In-person November Annual Meeting 2025 Program Book

Myanmar is known for its prolonged and unjust military rule. The people of Myanmar have upheld the legacy of resisting the military regime for over seventy years. In this paper, I argue that the legacy of the resistance movement in Myanmar has profoundly influenced Kachin Baptist women’s struggle for equality within the church and society. First, I trace back the resistance movements against the military regime. Next, I present the impacts of the legacy of the resistance movement on Myanmar people. Finally, I discuss the effects of the resistance movement on Kachin Baptist women and how they respond to dictators and dictator-like church leaders. Like Myanmar female activists, Kachin Baptist women also seek to end dictatorship both in the church and in the state. To support my argument, I employ postcolonial feminist and liberative approaches in dialogue with various scholars.  

As a way of opening space for themselves in a religious world that otherwise refuses to recognize them, queer and trans Thai Buddhist artists in Bangkok have developed an array of innovative aesthetic practices to re-work key Buddhist philosophies, materialities, and rituals and expand the Buddhist path. Queer and trans Thai people have generally appeared in scholarship as victims of religious prohibitions and exclusions. But I approach them instead as agents who actively re-shape Thai Buddhist practices and beliefs. Through their art-making, they at once re-define and strengthen their connections to Thai Buddhism. By working with Buddhist materials—ritual flowers, live fish, monastic robes, rope, and so on—these artists create new relationships with their own bodies, the natural world, and the Buddhist teachings, forging what I call “Buddhist material intimacies.” The result is a profound revisioning of Buddhist ethics for themselves and on behalf of other queer and trans Thai people.

Malaysia’s identity is shaped by its multi-ethnic and multireligious landscape, yet the 1957 Constitution privileges the Malay-Muslim majority. Since the 1970s, ethno-religious nationalism has intensified, marginalizing non-Malay, non-Muslim communities. Race and religion remain central to Malaysian identity, with legal structures reinforcing Malay-Muslim hegemony (Ketuanan Melayu). Malay Islamic nationalists challenge Christianity’s place in Malaysia due to its colonial legacy, yet the Malaysian Christian population is growing, particularly among indigenous populations. This paper argues that Christianity functions as a two-way bulwark: the Church protects indigenous communities from Islamization, while indigenous Christians safeguard the Church from political suppression. Islamization, tied to modernization efforts, is resisted through indigenous self-determination. While non-Malay bumiputera Christians play a crucial role, their precarious position raises sustainability concerns for the Church writ large. Ultimately, the paper concludes with an alternative vision for the church that surpasses tactful political strategy: peacemaker and reconciler. 

This paper reevaluates the portrayal of Cut Nyak Din (1848-1908), an iconic figure in Acehnese resistance against Dutch colonial rule, examining how her image as a religious and nationalist heroine was sculpted by both colonial and post-colonial narratives. Analyzing Dutch texts and Acehnese oral traditions, it reveals the strategic use of her story in constructing national identity and advancing socio-political agendas. The study highlights the intersection of gender and religion in nationalistic discourse, challenging traditional gender roles and illustrating the manipulation of historical memory. Cut Nyak Din's transformation into a symbol of freedom and resistance offers insights into the governance of historical narratives, reflecting broader themes of cultural resilience and the complexities of freedom movements within Southeast Asia.

A fresh and specific context-based reflection is necessary and will be helpful to revisit both their relationship and respective theological implications. This proposed paper presentation would like to argue for the primacy of liberation by engaging and reflecting on the sufferings, struggles, resistances, and aspirations the oppressed masses and ethnic minorities in Myanmar, and by reviewing failing efforts of peace and reconciliation led by successive military regimes. Three basic tenets of liberative theology, namely, the preferential option for the poor, the centrality of praxis, and the epistemological privilege of the oppressed and marginalized, will be revisited and employed as methodological guides to explore and reflect on the liberative struggles, both violent and nonviolent ways of resistance against brutal military oppressions, of the oppressed and ethnic minorities in Myanmar.

