points of convergence between the authors. The tentative conclusion for this paper would claim that while both authors are correct to some degree, the manner in which people respond to crises may well depend on the social models which present themselves. Kristoff Grosfeld, Princeton Theological Seminary Is God Violent? Mimetic Theory, Divine (Non)Violence, and the Possibility of Doing Theology Abstract Peace-talk is incoherent because we do not have one definition of the word “peace.” Everyone has different understandings of this term, and thus we cannot help but selfishly impose our understandings of peace onto someone else’s understandings of peace. With the help of Augustine of Hippo, we underscore this issue through an analysis of disordered desire; in addition, with the help of French theorist René Girard and his theory of mimesis (which very much has an Augustinian flavor in terms of its low theological anthropology) we emphasize how humanity cannot help but disorder even the noblest of endeavors such as just peacemaking. Therefore, this essay argues that humanity’s peace presents a mimetical trap that needs to be broken from above via a divine disruption that is simultaneously violent and nonviolent. Divine violence can spur up hope and hence can affect the way one does theology today in the saeculum.
	P23-110 Karl Barth Society of North America Theme: Karl Barth -- On nationalism, politics, and Christian witness Saturday, 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM Paul Dafydd Jones, University of Virginia, Presiding Karl Barth -- On Nationalism, Politics, and Christian Witness Sara Mannen , University of Aberdeen The Intersection of Providence and Nothingness: Neighbors, Nations, and Nationalism Abstract What is God’s providential relationship to the nations and nationalism? This paper seeks to constructively connect how Barth’s theology reckoned with nationalism and nations with his doctrine of divine providence and das Nichtige. This paper contends that Barth’s positive and negative distinctions between nationhood and nationalism parallel the distinctions he makes between providence and Nothingness. This paper briefly describes Barth’s positive account of nations as part of God’s providential overruling of the world-occurrence and related to God’s right-hand and positive willing. Further, this paper argues that when nations fail to remain open and peaceable toward their neighbors—by seeking to become a totality—nationhood has morphed to nationalism. Barth’s vehement opposition to nationalism, its destruction, and “national gods” means nationalism can be best understood as a virulent manifestation of Nothingness that exists only under left-hand of God’s rejecting will as that which is overcome in Christ’s death and resurrection. Breno Seabra, Karl Barth and Christian Nationalisms in Brazil Abstract In this paper, I will first critically analyze the recent rise of Christian Nationalism in Brazil and the US by engaging the work of scholars like Benjamin A. Cowan and Willie James Jennings. After a brief provisional exploration of social diagnosis, I propose Karl Barth's theology as a potentially fruitful correcting theological force against religious nationalism movements. In particular, Barth's Christ-centered theological anthropology exposed in CD IV/1, § 58.1, and § 58.2 offers us a useful theological tool to counter the collapsing of religious and national identity underlying these movements. I will develop Barth's insight by engaging Kathryn Tanner's work Christ the Key, where Tanner develops a Christ-centered view of human nature as radically "open-ended," corresponding to an "apophatically-focused anthropology." I will conclude with practical suggestions of how this theological view of human identity might foster new forms of political resistance in Brazil and the United States. Emil Lusser, University of Vienna ‘Easter is neither a Representation of Socialism nor the Resurrection of Germany!’ Karl Barth’s Theological Critique of Paul Tillich’s and Paul Althaus’ Social Ethics Abstract This paper examines Karl Barth’s, Paul Tillich’s, and Paul Althaus’ understanding of history and revelation in the context of their political and social ethics around 1920. Althaus argues that the order of life is embedded in the course of history beginning with creation, while Tillich posits that a divine ethos entered history with Christ, which negates worldly orders. Barth, on the other hand, rejects both models by separating between God’s will from mundane politics. Against the background of the historical analysis of these theologians this paper explores the significance of our understanding of history and revelation for political theology by comparing and evaluating their positions and mutual critiques. I argue that any political theology must be aware of its understanding of history and revelation and their consequences. It is crucial to be conscious of this in times when political decisions are justified by religious beliefs.
