Emerging Scholars in an Emerging Field of Interreligious and Interfaith Studies

What marks the edges of the field of interreligious and interfaith studies in our current moment? Representatives from the Emerging Scholars initiative of the Association of Interreligious/Interfaith Studies (aiistudies.org) propose leading a discussion on current trends in critical theory and interdisciplinary research for the “Graduate Student Education in Interreligious Studies” theme for the interactive workshop. Rather focus on what graduate programs are offering or developing to attract students, we propose  a collaborative presentation and discussion centered on current and recent doctoral student scholarship that engages interreligous/interfaith studies in some way. For our purposes, “recent” means the dissertation project is still underway or was completed in the past two academic years. 

Brief examples of graduate-level research that will be presented includes affect theory and Christian supremacy in religiously plural contexts; the liberal politics that characterize many common practices developed by interfaith organizations in North America; and the opportunities and challenges of interreligious approaches to environmental projects. The aim of our discussion would be to invite other graduate students, junior scholars, and senior scholars into the conversation, working from the idea that the scholarship emerging from different disciplines could help us understand and identify what is on the cutting edge of critical scholarship in the (still) new field of interreligious and interfaith studies. In this way our discussion will showcase what current graduate student education in interreligious studies looks like, the variety of interests on which current graduate research is focused, and what new questions are emerging in the field.