I examine the socio-political dynamics between conservative Protestant groups and far-right politics in South Korea, focusing on the social unrest following the recent impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol and the political mobilization of the church led by Pastor Jeon Kwang Hoon. Through historical, sociological, and theological analysis, I explore how violent religious rhetoric, political ideology, and socio-economic grievances contribute to the radicalization of conservative Protestantism, reinforcing systems of oppression. In doing so, I trace the historical trajectories of distinct Protestant groups, highlighting their divergent paths–some supporting authoritarian regimes and stepping back from social crises, while others actively challenging unjust and hegemonic social structures. Also, I analyze the rising political activism of conservative religious institutions, which has led to the emergence of the far-right Protestantism as a distinct political force. Ultimately, I aim to propose strategies for fostering liberative religious and civic practices that uphold South Korea’s democratic integrity.

Won Buddhism is often regarded as a rational and socially engaged religion, emphasizing both personal transformation and collective well-being. Through comparative discourse analysis of media and interviews with 25 followers in South Korea and New Zealand, this research explores how followers perceive Won Buddhism as a force for social change and interfaith dialogue. Many interviewees especially highlighted freedom and social usefulness as core aspects of its rationality. Korean members, particularly those with prior Christian church experience, emphasized freedom from rigid collective structures, while non-Korean participants found a sense of community in Won Buddhism, often viewing it as an insurance against neoliberal uncertainties. Additionally, its Kaebyŏk concept was often interpreted as a social transformation rooted in ethical engagement and interpersonal relationships. This presentation examines how Won Buddhism's complex discourse of adaptability, evolution and freedom contribute to its perception as a modern, socially conscious religion.

​I will explore the resurgence of shamanistic practice among young Koreans, analyzing its psychological, cultural, and religious implications in modern Korean society. For young people seeking reassurance about their futures, shamanistic practices can serve as tools for alleviating societal anxiety and coping with life’s uncertainties. These practices provide a way to address personal concerns, functioning as a form of psychological support. Moreover, with the secularization of Korean shamanism, these practices have become increasingly accessible. This growing interest in shamanism may indicate that institutional religions, including Christianity, have failed to fully address the spiritual, existential, and emotional needs of young people. Additionally, this phenomenon aligns with the broader global trend of spiritual-but-not-religious (SBNR) practices. I will critically examine how shamanism can offer meaningful alternatives by creating spaces for emotional reassurance and self-exploration—dimensions that institutional religions may struggle to provide—in ways that feel more personally relevant, transformative, and liberating.

Confucianism has been accused of engendering oppression of women in the Korean Church. It is alleged, early Christian missionaries’ endeavors to liberate Korean women have been overcome by male-centered Confucian society. However, is Confucianism the only perpetrator of the oppression of women in the Korean Church? Also, can we simply understand Confucianism as a sexist idea? This presentation aims to challenge the suspicions upon Confucianism in two ways. First, it reveals Christianity has reinforced the existing oppression by examining how Christian ethics of agape as self-sacrifice justifies women’s unrecognized works in the Korean Church. Second, it highlights the potential for women’s liberation in Confucianism by focusing on the Confucian virtue of ren (仁) as a post-conventional morality that challenges the existing convention. By offering a feminist reinterpretation of Confucian virtue, this presentation encourages the Korean Church to revisit the Confucian tradition and discover a liberative force from their own tradition. 

This paper argues that discourses on liberation and oppression of religion in Korea have been contested and shaped by actors representing diverse religious traditions and national and imperial interests, making our understandings of these concepts subjective and in need of critical re-evaluation. The pressures and influences of multiple empires, and Korean responses to them, were instrumental in shaping modern ideas of religion and religious freedom in Korea. Likewise, the perspectives of various religious traditions have played an active role in conceptualizing religion and religious freedom. Religious freedom talk in Korea has developed and changed depending on the national and religious affiliations of who is talking. What was considered normal for Korea once became abnormal later, and what was acceptable for some was unacceptable for others. Divergent interests made liberation and freedom in Korean religion debatable concepts, and so we must question and critique narratives of these phenomena in Korean history.