	A23-148 American Academy of Religion Theme: Plenary I - Exploring Nonviolence: Social Justice, Gender, and the Brain Saturday, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM Jin Y Park, American University, Washington, D.C., Presiding How do we define nonviolence? What does the practice of nonviolence entail? Can nonviolence be an efficient way to counter violence and create social justice, including gender justice? Can nonviolence be violent as well? Can neuroscience help us understand the impacts of violence and nonviolence on our bodies and minds? In this panel, three scholars explore these questions and more to enrich our understanding and practice of nonviolence and explore its social impact. William Edelglass (Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and Smith College), “Violence, Nonviolence, and Antiviolence in B. R. Ambedkar’s Buddhist Thought” Karma Lekshe Tsomo (University of San Diego), “Buddhism and Gender Justice: The Violence of Subordination” Fadel Zeidan (University of California San Diego), “How Disentanglement of the Self Can Lead to Nonviolence and Compassion: Insights from the Brain” Panelists William Edelglass, Emerson College Karma Lekshe Tsomo, University of San Diego Fadel Zeidan, University of California, San Diego
	A23-149 Status of LGBTIQ+ Persons in the Professions Committee Theme: Queer and Trans Scholars' Mentoring Lunch Saturday, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM Melissa M. Wilcox, University of California, Riverside, Presiding The Committee on the Status of LGTBIQ+ Persons in the Professions cordially invites all LGBTIQ+ scholars, of all ranks and places/forms of employment/under-employment, to join us for our annual mentoring lunch. This year, instead of inviting specific mentors, we welcome all scholars interested in offering mentoring, receiving mentoring, or both. Table topics will include mid-career scholars, administrators & senior scholars, wellness and joy, publishing your first book, journal publishing, the job market, navigating grad school, and careers beyond the ivory tower. In order to make the mentoring lunch as accessible as possible, we do not require pre-registration and we do not provide pre-paid lunches; attendees are welcome to bring their own lunches if they want or need to do so. Panelists Eziaku Nwokocha, University of Miami
	A23-147 Academic Labor and Contingent Faculty Committee Theme: Academic Labor and Contingent Faculty Committee Luncheon with Open Discussion Saturday, 11:15 AM - 12:30 PM Patrick Reyes, Auburn Seminary, Presiding . Panelists Willie J. Jennings, Yale University
	A23-200 African Religions Unit Theme: The Increasing Prominence of Africa in the Global Practice of Islam and Christianity Saturday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM . Creighton Coleman, University of Virginia On Rupture and Contempt: Pentecostal Receptions of the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture Abstract This paper analyzes Nigerian Pentecostal receptions of the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC ‘77) and engages existing narratives of “rupture” used to characterize Nigerian Pentecostalism. In doing so, this paper seeks to offer an alternative account of Pentecostal relationships to the imagined “past” associated with Orisa traditions—focusing on “contempt” rather than “rupture”—that can account for both violent rejection of Orisa among Pentecostals as well as the presence of Orisa in Pentecostal religiosity. What may seem a rupture or break with the past, can alternatively be seen as Pentecostals inhabiting a contemptuous posture towards specific objects (groups, traditions, people, etc.). While Pentecostals consistently narrate the rise of Christianity as a break from a “dark” non-Christian past, Pentecostals in Nigeria and the diaspora draw from Orisa cosmologies and traditions while sustaining a theologically generative posture of contempt towards those same traditions. Katrina Thompson, University of Wisconsin-Madison Muslim Women on the Air and in the Workplace: Insights from Ethnographic Work at a Tanzanian Radio Station Abstract The study explores Tanzanian women's engagement with Islam through an ethnography of Radio Nuur, a non-denominational Islamic station in Tanga, Tanzania. Based on participant observation and interviews, the research investigates the discourse types and ideologies broadcasted, emphasizing women's participation and perspectives. Contrary to other stations, Radio Nuur actively involves women, both as staff and callers, potentially increasing their "voice" in the workplace and community. I examine how radio discourse shapes Tanzanian Muslims' sense of belonging to local and global religious communities and influences their interpretations of gender roles amidst diverse religious discourses. By studying media's role in constructing community identities and negotiating various ideological influences, the research sheds light on gendered communication dynamics within Tanzania and beyond, impacting understandings of Islam's local and global dimensions. Tawfiq Alhamedi, University of California, Irvine “The Inheritors of the Prophets”: Islamic Historical Memory along the Swahili Coast Abstract This paper engages Islamic frameworks of historical memory along the Swahili coast. It argues that Swahili ideas of inheritance (urithi) formulate a dynamic and generative way in which Muslim scholars and biographers articulate and live with Islamic pasts and religious memory along the coast. Building on anthropological approaches to history and memory as well as work concerning Islamic historiography, I explore urithi’s significance as a Swahili-Islamic ordering of the past based in a spiritual tradition that posits knowledge as a meaningful historical inheritance and Islamic scholars as “inheritors of the Prophets” and thus bearers of religious memory. These arguments are based on analysis of two biographical texts covering the lives of pioneering reformist Swahili-Muslim scholars, Sheikh Al-Amin b. Ali Mazrui (d. 1947) and Sheikh Abdulla Saleh Al-Farsy (d. 1982). My analysis is further informed by insights gathered from various interviews with the authors of these biographies. Jeroen Dewulf, On the Portuguese Influence on the Early Development of African Catholicism: The Case of Annobon Abstract In my book Afro-Atlantic Catholics: America's First Black Christians (2022), which will be discussed at a roundtable in the 2024 AAR conference, I present a new theory on the development of Black Christianity in the Americas. The goal of this paper is to complement this panel discussion with a presenation that debates the Portuguese influence on the early development of African Catholicism. It does so with a focus on the little-known African Atlantic island of Annobón.
