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.


	A23-129 Pentecostal–Charismatic Movements Unit Theme: Keri Day's Azusa Reimagined, the Azusa Street Revival, and Ethical Inquiry Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Convention Center-25A (Upper Level East) Daniel Ramirez, Claremont Graduate University, Presiding This panel takes Keri Day’s Azusa Reimagined (2022) as a starting point for charting new relationships between the Azusa Street Revival and a diverse array of ethical inquiries. Day’s work, which places Azusa Street in the ongoing context of prevailing norms of racial capitalism, fundamentally alters the study of Pentecostalism in the US and widens the range of its potential impacts. From her own reading of the sermons and practices of the Azusa Street Mission, Day draws out a radical critique of racial capitalism and argues for a vision of democratic practices and belonging that prioritize intimacy and grave attending to those on the margins. While serving as an opportunity to respond to Day’s work, this panel also takes Azusa Reimagined as a starting point to think further about the Azusa Street Revival and ethical reflection more generally. Panelists Michelle Bostic, University of Virginia Luke Bretherton, Duke University Creighton Coleman, University of Virginia Erica Ramirez, Auburn Seminary Responding Keri Day, Princeton Theological Seminary
	A23-130 Philosophy of Religion Unit and Political Theology Unit Theme: Economies of Violence: Race, Pathology, Capital, Reason Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Hilton Bayfront-Indigo D (Second Level) Maureen Kelly, Bard HS Early College Manhattan, Presiding This panel challenges the presuppositions that have underwritten the “return of the religious” as a historical and conceptual phenomenon. This return, we argue, is based on a tacit equation of religion and violence that has not only defined modern European philosophy but is also complicit with liberal forms of reason and governmentality. Against this equation, we strategically reinhabit the canons of modern philosophy and political theology. Considering the domains of pathology, capital, reason, and race, we offer a more capacious understanding of violence in both its negative and positive valences. On our readings, violence in its economic and transcendental instantiations is more insidious than often recognized. At the same time, it may be undervalued as a resource for critique and struggle. In all cases, we aim to think violence independently of its dialectical relationship to non-violence in order to face its perils and promises head on. Zoe Anthony, University of Toronto Nietzsche's “War Praxis," Violence, and the Instinct for Healing Abstract This paper explores Nietzsche’s conceptualization of violence as a physiological concept, manifested in degrees of “defense and attack.” This paper situates itself between three areas: Nietzsche’s conceptions of health and sickness, literature on violence within a Nietzschean framework, and broader discussions of health, sickness, religion, and violence. I argue that Nietzsche views the “instinct for violence” as a measure of health, but with certain conditions. By offering an interpretation of Nietzsche’s four-point “war praxis,” and by exploring the counterintuitive proposition that healing requires an instinct for “war,” it argues that disease, for Nietzsche, is not an abnormality but a distorted relationality to reality, rectified by regaining the capacity for war. William Underwood, Oberlin College and Conservatory The Epoch of Annihilation: On the Formal Violence of Capital Abstract In the first volume of Capital, Marx famously describes the historical advent of capitalism as a kind of horror story. Nourished by colonial wars, enslavement, and the massacre of indigenous populations, capital constitutes and sustains itself through a near-limitless exercise of violence, conceivable in both physical and ideological terms. This paper investigates another modality of violence proper to capital, namely, formal violence: the diffuse, but titanic power by which human and non-human entities are constrained to appear as species of value. I develop this concept through the juxtaposition of two related, but distinct treatments of formal violence in the respective work of contemporary philosopher Jean Vioulac and Karl Marx. For Vioulac, formal violence constitutes a quasi-ontological subreption of humans’ essential purposive activity. Re-reading Marx, however, we come to see that formal violence operates on two levels, naming both a structure of phenomenality and the ruse of its false critique. Kirsten Collins, University of Chicago Black Masks, White Masks: Structural Violence in Fanon and Genet Abstract In On Violence, Hannah Arendt defines violence as a tool wielded to serve particular interests, and unjustifiable on universal moral grounds. Drawing on Arendt’s response to Frantz’s Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth and its role in justifying what she terms the “violence” of Black Power political strategies in the 1960s, I turn to Fanon’s earlier Black Skin, White Masks to define the structural violence of racism excluded from Arendt’s definition. Showing how Fanon’s text exposes the racial hierarchy that sacralizes the notion of the human, I place his text in conversation with Jean Genet’s play, The Blacks. Arguing that both works expose the structural violence of race, the rituals that maintain it, and the difficulty of countering it, I show that they both position literary and performative excess as a violence that can counter this structure from within the conventions that maintain them, and give rise to unpredictable political action. Matthew Peterson, University of Southern California The Impossibility of Nonviolence: Metaphysics after Derrida Abstract In 1964, Jacques Derrida published an extensive commentary on the then-little-known