Michel Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things (2014) is a work of science/speculative fiction in which the protagonist, an evangelical pastor named Peter, embarks upon a mission to a newly colonised planet, Oasis, while Earth becomes increasingly mired in political and climate disaster. The alien “Jesus Lovers” are shockingly “other” to humans, and though they are eager to hear of Jesus’ healing, Peter struggles to communicate the Bible’s language and message across the human-nonhuman divide. This paper focuses not only on Peter’s own faltering faith upon entering the Oasans’ settlement, but also the legacy of missionary work as a function of imperial exploitation in which he has become naively entangled. Noting some important posthuman, feminist and ecological issues at work in the novel, this paper demonstrates some of the many ways SF uses cognitive estrangement to critique real-world issues, and how these can be used in the TRS classroom. 

Why does Speculative Fiction seem obsessed with priests? In a genre that pushes the bounds of what is possible, it may seem unusual that priest/chaplain coded characters show up often. Contrary to the idea that religion and science are incompatible, speculative fiction often places a religious character at the forefront of space exploration or in the midst of a moral quandry. While many speculative fictional worlds create new religions, some draw upon Christianity, positioning it in a new context. This paper examines priest/chaplain characters in The Sparrow, Doctor Who, Firefly, and Star Trek, demonstrating how these characters allow characters (and the reader) to wrestle with questions of ethics/morality, spirituality, and theodicy and why sci-fi seems obsessed with priests in space. 

This paper examines the role of religion in two science fiction settings: Firefly and the Expanse. These settings both offer rich resources for considering how contemporary religion may evolve in a future world. Each imagines a world in which religion remains a vital part of many people's lives, and yet, each imagines how religion may change in the face of a changing understanding of the universe.

In the final analysis, what these settings offer is an opportunity to think along with their creators about the role that religion plays in the maintenance and evolution of society. Far from seeing religion as an unnecessary cultural appendage, both Joss Whedon and James S. A. Corey view religion as an indelible, and often positive, force in human culture, and seek to recognize it as another way of being human that will remain far into our future.

This paper draws on Octavia Butler’s work to examine the rise of authoritarian political ideologies in public education discourse, which the authors identify as “ethnoreligious nationalism.” Ethnoreligious nationalism is a political and cultural ideology that fuses national identity with religious and linguistic heritage, often positing a particular ethnic or religious group as the true, rightful or indisputable inheritors of a particular nation-state. This paper introduces the concept of "ethnoreligious nationalist literacies," highlighting how ethnoreligious nationalist movements leverage literacy to further their agendas. The authors provide a snapshot of current spectacles of ethnoreligious nationalist activism in the US, Brazil, and Sri Lanka. They argue that ethnoreligious nationalist movements use affective literacy strategies to challenge diversifying principles in public education. By investigating the literacy strategies employed by these movements and advocating for democratic educational practices, researchers, educators, and policymakers can work towards safeguarding public education as a cornerstone of pluralistic, democratic societies.

Across the United States, White Christian Nationalism (WCN) has emerged in public discourse, policy, and practice around literacy education, particularly in school board campaigns where WCN candidates advocate for literacy censorship. In this paper, we examine data from school board candidates (n = 11) endorsed by Ottawa Impact (OI), a political action group in Ottawa County, MI that we interpret as WCN. We contextualize OI rhetoric regarding “book boundaries” (terminology from the data) in the historical and theological foundations of the Dutch Reformed Christian population of Ottawa County. Through this contextualization, we examine how OI candidates’ perspectives on literacy censorship reflect their vision of God’s dominion over the US nation-state and lead to the enactment of policies that forward parents’ sovereignty over the contents of children’s education under the guise of protecting “childhood innocence.” This examination reveals WCN’s influence in literacy education—impacting not only what children read, but also who decides.

Against the backdrop of ethnoreligious nationalist literacies in Israel/Palestine and the US, this paper details challenges confronting teachers tasked to teach Holocaust and genocide texts in US classrooms. The paper explores the broader issue through examination of data from a year-long teacher learning program about Holocaust and Genocide Curriculum for Gen Alpha for Michigan teachers. Interpreted through the lensing of ethnoreligious nationalism, we examine a) diverse challenges English and social studies teachers are experiencing with teaching Holocaust and genocide texts, based on teacher survey data generated in 2025, and b) curricular and instructional innovations teachers are generating to respond to these challenges, based on data collected from teacher presentations to other teachers in the program in spring 2025.