	A23-201 Anthropology of Religion Unit and Jain Studies Unit Theme: Anthropological Perspectives on the Jains Saturday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM M. Whitney Kelting, Northeastern University, Presiding This session aims to explore the significant contributions of the anthropological perspective to Jain Studies, highlighting the work of both emerging and senior scholars who have conducted extensive fieldwork in India. Ethnographic methods and anthropological concepts have played a constitutive role in shaping the field of Jain Studies. Participants will reflect on how these approaches have influenced their own scholarship and fieldwork with Jain communities, fostering understanding of Jain society and practice. In light of the recent passing of anthropologist Lawrence A. (Alan) Babb, this panel also serves as a tribute to the influence of his scholarship and enduring legacy in the field. Through engaging overlaps and intersections of anthropology and Jain Studies around positionality in the field, ritual culture and practice, social organization, and theory, this conversation aims to stimulate critical dialogue and inspire fresh insights into the changing dynamics of Jain culture and society and its academic study. John E. Cort, Denison University Lawrence A. (Alan) Babb and the Study of the Jains Abstract The study of the Jains was transformed in the 1980s and 1990s when anthropologists and fieldwork oriented scholars in other fields turned their attention to contemporary Jain communities. Lawrence A. (Alan) Babb was a key person in this turn in Jain Studies, beginning with his fieldwork on Jain ritual transactions in Ahmedabad in 1986 and Jaipur in 1990-91, leading to his 1996 Absent Lord. For many of these scholars, fieldwork with Jains was their starting point in the study of South Asia. Babb, however, brought two decades of previous scholarship to his study of the Jains, having previously engaged in fieldwork on Hindu rituals in Chhattisgarh, Singapore and Delhi. This paper looks at this earlier scholarship, arguing the advantages for a fuller understanding of Babb’s scholarship on the Jains, and Jain studies as a whole, of situating Absent Lord and Babb’s subsequent scholarship on the Jains within this longer arc. David E. Silverberg, Columbia University Jainism and the Spirit of Capitalism? Foreign and Vernacular Practices of Comparison Abstract This paper revisits the works of Max Weber, particularly The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism alongside his Religions of India, to ask what is at stake in comparing the Jains to other groups. As Alan Babb has argued, Weber never actually asserts that the Jains are the Protestants of India; nevertheless, the comparison persists. Based on fieldwork conducted from 2018-2023, attention is then drawn to vernacular practices of comparison between Jains and other foreign groups by Jains and non-Jains alike: comparisons that often involve a theological dimension, but rest on sociological assumptions about both Jains and the nature of commerce itself. These comparisons reveal the continuing salience of the caste category baniya, glossed by the Subaltern Studies scholar David Hardiman as “usurer,” for understanding contemporary Jain communities, as well as the economic system that they are the “spirit” of. Shivani Bothra, University of California, Santa Barbara Emergence of Spiritual Tourism: Exploring Contemporary Trends in Religious Practice Among Jains in Jaipur Abstract This paper aims to explore the intersection of religious sites, tourism, and Jains in Jaipur to demonstrate the emerging trend of spiritual tourism within contemporary Jainism. While both religion and tourism have independently flourished in Jaipur and have been extensively studied across various contexts and methodologies, their symbiotic relationship remains relatively underexplored. Drawing from my fieldwork in Jaipur and building on the works of anthropologist Lawrence Babb, this paper proposes to discuss “spiritual tourism,” a third ideology. This ideology motivates an increasing number of Jains to engage in religious practices and its growing significance in the social, devotional, and economic lives of the Jains in Jaipur. Through this investigation, the paper also seeks to underpin the impact of such phenomenon on the individual and collective identities of religious groups within the broader framework of South Asian traditions. Mikaela Chase, University of Wisconsin, Madison Rethinking Theorization(s) of Jain Ritual from the Domestic Dying Space Abstract Because of the Durkheimian idea of ritual space set apart, the domestic has been largely excluded or described in limited terms as a space of ritual possibility. This raises questions about gendered participation in ritual innovation. Formative schematic theorizations of Jain ritual emphasize practices such as puja that are sited in the temple. Sallekhanā, the voluntary Jain fast until death, is a continuation of renunciation of food and effacement of the embodied self that begins in a plethora of small quotidian acts within the domestic space, making the seemingly dramatic withdrawal from life a conceptual continuity with everyday ritualization. Ritual dispersal in everyday life entails vulnerability which is differently embodied and distributed across age and gender within family and household. This paper proposes that gendered norms of ritualization and ritual pedagogy in the domestic sphere, exemplified in the practice of sallekhanā, demand a rethinking of the boundaries of Jain ritual. Eric Villalobos, Emory University Gotras, Grandfathers, and Grand-gurus: The Transformation from Monastic to Biological Lineages Abstract While theoretically casteless, Jain participation in and development of caste identities, especially as vaiśyas, has been well-documented. Alan Babb’s 2004 Alchemies of Violence, for example, studied the development of Marwari Jain trader caste identity, typically in contradistinction to Brahman and Kshatriya caste identity. This study examines the development of four relatively new gotras that trace their origin from Śvetāmbar yatis, a special category of monks that follow an alternative interpretation of Jain monastic conduct. Some yatis, or former-yatis according to some, were known to take wives and father children. These children inherited their monastic parentage’s property, maintained the social networks of their predecessors, and continued their ritual practices. The existence of these gotras creates tension among yati monks and the broader Jain community by forcing them to consider the caste status of someone who walks back their renunciation and to deal with the social implications of their renewed worldly life.