Lithuanian Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. The text was an emphatic celebration and devastating critique of the latter’s attempt to break with the inherent violence of philosophical language through recourse to religious sources. Sixty years after the initial publication of “Violence and Metaphysics,” I argue that this essay still contends that the best we can ever hope for is mitigating violence. In dialogue with Martin Hägglund, Sarah Hammerschlag, and Jean Vioulac, I address its contemporary purchase along the axes of politics, technology, and religion. On my reading, religious concepts are insufficient to break the complicity between theory and technological-political oppression. At the same time, the thought of God is ineluctably produced by war and violence. These problems converge around the question of Zionism, a theme in the background of Derrida’s questioning that today must be explicitly submitted to its demands. Responding Daniel Schultz, Whitman College
	A23-131 Psychology, Culture, and Religion Unit Theme: Breathing Life into Religion through Teaching, Research, and Writing: Building on the Contributions of Bonnie Miller-McLemore Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Convention Center-11B (Upper Level West) Eileen Campbell-Reed, Union Theological Seminary, Presiding The corpus of Bonnie Miller-McLemore’s writing makes invaluable contributions to the study of lived religion, practical theology, and theological education. She shines a bright light of critique on deep intractable problems, misdirection(s) of overlapping disciplines of study, and unavoidable conundrums at the intersection of theology and practice. As an undisputed leader among practical theologians for 30 years, Miller-McLemore constructed significant ideas about theological method, research, writing, teaching, and practicing faith. Her contributions, however, often appear in articles and books inaccessible to students and beginners. Participants in this round table will discuss how to translate Miller-McLemore’s critiques and concepts for our students who are learning to study religion, engage theology, take up writing, and practice ministry (broadly defined). Rather than continue the amnesia that keeps re-inventing important ideas, we aim to proliferate and popularize Miller-McLemore’s contributions, giving more people access to everyday approaches to the intersection of theology and practice. Panelists Peter Capretto, Phillips Theological Seminary Katharine Lassiter, Meadville Lombard Theological School James I. Higginbotham, Earlham School of Religion Melinda McGarrah Sharp, Columbia Theological Seminary Kishundra King, Iliff School of Theology Responding Bonnie Miller-McLemore, Vanderbilt University
	A23-132 Quaker Studies Unit, Religion and Human Rights Unit, and Religion and Politics Unit Theme: The Religious Logics of Nonviolent Action Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Hilton Bayfront-Indigo C (Second Level) Seulbin Lee, Vanderbilt University, Presiding This session explores the religious logics of a variety of nonviolent movements, ranging from the civil disobedience of M.K. Gandhi to the legal efforts of Quaker conscientious objectors in the U.S. The papers examine the intersection of religious principles and spiritual development with nonviolent direct action – whether on the streets, in legislatures, or in the courts – and each paper complicates conventional conceptions of nonviolent action in important ways." Isaac May, Yale University Litigating the Draft and the Peace Testimony after World War I Abstract This paper argues that Quaker's legal efforts against the draft in federal courts, draft boards, and military tribunals need to be understood as core to their pursuit of the Quaker peace testimony in the twentieth-century United States. It contends that Quakers of an earlier period had tried to avoid interactions with the legal system, handling disputes internally; they increasingly relied on lawyers and legal expertise. The paper argues this shift to legal activism also made the Quaker peace testimony startlingly effective; legal victories helped to undermine the draft to such a degree that by the early 1970s, it was no longer a viable policy. Johanna Mueller, Stanford University Negotiating the Right to Nonviolence: American Mennonite Conscientious Objectors in World War I Abstract This paper explores the impact of the Wilson administration’s 1917 Selective Service Act on pacifist religious minorities in the United States, using American Mennonites as a case study. As the first successful universal draft law in the nation’s history, its implementation changed the demands of (male) US citizenship in a way that made it difficult for members of historic peace churches to comply. Mennonites—whose ancestors had emigrated from Europe to escape religious persecution; often specifically to avoid draft laws—made up the majority of this group. Although the Selective Service Act made provisions for the exemption of religious “conscientious objectors” from combatant service, both the terms of exemption and its implementation continued to be negotiated throughout the war. For the first time in US history, the community was forced to make a case for the recognition of their theological commitment to the principle of nonresistance to the US government. I argue that conscientious objectors in WW I were early actors in the movement towards a more thorough accommodation of minoritized communities’ rights to freely exercise their religion in the US. Darren Yau, Princeton University The Ethics of Non-Violence’s Power: On Collective Action & Sanctions Abstract Non-violent action has often struggled to find its place within contemporary ethical and political theory. While often conflated with absolute pacifism and civil disobedience, this paper draws instead on social scientists who demonstrate the tremendous expressive range of social movements that claim the banner of “non-violent action.” But once non-violent action can be associated with a range of tactics—from prayer vigils to law-breaking to statue destruction—how ought we think about the norms that govern non-violent action? Using recent work in sanctioning and debates in just war theory, this paper proposes that for large scale collective actions, the use pressure and economic harm to achieve a movement’s goal can be understood under a general ethics of sanctioning. Applying basic intuitions in just war thought for the ethics of social movements yields larger insights about contemporary non-violence’s relation to debates in labor history and war, rather than absolute pacifism. Daniel Wyche, University of Chicago From the Scale of Despotism to the Scale of Freedom: Violence and Perfectionism in the Nonviolent Tradition Abstract This paper addresses the ways that several major figures in the nonviolent tradition, including William Lloyd Garrison, MK Gandhi, and M.L. King Jr., understand the place of violence in the service of just causes from the perspective of principled nonviolence. I argue that only a genuinely principled, rather than merely practical, commitment to nonviolence can render violent protest intelligible, in ways that challenge standard ethical outlooks. These perspectives present especially productive challenges for forms of virtue ethics and moral perfectionism. Business Meeting Scott Culpepper, Dordt University, Presiding Ann Duncan, Goucher College, Presiding
	A23-133 Reformed Theology and History Unit Theme: Eschatology 1 Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Convention Center-26A (Upper Level East) Cambria Kaltwasser, Northwestern College, Orange City, Presiding This session centers on the traditional four last things in eschatology (death, judgment, heaven, and hell) from a Reformed perspective. It offers fresh approaches to disability, mortality, and hell, drawing on insights from Calvin, Barth, and others, and reinterpreting these in light of present demands. Preston Hill, Richmont Graduate University WITHDRAWN: Holy Saturday in Calvin’s Theology: Recovering a Forgotten Theme in Reformed Eschatology Abstract Given the cottage-industry of research on John Calvin, it is surprising there are no substantial studies on his interpretation of Christ’s descent into hell despite the centrality of this theme in his thought. Some emerging studies have clarified that Calvin’s interpretation was not novel given his inherited tradition. However, it has not yet been clarified that Calvin primarily interpreted the descensus in relation to eschatological themes on soul-sleep, the intermediate state, and Holy Saturday. In this paper, I survey the eschatological context of Calvin’s descensus interpretation and show how this context was decisive for Calvin’s enduring opinion and included a robust theology of Holy Saturday. This eschatological evidence contradicts a widespread misunderstanding that Calvin reduced the descensus to a metaphor for the cross, which cannot be the case, since for Calvin the descensus refers to the soul of Christ and its relation to the state of souls after physical death. Arnold Huijgen, Protestant Theological University To Hell and Back: Christ's Descent into Hell as Interpretive Key to Current Hell-Talk Abstract The doctrine of hell represents the dark side of traditional Reformed eschatology, which many reject or ignore. Meanwhile, the language of hell is on the rise in society ("climate hell", mental health issues, wars). This paper seeks to connect traditional understandings of hell with present-day "hell talk" by a reinterpretation of Christ's descent into hell. Eastern traditions understand this as Christ's victory over death, and John Calvin interpreted it as the depth of Christ's sufferings. This paper adds the exclusion of humans by humans as third layer. In dialogue with Hannah Arendt's reflections on hell and punitive methods, this paper reinterprets hell christologically. Taylor Holleyman, Baylor University Total Mortality: Reformed Reflections on the Death of the Soul Abstract This paper puts forward the argument that, so long as it does not inhibit the preaching of eternal hope and security, it is both right and profitable to assert the death of the soul. This argument builds on two premises: (1) If total depravity, then total mortality; (2) That which does not die cannot be resurrected. If the soul is something that is corrupted by sin and something that participates in the resurrected life, then it is also a thing that dies. Toward this end, to speak of the immortality of the soul is at least misleading and bares the possibility of being altogether incorrect. By affirming the death of the soul, we can minimize body/soul dualisms and metaphysical speculations, resting instead on the proclamation of the gospel: That which was dead has been raised to life! Daniel Rempel, University of Aberdeen Liberation beyond Action: Witness, Disability, and Glimpses of the Eschaton Abstract In the recent turn to liberation in Christian theology, personal action and advocacy are paramount. Such action is indeed liberating for many oppressed minorities, but fails to take account of the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities, many of whom are unable to self-advocate. In this paper, by drawing on Barth’s theology of witness, I argue that the invading work of Christ through the Spirit in the life of Christians provides a means by which those with profound intellectual abilities experience the liberation of God. As they are liberated by the action of God, people with intellectual disabilities are simultaneously empowered to witness to this liberatory event, thus becoming sites of liberation themselves. As witnesses to their own liberation, people with intellectual disabilities offer glimpses of the coming kingdom of God, disrupting our tidy eschatological vision by the Kingdom appearing in the places some may least expect.