This paper examines the role of Catholic Church doctrine, hierarchical leadership, and episcopal support in the rise of Christian Nationalism and Catholic Integralism, focusing on the current U.S. Presidential Administration. While Dignitatis Humanae and Gaudium et Spes affirmed the Church’s commitment to religious freedom and human dignity, certain bishops and Catholic leaders have actively worked to undermine Vatican II’s vision by aligning with nationalist movements. Drawing on recent examples from the U.S., Hungary, and Brazil, this paper explores how episcopal endorsements of political leaders have contributed to an authoritarian turn in Catholic engagement with the state. It also highlights Pope Francis’s recent rebuke of JD Vance over ordo amoris, underscoring the tension between Vatican II’s teachings and contemporary Catholic political movements. Ultimately, this paper argues that the struggle over Vatican II’s legacy of freedom shapes the twenty-first century's ecclesial and political landscapes.

Pope Francis has made parrhesia a signature word of his papacy, framing “speaking freely” and “courage, frankness, and boldness” as necessities for a synodal church. This paper aims to explore both the theoretical and practical dimensions of parrhesia. First, it traces the lineage of the ancient term as laid out by Michel Foucault, before explicating Francis’s innovation of parrhesia. Then, it takes a practical turn, considering what this ecclesial culture shift towards parrhesia might require, through four case studies of postconciliar theologians whose freedom to theologize had been curtailed by the institutional church: Jacques Dupuis, Gustavo Gutierrez, Elizabeth Johnson, and Ivone Gebara. Looking to them as exemplars of parrhesia, this paper concludes by considering what role theologians could play in a synodal church characterized by freer speech.

This presentation offers a comparative-contextual analysis of the Catholic Church's Vatican II discourses on 'religious freedom' in the People's Republic of China and the United States. The local Chinese Catholic and American Catholic churches have not received Vatican II's teachings in a vacuum but inevitably must situate the optimistic vision of Dignitatis Humanae and Gaudium et Spes along alongside diverse existing local traditions which may or may not be complementary. In particular, the 21st century rise of Han Confucian and white Christian ethno-religious nationalisms in China and the U.S. make it especially urgent that contextual theologians engage in comparative dialogue with the internally quite diverse Confucian/Chinese and Protestant/American religio-moral discourses of their context, which may variously serve or resist the trends towards ethno-religious nationalism and autocratic rule.

This paper challenges the common assumption that modernity has entirely rejected the idea of a scala naturae, or Great Chain of Being. Instead, I argue that this hierarchical concept, particularly in its Aristotelian form, remains deeply embedded in two major strands of modern thought: Darwinian evolution and phenomenology/philosophical anthropology. While a dominant interpretation of Darwinism historicizes the scala naturae, twentieth-century European thinkers retrieve aspects of the ancient Greek framework to affirm both evolution and human distinctiveness.

Despite concerns that such a hierarchy among species reinforces anthropocentrism, I propose that the scala naturae can instead foster an ethical vision grounded in continuity and kinship among living beings. Rejecting hierarchy altogether risks moral arbitrariness and a functional Cartesianism that ends up alienating humanity from nature. By reconsidering the scala naturae, we may find a constructive framework for mediating the longstanding tension between human exceptionalism and ecological belonging.

The mendicant controversy at the 13th-century University of Paris provides the backdrop for understanding how two mendicant metaphysicians, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas, interpret how ecclesiastical, angelic, and cosmological “chains of being” function. Faced with the seculars’ criticism that mendicants have no right to intervene in Paris’s sacramental economy and that their academic aspirations are incompatible with apostolic poverty, Aquinas and Bonaventure offer different responses. Aquinas assigns the pope the sovereign power to institute a “state of exception” and circumvent a local bishop’s authority, just like how God can suspend the natural law in soteriological emergencies. Bonaventure uses speculative Christology to argue that wisdom, which the mendicants instantiate through their pursuit of virtue, is metaphysically co-constitutive of the scientific knowledge the university aims at. These defenses of the mendicants’ presence in medieval academic life determine how these two thinkers frame the relationship between cosmology and soteriology. 