	A23-202 Arts, Literature, and Religion Unit Theme: Art Theology, Non-Violence, and Wisdom from Margins Saturday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM Angela Hummel, Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and Front Range Community College, Presiding Art Theology is a method of making art to make new knowledge and understanding of theological ideas that discursive reasoning alone cannot provide. This interactive and collaborative workshop will engage participants in making theology. Participants will be invited to gather their own experience, knowledge, and wisdom through various materials (pastels, paints, colored pencils, markers, crayons, fabrics, and colored paper will all be supplied). We will make theology on the question: What is divine love in the margins? and/or What is non-violence? We will then discuss the emerging ideas of art historians and cognitive scientists, which explain how Art Theology arrives at different knowledge than discursive reasoning. Art Theology is an interdisciplinary method that centers on indigenous wisdom like the Matauranga Maori of Aotearoa, New Zealand, which has always included a variety of ways of accessing knowledge, including making art. Angela Hummel, Angela Hummel, Angela Hummel, Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and Front Range Community College Art Theology, Seeing what we Overlooked and Making New Knowledge Abstract Art Theology is a method that engages in making art in order to make new knowledge and understanding about theological ideas that discursive reasoning alone cannot provide. Art Theology includes seeing art (with intention), but it is even more importantly about making art. Art Theology is an interdisciplinary method grounded in the scholarship of art historians, Susanna Berger and Eyelet Evens-Ezra who have demonstrated that we have not fully understood theologians and philosophers before the 18th century because we overlooked their visual thinking. The method is also grounded in the emerging cognitive science of The Extended Mind Theory. Art Theology centers indigenous wisdom like matauranga Maori of Aotearoa New Zealand, that has never overlooked making in knowing. This paper provides the research behind the workshop offered by the Arts, Literature, and Religion Unit: Art Theology, Non-Violence, and Wisdom from the Margins. Katherine Kunz, University of Basel Workshop application: “Art Theology, Non-Violence, and Wisdom from Margins” Abstract I have explored practices of improvisation not only as spiritual practices, but as enacted and embodied theology. For example, art and improvisation can be understood through theologies of co-creating with God, of responding to God, and of understanding creation as both human and divine. I focused on musical and dance improvisation and would welcome this opportunity to delve into the visual arts as theology. My current work centers practices of deep listening in community-engaged scholarship. This work continues to attend to dynamics of improvisation in order to pay attention to “wisdom from the margins” through listening and responding, co-creating, and engaging in practices that center belonging, compassion, and attunement over extractive methods of gathering information. This work takes time, space, and slowing down, all practices offered through Art Theology that could also serve to guide academic and ethnographic work in kinder and more attuned ways. Grant Showalter-Swanson, Submission for Workshop: “Art Theology, Non-Violence, and Wisdom from Margins" Abstract Here is the link to my CV: 1 Page CV_Grant Showalter Swanson.docx
	A23-203 Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Unit and Secularism and Secularity Unit Theme: Asian American Religious Formations and and the Disciplinary Regimes of US Secularism Saturday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM Jee Hyun Baek, Boston University, Presiding This session explores the ways APIA communities in the United States have navigated the various state institutions and theological discourses that enact, perpetuate, and enforce the organizing logics of American secularism. It will open with a historical analysis of the theological presuppositions built into the nation's secularist legal regimes as they applied to Chinese laborers, followed by a contemporary exploration of processes by which Hindu ritual practices at a New Jersey temple have been reshaped to address secular assumptions of American life. A final paper then returns to the late-nineteenth century to scrutinize how the translation practices of Japanese Pure Land Buddhists influenced the community's legibility as "religion" within the American context. Isaac Weiner, Ohio State University Religion, Race, and Dying Declarations: The People v. Chin Mook Sow Abstract This paper offers a close reading of The People v. Chin Mook Sow, an 1876 California murder trial. Chin Mook Sow was one of several cases from the late-19th century in which the “dying declarations” of Chinese laborers were challenged because of their alleged lack of belief in an eternal system of rewards and punishment. The Chin Mook Sow court engaged in an extended inquiry into the content of Chinese religion that ultimately vindicated the victim’s rights. Yet it did so by mobilizing religious and racial logics that worked together to reinforce notions of the Chinese as essentially different. My analysis focuses on what the case reveals about the unfinished project of legal secularism. In wrestling with the implications of proper belief for democratic citizenship, the court's inquiry revealed the theological presuppositions that continued to buttress U.S. law even as it was being stripped of its explicitly religious underpinnings. Kalpesh Bhatt, University of Toronto Beyond Dichotomies: The Secular and Religious Interplay at the Swaminarayan Hindu Temple Inauguration in the USA Abstract This paper examines the interplay between the secular and religious dimensions of the "Festival of Inspirations" at the Swaminarayan Hindu temple, Akshardham, in NJ, USA. As the largest Hindu temple in the Western hemisphere, Akshardham epitomizes Hindu art, architecture, culture, spirituality, and modern