	A23-134 Religion and Economy Unit and Religion and Memory Unit Theme: The Costs of Memory and Ethical Economies of (Un)Just Remembrance Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Hilton Bayfront-Sapphire L (Fourth Level) Rebecca Bartel, San Diego State University, Presiding This panel explores metaphors and practices of painful and potentially costly memory. The papers focus on the ethics of remebering and the stakes of collective memory in processes of justice. How, the papers ask, does studying religion and the capital costs of remembering inform the ways that the economies of memory are tied to power? Laura Simpson, Villanova University Narrative and Reproductions of Power at the Prison Museum Abstract Amid growing public enthusiasm for “dark tourism” excursions—that is, travel to locations featuring an engagement with the deathly, horrific, or macabre—the American prison museum has become an increasingly lucrative site of intellectual and affective stimulation. Over the last two decades, an expanding collection of scholarship in the fields of architecture, history, sociology, and criminology has sought to address the purpose, appeal, and ethics of the prison museum, with particular attention to its role as a site of cultural memory and meaning-making. The present paper builds on this literature to explore the ways that the prison museum functions temporally – that is, how it reproduces (and occasionally refuses) linear understandings of time that underwrite popular appeals to American progress. Zachary Taylor, University of Chicago The Costs of Unjust Memory in Augustine’s City of God Abstract In a recent essay, Richard Miller claims that Augustine presumes a duty to remember justly in the City of God. However, Miller’s cursory reference to a presumed duty of “just memory” does not explain how Augustine conceptualizes this duty, or how it relates to his theological concerns. In this paper, I demonstrate how Augustine presumes a duty to remember truly for the sake of justice in the City of God. I first analyze the relationship between forgetting and the earthly city, then explain how the earthly city’s logic of forgetting contributes to a false remembrance that denies the suffering of empire’s victims. Ultimately, I conclude that Augustine understands just remembrance as an obligation of properly ordered love. For Augustine, our failure to fulfill this obligation comes at the cost of a distorted view of the created order that inhibits our capacity for loving relation with God and other persons. Jeannine Hill Fletcher, Fordham University The Price and Pain of Memory: Institutional Reckoning with White Supremacy Abstract For nearly twenty years, institutions of higher education have been increasingly coming to terms with their histories of racial violence involved with slavery and its afterlives. From the 2006 Brown University Slavery and Justice Report to the 2024 Yale & Slavery Research Project, the work of recovering histories has become a practice of institutional reckoning. It is, in a sense, a project that requires reconstituting painful memories that have been willfully erased. Following the theoretical path of Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, this work of uncovering histories and reconstituting institutional memory is part of the truth-telling necessary as a first step to healing from our national trauma of White supremacy and racism. But what are the many costs -- financial, emotional, personal and institutional -- for doing this essential work? Responding Timothy Rainey, St. Olaf College
	A23-135 Religion and Politics Unit Theme: Religion and/or a State: Jewish, Islamic, and Buddhist Perspectives Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Hilton Bayfront-Sapphire 411B (Fourth Level) Marie W. Dallam, University of Oklahoma, Presiding This panel of five papers explores aspects of how religions or religious communities benefit or suffer from ties between religion and state, and/or the ramifications of such ties. The geographical range of the papers is wide, including Israel, the United States, the Arab world, India/Pakistan, Indonesia, and Japan. They cohere through investigating the nexus between religion and state as it relates to issues including “diasporism,” Zionism, the caliphate, the concepts of popular sovereignty and constituent power, religiously-sourced redefinitions of the religious and the political, and the ways in which religious doctrine, art, and ritual may reinforce political authority. Shaul Magid, Dartmouth College Jewish Nationality and Diaspora Nationalism: Reading Louis Brandeis through Daniel Boyarin Abstract There is not much of a connection between Louis Brandeis and rabbinics scholar Daniel Boyarin. But in this paper, I argue that Brandeis’ 1915 essay on Zionism “The Jewish Problem and How to Solve it” and Boyarin’s 2023 anti-Zionist manifesto No-State Solution share a great deal in their understanding of the Diaspora and Jewish nationalism/nationality. I will argue that we can see Brandeis’ Zionism anew through the lens of Boyarin and Boyarin’s anti-Zionism anew though the lens of Brandeis, each aware of the dangers of an ethnostate and each committed to a robust Jewish life lived among others, particularly in America. Simon Wood, University of Nebraska, Lincoln A Religion and/or a State: Revisiting the Abolition of the Caliphate Abstract This conference coincides with the 100-year anniversary of the caliphate’s abolition. Initially sensational, the sense of shock it precipitated dissipated fairly quickly. Thus, it might be asked: why, beyond historical interest, is the caliphate a topic for conversation in 2024? Beyond the endurance of the caliphal ideal, however imaginary, one may point to a turn occurring around the end of the twentieth century. The sense