It has been argued that as an ‘objective,’ systematic account of natura, John Scotus Eriugena’s (b. 815) Periphyseon lacks an ‘interior’ aspect. Borrowing much from his fellow Platonic predecessor, Maximus the Confessor, I aim to show, rather, that the Periphyseon develops a ‘personal’ program regarding the soul’s itinerary. I will focus on one component of a broader program running throughout the Periphyseon — mainly, Eriugena's understanding of the salvific function of natura. I will show how natura, for Eriugena, is a symbol of the Divine Logos. It is not simply a ‘stepping stone,’ but rather, constituted within the Divine Logos Itself. Eriugena’s concept of natura necessitates that any outflowing of the Divine into difference does not destroy its unity, but rather, is an articulation of Itself in a concretized form. Thus, all invisible and visible creatures are endowed with symbolic significance: they orchestrate the final return of all things into God.

Michel Foucault’s Nietzsche, la généalogie, l’histoire (1971) is often cast as the moment Nietzschean genealogy truly became as a critical historical method. But that story is too clean. It erases a messier, more dynamic intellectual landscape—one where genealogy wasn’t just a Nietzschean discovery or a Foucauldian recovery but the product of fierce mid-century debates. This paper reconstructs that forgotten conversation, tracing how thinkers like Gilles Deleuze, Michel Serres, Michel Henry, Jacques Derrida, and Sarah Kofman, alongside other structuralists and Marxists, were already grappling with genealogy before Foucault’s essay. At the same time, historiographical movements—Annales history, historical epistemology, surrealism—reshaped what genealogy could even mean. It wasn’t a singular rupture. It was a field of collisions, reworkings, and provocations. By placing Foucault back into that shifting terrain, this study unsettles the dominant narrative and opens new directions for genealogical inquiry in religious studies and beyond.

This paper critically reinterprets Michel Foucault’s engagement with the Iranian Revolution, challenging Janet Afary’s claim that he naively romanticized political spirituality and overlooked the rise of authoritarianism. Instead, it argues that Foucault’s interest in Iran stemmed from his broader critique of Western modernity, particularly its disciplinary power and capitalist alienation, rather than an endorsement of theocracy. The revolution was not a monolithic Islamist project but a diverse coalition that included Marxists, secular nationalists, and liberals, a complexity Afary underemphasizes. Without subscribing to pro-Western narratives that equate democracy with liberalism or demonize the revolution as religious fanaticism, this paper situates Foucault’s reflections within their historical context. By exploring his writings as part of his larger intellectual trajectory—examining resistance, alternative political subjectivities, and the role of spirituality in revolutionary movements—the paper offers a more nuanced understanding of both Foucault’s intervention and the revolution itself.

Islam has been a key feature in the history of Malaysia, and Muslims have been considered a majority community. The spread of Islam in transforming the population has been narrated as a process of Islamisation. Since the 1970s to recent times, this Islamisation narrative has gained further dominance in influencing the youths and civil society movements, educational institutions, government policies, and also legal and political decisions in the country. However, critics have perceived the Islamisation narrative as to be over-simplifying the complex inter-relations between Islam and the Malay-Muslims population. Thus, this paper aims for a critical examination, by using the Episteme as a key concept. This paper shall demonstrate how Islam is related to three different epistemic phases; under the Malay Sultanates, British Colonial rule, and the nation-state in the history of Malaysia, and its relation to knowledge and power in shaping the Muslim population in Malaysia.

In the 2014 tour de force “God’s Not Dead,” Michel Foucault is the first figure listed by the film’s antagonist—the rancorous philosophy professor—as having already accepted that God is dead.  Fourteen other alleged “atheists” are written on the board, but Foucault is emphatically at the top.  This paper simply asks, why? 

What follows does serve to answer that basic, albeit searching question, but in understanding the scorn and vitriol levied against Foucault will also contextualize the film and make sense of the culture in which it came.  Necessarily, this cannot be done with film criticism alone, so key insights from Foucault’s own works will need to be juxtaposed with/against his most audible detractors.  This combative pairing uncovers that as much as Foucault symbolizes the worst excesses of postmodernism (ostensibly, that which killed God), his mere and continued existence necessitates that "[God] must be defended."