secular facets. Utilizing textual, media, and ethnographic research, this paper illustrates not only the mutual influence of the religious and secular but also the fluid and inseparable nature of these categories, and argues for the theoretical integration of these two categories. It contends that reshaping religious practices to address secular concerns and adapt to changing facets of modernity brings about everyday experiences among practitioners that are simultaneously immanent and transcendent, personal and political. Its data-driven arguments also raise crucial questions within the broader discourse on secularism and secularization, and address them from within the perspective of treating the secular and the religious as fundamentally inseparable theoretical categories. Jesse Lee, Florida State University Translating Amida: Transpacific Japanese Pure Land Buddhism and Religio-Linguistic Translation Abstract When Japanese Pure Land Buddhists came to the United States and Hawaii in the late-nineteenth century, they often translated their religion and traditions into the English language so they could be comprehensible to state institutions and cultural observers. Linguistic translations proved necessary for both simple material reasons, such as filling out legal forms and interacting with American society, and also complex ideological reasons, such as rendering religious expressions, practices, and structures in terms consistent with American definitions of religion. This essay argues Pure Land Buddhist translations between Japanese and English were a function of competing transpacific imperial political projects asserting distinct legal definitions of religion and modernity. An analysis of Japanese and English-language Pure Land Buddhist documents and texts from around the turn of the century demonstrates that language and linguistic translation are significant mechanisms of secular governance and societal power to shape foreign communities into legible subjects. Responding SueJeanne Koh, University of California, Irvine
	A23-204 Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis Unit Theme: Bonhoeffer and Politics Saturday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM Karen V. Guth, College of the Holy Cross, Presiding The papers in this session engage Bonhoeffer's thought in relation to politics and various political theology discourses, including secularism and Christian nationalism; queer theory; global and racial capitalism; whiteness, fascism, anti-racism, and anti-Semitism; and retributive justice and violence. Janel Kragt Bakker, Memphis Theological Seminary “We Are Otherworldly or We Are Secularists:” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Josh Hawley, and the Politics of the Kingdom of God Abstract Focusing on competing understandings of the kingdom of God, this paper contrasts the political theologies of German pastor/theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and American senator Josh Hawley. The paper traces the connections between Bonhoeffer and Hawley’s visions of the kingdom of God and their political choices. While Bonhoeffer’s interpretation of God’s kingdom informed his costly repudiation of Christian nationalism in his context, Hawley’s interpretation bolstered his unwavering support for Christian nationalism in his context. Michael Mawson, University of Auckland The Theological Art of Failure Reading Bonhoeffer’s Late Writings with Jack Halberstam Abstract Despite their very different contexts and styles, there are some striking resonances between Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s late theology and Jack Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure (2011). On the one hand, Bonhoeffer proposes a “view from below”, claiming that “suffering is a more useful key, a more fruitful principle than happiness for exploring the meaning of the world in contemplation and action.” On the other hand, Halberstam develops queer theory as “knowledge from below”, which can assist with countering “the logics of success that have emerged from the triumphs of global capitalism.” In this paper, I bring Bonhoeffer’s reflections on suffering and weakness into conversation with Halberstam’s insights into failure. Specifically, I explore how Halberstam’s work might help to supplement and radicalise some of Bonhoeffer’s reflections in his late theology. Benjamin Burkholder, Does Divine Retribution Generate Human Violence?—Bonhoeffer, Guilt, and Resistance Abstract In contemporary soteriological discourse, several voices have raised the concern that atonement theologies that assume divine justice has a retributive element end up justifying violence. Though this may be the case in some instances, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology and ethics present a more complicated picture. While Bonhoeffer presumed retributive justice was operative in God’s saving work in Christ, this never resulted in an outright justification of his work in the resistance. J. Kameron Carter, University of California, Irvine Judeo-Christianity (and Palestine); or, Late Modernity's Whiteness Project Abstract This talk addresses the religio-racial transformation of “the whiteness project” through the machinery of antiracism and anti-antisemitism. It turns to the mid-twentieth martyr-theologian and ethicist Dietrich Bonhoeffer, glimpsing this machinery in his late writings to imagine a postfascist Western future. That future entailed subjecting Jewishness to whitening, thereby figuring Jews no longer as targets (traditional supersession) but now agents (a new supersessionism) of Christian (post)colonial empire. This is Bonhoeffer’s unwitting renewal of “the religion of whiteness” (W. E. B. Du Bois), where in its distinction from and yet relation to “white people” whiteness is a locution for planet-wide racial capitalism. Imagined now as racially “plastic,” Jews are hailed into the West’s civilizational project while Jewishness becomes a site for Western post-Holocaust self-renewal. With the term “Judeo-Christianity,” I sketch how this maneuver works in Bonhoeffer’s Ethics to illuminate the religio-racial terms of the present, including the current crisis in Palestine.