that secularisms had failed to deliver led to interest in revisiting the caliphate and the works of those who had embraced, reimagined, or rejected it. This paper examines the works of two such authors: Rashid Rida and Ali Abdel Razek. While the two were rhetorically opposed, some authorities find that the implications of their discourses actually have much in common. This reading rests on the claim that Rida, in effect, pointed towards a partitioning of religious and secular. I argue that this claim overreaches. Danielle Widmann Abraham, Ursinus College Legible Solidarity: Women’s Politics in Conflict and Post-Conflict Aceh. Abstract Throughout the period of separatist conflict, women in Aceh organized to remediate the effects of armed conflict on women, including addressing the use of sexual violence as a tactic of war. Like women across the world, they sought to have women’s experiences (of violence) and material reality integrated into the political sphere. If Acehnese women’s conflict-era discourse represented an attempt to expand the sphere of the political, then their post-conflict discourse signals a multiplication of axes of expansion. Tracing the transformation of politics in Aceh from the conflict period to the post-conflict sharia regime allows us to see how women’s organizations coordinated a challenge to the instantiation of Islamist politics with a distinct, Islamically-sourced Muslim politics of solidarity. The political project of women’s organizations in post-conflict Aceh, especially their opposition to the new sharia criminal code, can thus be characterized as a struggle to make solidarity legible to the state. Andrew F. March, The Discovery of Popular Sovereignty in Modern Islamic Thought: The Question of Constituent Power Abstract Constituent authority refers to the idea of the original source of legitimate government, the right to authorize the exercise of political power, or the authority to create a new constitutional order. Modern Islamic legal and political theory has struggled with the concept of constituent authority (al-sulṭa al-taʾsīsiyya). On the one hand, most Islamic political doctrines hold that governance itself is divinely ordained and specific offices are also required by the divine law. On the other hand, modern Sunni political thought has sought to deepen its commitment to popular sovereignty and the ultimate authority of the people over public institutions. This has led to a rich debate in modern Islamic thought about the scope of constituent authority: are specific offices and institutions seen as ordained by God, thus locating all constituent authority in the interpretation of divine law, or are powers to create and authorize new institutions assigned to other agents? Responding Curtis Hutt, University of Nebraska, Omaha
	A23-136 Ritual Studies Unit Theme: Creating and Reshaping Rituals with Political Stakes Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Hilton Bayfront-Aqua 300 (Third Level) Courtney Applewhite, Other, Presiding The political instrumentalization of ritual performances is as old as ritual itself. The contributors to this panel present a variety of cases in which rituals are created or reshaped to propagate national ideologies and to rehabilitate those whom civil institutions have marginalized. Soodeh Mansouri, University of California- Santa Barbara Hajj as a Political Ritual Abstract This paper presents how Hajj, as one of the five pillars of Islam, modified and became a political ritual with aggressive aspects that represent political and sectarian conflicts and struggles between Saudi Arabia and Iran at both structural and individual levels in post-revolution of 1979. Theoretically, the paper is based on new formulation of political ritual concept and methodologically, it is based on content analysis of speeches, photos, open messages and Hajj costumes for Iranian pilgrims. Lukey Ellsberg, Yale University A New Nuclear Metaphysics: Civil Defense Rituals and the Reclamation of Possibility Abstract This paper argues that early American civil defense drills, large-scale rehearsals for nuclear war performed in cities across the United States, are usefully interpreted as rituals inscribing new nuclear metaphysics. The Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) operated with the stated goal of preparing the nation for surviving atomic attack, even as planners privately acknowledged the implausibility of national survival. This paper argues that an under-theorized tactic—if not goal—of the FCDA was the transmission of a nuclear metaphysics assigning ultimate causative power to the bomb itself. Bringing scholarship on civil defense from the fields of affect theory, performance studies, and cultural criticism into contact with the framework of ritual to reevaluate the FCDA archive allows a clearer evaluation of these metaphysics. This paper further argues that the reinscription of the bomb as a metaphysical entity rendered invisible all forms of imperial violence other than total nuclear war. Renee Cyr, University of Kansas After Time Served: Utilizing Rituals to Transition Back Into Society Following War or Incarceration Abstract For centuries, civilizations and communities around the world have utilized ceremonial rites of passage to welcome home returning warriors. Yet today, veteran reintegration into society after being deployed in a war context is often a fraught process. We don’t have a standardized ritual or a structured method of offering returning soldiers a sense of purification, emotional release, or the time and space for personal healing. When soldiers are too quickly reintegrated it can be detrimental to their mental health, overall well-being, and the well-being of their families. In a similar vein, people returning to society after incarceration are often plagued by both the trauma of their past actions and their experiences in prison. Yet a rite of purification and intentional reintegration is not part of the prison release process. In this paper I utilize Turner’s social drama theory to examine two organizations tat offer models of what a reintegration ritual might look like. Responding Sarah M. Pike, California State University, Chico
