All time are listed in Eastern Time Zone.
This event highlights biographies to be included in a volume about women who (1) figure prominently as founders, leaders, activists, participants and supporters in the AAR/SBL Women’s Caucus; (2) reflect the diverse nature of such participants and the traditions they represent; (3) do not have a biographical entry on Wikipedia.
Panel Review of Yii-Jan Lin's Immigration and Apocalypse (Oxford, 2024).
"Parallelism as Conceptual Blending: A Theoretical Foundation"
Elizabeth Robar, Scriptura (30min)
"Parallelism as Conceptual Blending: Case Study in Select Psalms"
Ryan Sikes & Ian Atkinson, Scriptura (1hr)
Workshop in Parallelism as Conceptual Blending
(1h)
"Parallelism as Conceptual Blending: A Theoretical Foundation"
Elizabeth Robar, Scriptura (30min)
"Parallelism as Conceptual Blending: Case Study in Select Psalms"
Ryan Sikes & Ian Atkinson, Scriptura (1hr)
Workshop in Parallelism as Conceptual Blending
(1h)
We will reflect on the journey of the Society of Buddhist Christian Studies thus far as it approaches its 40th anniversary. This session will highlight some milestones of the society’s history. It will gather some members who have been firsthand witnesses of the society’s history. They will reflect on what for them are highlights and milestones of the society’s journey thus far. Based on that, they will also offer insights on how the society can impact Buddhist-Christian studies now and in the future
The next topic for a systematic TWW is the human predicament -- the key to religious, spiritual, and philosophical visions. Relevant evidence can be found in the religious traditions, various disciplines and cultural expressions, and personal experience. What are the salient questions, insights, and articulations?
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While “purity culture” is most associated with the evangelical abstinence teachings and rituals of the 1990s-2000s, featuring purity rings, purity balls, and abstinence pledges, scholars of the movement have recognized how purity culture(s) transcend(s) white evangelicalism, infiltrating broader U.S. culture and policymaking. This Feminist Studies in Religion roundtable convenes interdisciplinary feminist scholars to discuss how purity ideology operates as a dangerous and often invisible force driving the current wave of transgender healthcare bans, DEI rollbacks, ICE deportations, proposed pronatalist policies, U.S. foreign relations, and other current events. This diverse group of panelists will be invited to engage the following questions: where do purity culture logics show up in specific policies or ideologies of the Trump Administration 2.0? How can understanding these policies/ideologies as rooted in purity logics help us better challenge and dismantle them?
This analysis explores the intersection of Kendrick Lamar's artistry, cultural critique, and changing religious perspectives through key events like his Super Bowl Halftime Show and the album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. By juxtaposing his performance with conventional understandings of identity and power structures, Lamar challenges the hypermasculinity and phallogocentrism inherent in hip hop, advocating instead for a rhythmic epistemology that prioritizes collective resonance and inclusivity. His shift from traditional Christian notions of salvation to Eckhart Tolle's concepts of healing and the Ego reflects a broader dissatisfaction with existing religious frameworks for addressing generational trauma. Additionally, the examination of his rap beef with Drake underscores issues of racial authenticity and identity, while highlighting the importance of critical mixed-race ethics that account for multiracial experiences. This multifaceted exploration affirms hip hop's role in shaping narratives around race, identity, and liberation in contemporary society.
Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 Super Bowl halftime performance subverted expectations, transforming hip-hop’s tradition of signifyin’ into an interactive video game. Through this performance, Lamar illuminated hip-hop’s negotiation with phallogocentrism—the privileging of masculine-coded lyrical dominance—and its transition toward pulscentrism, an emergent framework emphasizing rhythm, movement, and collective resonance over rigid textual authority. Drawing from Charles H. Long’s Significations, critical theory, and liberation theology, this paper examines how artists like Kendrick Lamar, Doechii, Megan Thee Stallion, and J Dilla disrupt logocentrism by privileging polyrhythmic structures, kinetic orality, and embodied knowledge. Furthermore, the rise of rhythm-driven genres like Afrobeats, reggaeton, and drill reflects hip-hop’s epistemic shift beyond masculinist lyrical consumption toward a more inclusive and transnational sonic framework. By theorizing a rhythmic hermeneutic of freedom, this paper argues that pulscentrism challenges colonialist knowledge structures, offering new articulations of identity, power, and resistance through hip-hop’s evolving soundscape.
This presentation analyzes Kendrick Lamar's spiritual transformation between DAMN. and Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, arguing that Lamar's incorporation of Eckhart Tolle's philosophy signals a conclusive dissatisfaction with the resources Christian theology offered him to deal with generational trauma. The resulting shift away from concepts like sin, salvation, and final judgment, and new prioritization of healing and freedom through Ego-attentiveness and present-moment awareness offers a stark, yet valuable challenge to Christian theology.
Attending to and analyzing Lamar's work in Mr. Morale (2022) and following--including the Drake feud and his Super Bowl LIX performance--aims to provoke reflective and cooperative conversation around Lamar's evolving spiritual perspective, its implications for theological discourse, and the resources American Christianity (and others) might offer (or fail to offer) in dealing with generational legacies of spiritual deformation, violence, neglect, and/or abuse.
This paper examines the recent rap beef involving Kendrick Lamar and Drake as a case study that highlights the need for the development of critical mixed-race ethics within religious studies. This viral rap beef captivated North American pop culture, not just for the stinging lyrics and West Coast beats, but also because of the ways it unveiled dynamics of power, race, and identity in hip hop. The paper argues that such dynamics within hip hop reflect the presence of the same dynamics in broader North American culture. By analyzing the artists' lyrics, public personas, and the reception history surrounding their feud alongside scholarly writings on multiracial identity, this paper unveils how each artist’s involvement in the beef reflects or disrupts prevailing narratives about race, authenticity, and belonging in hip hop and beyond.
This panel features scholarly engagement with Munther Isaac’s theological reflections on the role of Christian discourse in shaping responses to the crisis in Gaza. Writing as a Palestinian pastor and theologian, Isaac challenges dominant Western Christian narratives that, he argues, have long sustained a colonial project marked by displacement and discrimination since the nineteenth century. Through close readings of biblical texts and historical analysis, Isaac calls for a critical reassessment of the ways Christian theology can either obscure or illuminate structures of violence and inequality. Panelists will consider the broader implications of Isaac’s work for contemporary theological ethics and the politics of solidarity within Christian thought.