	A23-205 Buddhism Unit Theme: Transregional Encounters in Yunnan: Connecting East Asian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian Buddhism Saturday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM Megan Bryson, University of Tennessee, Presiding Yunnan Province, located in southwest China, has long been a hub in transregional Buddhist networks. However, it has received less scholarly attention than Silk Road sites and maritime routes. This panel’s four papers demonstrate Yunnan’s significance as a place for encounters between different forms of Buddhism and Buddhists of different backgrounds, with a focus on political themes in the late imperial period (1368–1911). Each paper uses a specific case study— Xitan Temple, the Yongle Buddhist Canon, an _abhiṣeka_ ritual text, and the _Săpº kammavācā_—to foreground a different encounter zone that connects Yunnan to Tibet, the Ming (1368–1644) court, middle-period South and Southeast Asia, or Theravada Southeast Asia. The papers draw on diverse sources in various scripts to reveal different facets of Buddhist encounters in Yunnan. The panel shows the benefits of treating Yunnan as a whole, rather than separately addressing Sinitic, Tibetan, or Pali forms of Buddhism. Lu Huang, Temple University Xitan Temple on Mt. Jizu: Shared sacred space for Naxi, Tibetan, and Chinese Buddhists Abstract This study looks into how Xitan Temple 悉檀寺, located on Chicken-foot Mountain (Ch. Jizu shan 雞足山; Tib. Ri bo bya rkang), facilitated material, human, and ritual encounters between Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism. Drawing upon the Sixth Zhwa dmar Chos kyi dbang phyug’s (1584-1630) pilgrimage account, Xu Xiake’s (1587-1646) 徐霞客 travel diary, temple inscriptions, and mountain gazetteers, this paper examines the ways in which Mu Zeng 木增 (Tib. bSod nams rab brtan, 1587-1646), a Naxi Chieftain who governed the Lijiang (Tib. ‘Jang Sa tham) area in northwestern Yunnan, played a critical role in Mt. Jizu’s transformation into a sacred site by patronizing both Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism. This will shed light on the power dynamics among different ethnic groups in Yunnan, and how this influenced decisions on the religious market. Darui Long, University of the West The Yongle Northern Canon as Bestowed on Jizu Mountain in Yunnan Province Abstract The Ming Court probably bestowed seven sets of the Yongle Northern Canon to areas in Yunnan. In one case, the Wanli Emperor (r. 1573–1619) issued a decree to present the canon to Huayan Temple on Jizu shan in the fourteenth year of Wanli (1586). His mother, Empress Dowager Li (1545–1614), issued a decree the following year that imperial court would exempt 1284 _shi_ 石of grain-tax from the local people (almost equal to 65,736 kg of rice) to bring prosperity to the country and blessings to the local people. This paper examines the Ming court’s bestowal of the Yongle Northern Canon in Yunnan to analyze the relationship between the Imperial Court and the border province in the southwest and to explore why the court disproportionately favored temples on the sacred Buddhist mountain Jizu shan. One purpose was clear: to consolidate the border region and to protect the empire. Yuanyuan Duan, Cornell University Becoming the Buddha-King: Abhiṣeka and Buddhist Kingship in the Dali kingdom (937-1254) Abstract This paper nuances the dominant view that the Buddhist kingship of the Dali kingdom drew upon the Sinitic teaching of the _Humane King_. It does so by calling attention to a group of unstudied Esoteric Buddhist ritual manuals for the consecration (Sk. _abhiṣeka_; Ch. _guanding_) of the Dali rulers and by showcasing the ideal of divine rulership embodied in the final part of the ritual. I argue this section is modeled after the enthronement part of the Hindu kingship ritual _pratiṣṭhā_, through which the king reigns as an incarnation of the Buddha. Such a merging of the king and Buddha in one person was never attained in the _Humane King_ model but constitutes a parallel with the Hindu-inspired _buddharāja_ (Buddha-king) ideal in contemporaneous Southeast Asian Buddhist kingdoms. In drawing the parallel, this paper advocates repositioning Dali in a cosmopolitan world consisting of the synchronous pursuit of an Indian-inflected divine kingship. Trent Walker, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor A Bilingual Pali-Dai Pātimokkha from Yunnan: Language, Exegesis, and Power at the Edge of the Theravada World Abstract Bilingual Pali-vernacular versions of the Vinaya, including the core Pātimokkha rules and their ritual framework, are some of the most widespread forms of monastic exegesis in the Theravada world. These bilingual compositions, or bitexts, typically follow an interphrasal format, in which Pali words or short phrases are followed by expanded glosses in a local vernacular. As part of a broader inquiry into how bitexts shaped Buddhist translation across mainland Southeast Asia, this paper focuses on a single Pali-Dai example of the Pātimokkha from early modern Sipsongpanna (today’s Xishuangbanna Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan province, China). This paper compares this text—preserved in facsimile form as part of the massive _Zhongguo beiyejing quanji_ project—with other manuscripts in Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand to reveal how the translation choices made by Dai scholars—into Dai as well as into Chinese—made the Pātimokkha respond to local conceptions of scriptural authority and temporal power. Responding James Robson, Harvard University