	A23-137 Science, Technology, and Religion Unit Theme: Author Meets Critics Book Panel: Critical Approaches to Science and Religion (Myrna Perez, Ahmed Ragab, and Terence Keel, eds.) Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Convention Center-26B (Upper Level East) Donovan Schaefer, University of Pennsylvania, Presiding The essays in Critical Approaches to Science and Religion (edited by by Myrna Perez, Ahmed Ragab, and Terence Keel, published in 2023) deploy three methodological orientations--critical race theory, feminist and queer theory, and postcolonial theory--to offer fresh perspectives on classic questions in the field of science and religion. This unique roundtable will bring four readers of the book with expertise in a range of different religious traditions into dialogue with two of the book's editors to build a collaborative, multidisciplinary conversation. Panelists Megan Loumagne, Elizabeth Perez, University of California, Santa Barbara Peter Harrison, University of Queensland James Miller, Duke Kunshan University Responding Terence Keel, University of California, Los Angeles Myrna Perez, Ohio University Business Meeting Donovan Schaefer, University of Pennsylvania, Presiding Heather Mellquist Lehto, University of Toronto, Presiding
	A23-138 South Asian Religions Unit Theme: New Directions in South Asia Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Convention Center-32A (Upper Level East) Aarti Patel, Pennsylvania State University, Presiding The New Directions panel introduces new research in the study religion in South Asia by recently-graduated Ph.D. students and doctoral candidates. This year's papers examine wide ranging topics including Pakistani khwaja sara, Da’udi Bohras, medical missionary work, and Sanskrit philosophical texts. In doing so, panelists consider the intersections of religion with gender, caste, authority, and literary genre. Khadeeja Majoka, Columbia University The Khwaja Sara in Faqiri Abstract This paper explores the lifeworlds of third gender khwaja saras in Pakistan within the expansive, underexplored religious tradition of Faqiri. Faqiri refers to the transgressive, often antinomian, tradition of Sufi holy poverty. Khwaja saras in Pakistan have been the locus of well-meaning activism and legislation to integrate them into the state as rights-bearing subjects through the secular category of Trans, which has also produced a strong backlash from right-wing conservatives. Drawing on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in which my khwaja sara interlocuters turn to Faqiri to explain what Trans and other categories fail to capture, I argue that both khwaja sara lifeworlds and Faqiri produce gendered selves that cannot be flattened into secular categories. Moreover, what unites those “in Faqiri” – from low-caste Hindus to transgressive mystics to occult practitioners to peripatetic animal entertainers is a subaltern religious imagination that defies and exceed the state’s conceptions of “Islam” and “religion” and “Sufism.” Vineet Gupta, Vanderbilt University From the Miracle-performer to Reformer: Articulating Authority among the Da’udi Bohras of South Asia, 1803-1921 Abstract This paper examines how modernity has altered the notions of authority in a South Asian Muslim devotional community. In focus are the Da’udi Bohras, a close-knit community of Shi‘i Isma‘ili Muslim merchants led by a lineage of holy men called da‘i al-mutlaq (or da‘i, the summoner). In response to colonial modernity, the Indic caste of Bohras (Gujarati, traders) became a global Isma‘ili community, claiming to be the true heir to the Fatimid-Isma‘ili heritage. This redefinition has also seen the representation of the da‘i shifting from a miracle-performing “perfect guide” to a scholarly figure. Such articulations have significant implications for the post-colonial identity of the Bohras and Muslim communities in South Asia. Stephanie Duclos-King, University of Toronto Are They Saviors? Medical Missionaries in the Development Sector Abstract In this paper I examine the Christian Medical College (CMC) founded by a Protestant medical missionary, Dr. Ida Scudder (1870-1960) in 1900 in Vellore, South India. I focus on the work conducted in the department of the Rural Unit of Health and Social Affairs (RUHSA), an NGO offshoot of the CMC founded in 1977. I draw primarily on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at RUHSA in the summer of 2023, supplemented with archival records from “The Ida Scudder Papers,” an extensive archive dedicated to Ida Scudder and the CMC. I use one of the self-help groups on campus as a case study to explore how developmental ideals are translated into action, and how the women within the self-help group interact with those ideals. I argue that the racial capital accrued by foreign missionaries has found new expressions in both caste and religious positionality in modern day medical missionary endeavors. Hershini Soneji, University of Cambridge Vādagrantha as Genre: The Systematisation of a Commentarial Tradition Abstract In scholarly treatments of Sanskrit textual traditions, the genre of commentary (bhāṣya) has generally overshadowed a closely adjacent genre known as vādagrantha, no doubt a result of its capacious and elusive nature. This paper focuses on the Svāminārāyaṇa-Siddhānta-Sudhā, a 21st-century vādagrantha text of the theistic Vedānta school Akṣara-Puruṣottama Darśana. It first engages with definitional questions concerning the nature and purpose of this genre—which appears prominently across the Vedānta, Nyāya, Mīmāṃsā, and Buddhist traditions—and locates its conceptual origin in the eponymous Nyāya notion of vāda. The paper demonstrates the significance of this genre in two respects: 1) its concern first and foremost with ideas, as opposed to the shastric texts alone, and in turn 2) its crucial relevance in systematising the beliefs of a religious tradition in a Sanskrit philosophical register, in view of a particular socio-historical context. Responding Jennifer Ortegren, Middlebury College
	A23-139 Special Session Theme: Rethinking Religious Studies Programs Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Convention Center-28D (Upper Level East) Katherine Dugan, Springfield College, Presiding The place of Religious Studies programs, majors, and courses feels precarious: departments and programs are being cut, enrollments are down, and the question of how to maintain thriving programs is on many of our minds. The challenges of attracting and retaining students is ever-present. We propose a lightning-round-style roundtable to focus on practical and innovative strategies that departments have used to successfully increase and retain enrollments. Our colleagues are changing department names, changing program goals, redesigning courses, and renaming classes. This is an opportunity to discuss and share strategies that have and are working in response to these challenges. The work of figuring out how to reimagine our place in the landscape of higher education is falling on us, as scholars and professors in Religious Studies. This proposal for Teaching Tactics/Teaching Gift Exchange centers solutions and strategies for maintaining vibrant Religious Studies programs. Panelists Adrienne Krone, University of Calgary Julie Byrne, Hofstra University Susan Ridgely, University of Wisconsin, Madison Adrienne Ambrose, University of the Incarnate Word Amy Howe, Champlain College and Smith College
	A23-140 Status of LGBTIQ+ Persons in the Professions Committee Theme: Special Topics Forum: The Status of Trans Scholars and Scholarship in the Study of Religion Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Convention Center-5B (Upper Level West) Siobhan Kelly, Harvard University, Presiding This roundtable will reflect on the current status and future directions for trans scholars and trans scholarship in the study of religion. We will hear from innovative scholars across the field on the conditions for trans scholars today and how we hope to see these conditions improve in the future, as well as on the present and future of trans scholarship in the field. How might trans scholars best be able to thrive in the study of religion, particularly given entrenched resistance to trans life from many religious leaders across the globe? What transformative scholarship will the present and future generations of trans scholars of religion contribute to our guild? Panelists J Selke, University of California, Riverside Sahin Acikgoz, University of California, Riverside Bee Scherer, Intersectional Centre for Inclusion and Social Justice Max Thornton, Drake University Cecilio Cooper, Science History Institute Lake Stein, Fordham University
	A23-141 Teaching Religion Unit Theme: Teaching Tactics Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Hilton Bayfront-Sapphire 400B (Fourth Level) Kate DeConinck, Other, Presiding This interactive session will feature short presentations of specific "tactics" -- a single activity, lesson, or other piece -- for teaching religion. Each presenter will demonstrate their tactic, and then the audience will have time to discuss questions and possible applications in different types of classrooms/settings. Jill DeTemple, Southern Methodist University Teaching Tactic/Gift Exchange: Dialogic Moment Abstract Teaching and Learning literature often underscores the value of inviting students to connect what they know to previous experiences as well as sociality and what Eyler (2018) calls "beautiful questions" as beneficial for learning (Rovai 2022, Cozolino 2013, Bandura 1977, Vygotsky 1980). This quick demonstration will introduce "dialogic moments" as a way of connecting students to course content and each other at the beginning of a class. After opening the session with a dialogic question meant to demonstrate the approach, participants will be invited to think of one question appropriate for their context and field test it in small groups in the room. April Simpson, Georgetown College Reading Old Mail: Interpreting Paul's Letters Abstract As an introduction to the challenges of interpreting ancient primary texts, and especially letters, students are invited to analyze an image of a short personal letter between sisters written just over a decade ago. Students are not given any context for the letter, however, and are led through a process of identifying cultural information and analyzing the author’s apparent intentions in order to maximize understanding of the letter. The conversation posits explanations—with varying degrees of confidence—for some of the letter’s contents while leaving other references unexplained. This activity is designed as a segue into study of the Pauline letters, but it can be applied to other letters or primary sources. John Miller, University of North Carolina In the Jurist’s Seat: Teaching Analogical Reasoning by Debating Intoxicants in Islamic Jurisprudence Abstract In an recent contribution to Islamic studies pedagogy, Shahzad Bashir noted that “theological, nativist, and orientalist” modalities of teaching frequently persist, even in well-intentioned courses on Islam (A New Vision). Carl Ernst likewise articulates the need to destabilize stereotypes of