	A23-206 Buddhist Critical-Constructive Reflection Unit and Global-Critical Philosophy of Religion Unit Theme: Author Meets Author: Multiple Truths in Buddhist Studies Saturday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM Andrew Taylor, College of St. Scholastica, Presiding Intentionally breaking from the norms of intellectual argument, where one presents a thesis and defends it against critique from others, this roundtable provides an occasion for scholars to reflect and critique their work from multiple perspectives, some complimentary, some adversarial, some exploratory. Led by two moderators who begin by showcasing conflicting reflections on their own scholarship, each panelist will pick a category (gender, identity, state, violence, mind, pluralism, and disciplinary boundaries) and critically reflect on (at least) two modes of engaging with these categories in Buddhist Studies, by making rival arguments that are equally valid. This conversation aims to create a space of openness and vulnerability where difficult dialogues between emic Buddhist and religious studies categories can take place, in hopes that situating a multiplicity of epistemological categories in the mirrors of one another will provide a vantage from which both scholarly and Buddhist notions of truth can be revalued. Panelists Amy P. Langenberg, Eckerd College Kati Fitzgerald, Yale University Kin Cheung, Moravian University Andrew Taylor, College of St. Scholastica Jue Liang, Case Western Reserve University Responding Daigengna Duoer, University of California, Santa Barbara Paula K. R. Arai, Institute of Buddhist Studies
	A23-207 Cognitive Science of Religion Unit Theme: Current Theories and Applications of the Cognitive Science of Religion Saturday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM Jed Forman, University of California, Berkeley, Presiding This panel explores cutting-edge scholarship using current cognitive theories applied research to the study of religion, religions, or religious-related phenomena. It is intentionally broad on scope, focusing on the most-recent and novel applications of CSR. Claire White, California State University, Northridge Harvey Whitehouse, Extreme Social Bonding During Queen Elizabeth’s Funeral Abstract Social scientists have long proposed that funerary rituals foster group cohesion. Our research rigorously tests and refines these long-standing qualitative claims by uncovering the causal mechanisms and quantifiable effects of this universal human behavior. We conducted two preregistered sequential studies following the national funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, exploring the psycho-social pathways to identity fusion and their impact on pro-group commitment among 1,869 British spectators. The initial study, involving 1,632 participants surveyed within two weeks of the funeral, validated predictions that intense sadness during the event correlated with heightened identity fusion and pro-group commitment. The subsequent longitudinal examination, involving 237 participants over 12 months, delved into the causal psycho-social pathways to identity fusion. As expected, the visceral quality of memories exerted a transformative effect on personal identity through processes of personal reflection, ultimately leading to identity fusion via perceived sharedness within the group.This research contributes to accumulating evidence that sharing emotionally intense dysphoric experiences with others, including viewing sacred rituals, leads to incredibly potent social bonding. Mohammadamin Saraei, Alexandra Paxton, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA Dimitris Xygalatas, University of Connecticut Aligned bodies, united hearts: Embodied emotional dynamics of Islamic Congregational ritual Abstract Collective rituals involve coordinating intentions and synchronizing actions to align emotional states and social identities. However, the mechanics of achieving group-level synchrony is yet unclear. We report the results of a naturalistic study in the context of an Islamic congregational prayer that involves synchronous movement. We used wearable devices to capture data on body posture, autonomic responses, and spatial proximity to investigate how postural alignment and shared arousal intertwine during this ritual. The findings reveal a dual process at play: postural alignment appears to be more localized, with worshippers synchronizing their movements with their nearest neighbors, while physiological alignment operates on a broader scale, primarily driven by the central role of the religious leader. Our findings underscore the importance of interpersonal dynamics in collective gatherings and the role of physical co-presence in fostering connections among participants, with implications extending to our understanding of group dynamics across various social settings. Kevin Schilbrack, Appalachian State University Embodied Cognition of Value Abstract In this paper, I argue that embodied cognition helps to undermine the Humean dualism of facts and values. I draw on two contributions to embodied cognition, the concept of affordances (originally developed by Gibson) and the enactive approach (originally developed by Varela, Thompson and Rosch). Gibson argued that the perceiving animal would typically be engaged in some goal-directed activity, and he speaks in this context of the animal’s perception of “affordances,” i.e., value-laden opportunities in their environment. The enactive approach treats cognition as a dynamic system that arises from the interactions between an animal and its environment. Together, these two concepts open the door to a realist account of values. Insofar as religious practices are regimens for training participants in the perception of affordances, we can underaind them as helping people move from novice to competent to expert at recognizing real good and bad in the world. Claire White, California State University, Northridge Dimitris Xygalatas, University of Connecticut Harvey Whitehouse, Sevgi Demiroglu, From the Disaster of the Century to the Solidarity of the Century: Earthquakes Facilitate Social Bonding in Türkiye Abstract This study investigates predictors and consequences of identity fusion, a profound sense of unity with a group, towards Turkish citizens and Syrian refugees following the catastrophic earthquakes in Türkiye on February 6th, 2023. Surveys were administered in-person to 120 Turkish earthquake survivors in the most heavily impacted areas. Results revealed challenges in establishing relationships between emotional intensity, perceived sharedness, and identity fusion due to extreme emotional intensity during the earthquake. However, mean fusion levels significantly increased with perceived shared suffering, validating predictions. Identity fusion also predicted pro-group commitment, measured by volunteerism pledges of Turkish earthquake survivors. As expected, Turkish earthquake survivors exhibited higher pro-group commitment scores than their Syrian counterparts. The study contributes to understanding the complex dynamics of identity fusion in post-catastrophe contexts. Paul Robertson, University of New Hampshire How Filipino (Tagalog) Case Markers Affect the Perception of Supernatural Agency Abstract This paper analyzes CSR theories of SA attribution, and tests them through an online survey from 40 native Filipino speakers who currently reside in the Philippines. Preliminary data suggest that when gods are involved as the subject, they are coded with non-human case markers. We also see differences depending on whether gods are framed in Tagalog or English terms: human case markers are used for English terms for gods (Lord, God, Jesus, etc.) while non-human markers are used for Tagalog terms (Diyos, Panginnon, Hesus, etc.). Such findings support certain of CSR’s theories but also problematize the more universalizing claims around cross-cultural supernatural agent attribution at the heart of certain foundational CSR theories. Courtney Applewhite, Other “Are you still with us?”: The Embodiment of Robot-Induced After Death Experiences Abstract Between 30 and 60% of the population have experienced sense of presence in the form of a deceased loved one (Castelnovo et al., 2015; Elsaesser et al., 2021; Streit-Horn, 2011). These experiences (i.e., ghosts, grief or bereavement hallucinations) may generally be called after death experiences (ADEs). In this paper, I will argue that 4E cognition, or the notion that cognition is shaped by dynamic interactions between the brain, body, and physical/social environments, plays a key role in understanding the cognitive underpinnings and behavioral outcomes of ADEs as both universal experiences and those deemed religious or spiritual. Drawing from mixed-methods experimental research in cognitive neuroscience, I posit that sensorimotor manipulations of a bereaved individual may induce experiences of presence more readily than in non-bereaved. Based on clinical data and preliminary findings, I will explore how future research relying on 4E cognition principles may impact the study of religious or spiritual phenomenon.
	A23-208 Comparative Religious Ethics Unit and Schleiermacher Unit Theme: “One Nation under…?” Nationalisms of the Religions of the World Saturday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM Tracy Tiemeier, Loyola Marymount University, Presiding On February 28, 2024, the Public Religion Research Institute’s survey revealed co-relations between Christian nationalists and support for former President Donald Trump. A homogenizing nationalism is alive and well in the American “melting pot” and is not restricted to certain regimes abroad. The phenomenon of nationalism paired with an interest in militarism empowered by religious adherence is hardly new, however. This roundtable session will reflect upon instances of nationalism—historical and contemporary—that are supported by religious faith and practice in religions of the world from North Africa, South Asia, and China. The presenters may only briefly reference Christianity in order to leave time for Christian reflection by the audience. Panelists Christian Krokus, University of Scranton Nathaniel Berman, Brown University Gopal Gupta, Aurora University Bede Bidlack, Saint Anselm College Peng Yin, Boston University Responding Tracy Tiemeier, Loyola Marymount University

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