Muslims as automatons, rotely applying scriptural texts (Not Just Academic!). In a recent course on “Islamic Law, Ethics, and Practice” these pedagogical interventions were pursued when students chose the roles of legal theorists (faqihs), oral advocates (wakils), and judges (qadis) and deployed the rational toolkit of Muslim legal thinkers. In the august setting of law school courtroom, student-jurists debated whether, based on analogical reasoning (qiyas) a Qur’anic injunction against wine rationally entailed a prohibition of kombucha, cigarettes, psilocybin, or caffeine. In reaching the divergent conclusions with the same sources and methods, students experienced firsthand the domain of Islamic law as an arena of spirited debate, rational disagreement, and nuanced analysis. Holly Hillgardner, Bethany College Teaching Tactic: Role Playing Religious Voices at a Judy Chicago-Inspired Dinner Party Abstract Using food, art, and role playing, students and professors throw a dinner party, inspired by Judy Chicago's installation art project "The Dinner Party." John Soboslai, Montclair State University Martha Smith, Fullerton College Immersive Religion: Harnessing Extended Reality in Teaching about Religious Practices Abstract Immersive Religion is a web-based, extended reality resource for teaching about religious practices. Joining 360-degree footage of diverse religious practices with translations, video interviews with scholars and religious professionals, interactive 3d objects, virtual tours of sacred spaces, and other explanatory elements, Immersive Religion offers an engaging and interactive resource for integration into a host of religious studies classes. This "Teaching Tactics" demonstration will introduce the resource and provide attendees with a sample lesson plan that models active, experiential classroom learning using Immersive Religion, adaptable to participants’ own courses. Business Meeting Kate DeConinck, Other, Presiding Joseph Tucker Edmonds, Indiana University Indianapolis, Presiding
	A23-142 Theology and Religious Reflection Unit Theme: Imagining Possible Futures with Mark Jordan's Queer Callings Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Omni-Grand B (Fourth Floor) Linn Tonstad, Yale University, Presiding Using Mark Jordan's Queer Callings: Untimely Notes on Names and Desires (Fordham, 2023) as a jumping-off point, this roundtable considers the possible futures into which it invites its readers. If the history of identity shows it as a tool that carries with it constrictions that may limit the possibilities through which queer and trans people understand themselves, how do we write into new (or rework old) languages of sexuality and spirituality? How do we honor the role that spirituality, as a non-teleological openness to what has not been captured by the forces that insist on thingifying the world, has played in the lives and work of queer and trans people? Panelists Mark Jordan, Harvard University Amaryah Shaye Armstrong, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Cesar Baldelomar, Boston College Harrison Hall, Harvard University Business Meeting Linn Tonstad, Yale University, Presiding Abdul Rahman MUSTAFA, University of Paderborn, Presiding
	A23-143 Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society Unit Theme: Mining the Prophetic Wisdom of Womanist Scholar Jacquelyn Grant Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Convention Center-29D (Upper Level East) Terri Laws, University of Michigan, Dearborn, Presiding On the 35th Anniversary of womanist scholar Jacquelyn Grant’s teaching career and retirement, a look at the constructive theological contributions in the seminal text, White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Responses (1989), Perspectives on Womanist Theology (1995). Grant has been featured in many publications and media tributes and served on numerous international and national organizations as a noted pioneer in the first generation of self-identified Womanists matriculating from Union Theological Seminary. Panelists Ashlyn Strozier, Georgia State University Linda Thomas, Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago Iris Manburg, University of Chicago Rose Archer, Kelly Brown Douglas, Episcopal Divinity School At Union Theological Seminary Responding Jacquelyn Grant, Interdenominational Theological Center Business Meeting Valerie Miles-Tribble, Berkeley School of Theology, Presiding Melanie Jones Quarles, Union Presbyterian Seminary, Presiding
	A23-144 Women and Religion Unit Theme: Feminist Intersectional Approaches to Transforming Violence: Perspectives from Emerging Scholars Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Convention Center-31B (Upper Level East) 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, Southern Methodist University 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 Convention Center-33A (Upper Level East) 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, Fuller Theological Seminary 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, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago 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 Hilton Bayfront-Aqua 314 (Third Level) 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, Utica University 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 Hilton Bayfront-Aqua 311A (Third Level) Karmen MacKendrick, Le Boyne College, 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.
	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 Hilton Bayfront-Sapphire P (Fourth Level) 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, East Tennessee State University 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.

« first
‹ previous
…
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
…
next ›
last »

You are here

Online Program Book