This roundtable examines what it means to ethnographically study Hinduism as scholars situated both within and outside Religious Studies departments in North American universities. Bringing together scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds who engage in ethnography—whether directly or more circuitously— the roundtable asks what the ethnographic, as a mode of studying contemporary Hinduism, makes possible as well as limits. We engage with two distinct but related sets of questions: First, how do we reckon with our scholarly and political practice, given the historical ties of Hindu Studies with alliances between brahminism and whiteness, while also being embedded in the history of empire? How might ethnography—as method, stance, and writerly practice—inform the issue? Second, we discuss the meaning and implications of doing ethnographic research in contemporary India (and among Indian communities abroad) in light of the current political climate and nationalist articulations of Indian history and politics.
In-person November Annual Meeting 2025 Program Book
All time are listed in Eastern Time Zone.
This panel explores the intersections of mysticism and freedom by centering liberatory practices that explicitly challenge authoritarian or oppressive structures. Papers in this session will examine topics including mysticism and disability, prison abolition, Black spiritualism, Indian nationalism, and Eastern Orthodoxy.
Papers
Mysticism is often associated with inner liberation from the prison of the confined self into union with the Divine. But how does that liberation work in times of political persecution and repressive authority? This paper explores this question by focusing on two Eastern Orthodox mystics, St. Matrona (d. 1952) and starets (elder) Nikolai Guryanov (d. 2002), who operated in the aggressively modernizing, scientized and anti-religious, context of 20th century Soviet Russia. Drawing on content analysis of their biographies and the concept of “mystical consciousness,” this paper unpacks the patterns by which St Matrona and Father Nikolai dealt with Soviet authorities to continue their trajectories of liberation. These include being “lost” in a city or a small island, acting as (holy) fools, using mystical visions and prayers, and relying on as well as liberating others. These can be seen as elements of a mystical consciousness they cultivated in themselves and others.
The Cambridge-educated Indian nationalist and mystic Aurobindo Ghose, later Sri Aurobindo, was heavily involved throughout his life in the cause of Indian independence from British colonial rule. Early on, this took the form of impassioned literary argument in the pages of self-published periodicals like Bande Mataram and the Karmayogin, where he couched his political arguments in the language of Indian spiritual and cultural renewal. Following several pivotal mystical experiences, his attention shifted toward his own yogic practice, framed by an evolutionary esotericist metaphysics of cosmic transformation into divinity. He understood Indian independence, and, during WWII, the victory of the Allied forces, as key developments in this process, and focused his own mystical practice on achieving these ends. From his meditative perch in Pondicherry, India, Aurobindo and his partner, Mirra Alfassa, engaged in psychic battle against the Axis forces and worked to influence the “play of forces” supportive of Indian independence.
This paper examines the mystical dimensions of Nancy Eiesland’s The Disabled God, positioning her as both a revolutionary and a traditional mystic deeply influenced by Latin American liberation theology. While mysticism is often characterized by solitary, direct communion with the divine, liberation theologians have redefined it as an experience of God within the context of communal commitment and social transformation. Eiesland’s work embodies this integration, demonstrating that her mystical engagement is not separate from her political activism but is, in fact, deeply intertwined with it. By drawing on liberation theology, this paper situates The Disabled God within a mystical tradition that challenges power from the margins and offers alternative ways of perceiving and relating to the divine.
For many Americans, a world without prisons cannot be fathomed. Joshua Dubler and Vincent Lloyd have argued that punishment has been almost inextricably tied to justice in our collective imagination, making it hard to comprehend a justice system that is rooted in anything other than punitive measures (Dubler & Lloyd 2020). I believe this has a deeper effect on American consciousness around abolition – because the carceral logic is so deeply imbedded, abolitionist discourses seem illogical and therefore inconceivable to many.
In this presentation, I argue that prison abolition movements can gain much from using mystical modes of rhetoric to allow readers to imagine the world anew. While respecting the rational, clear-sighted moral arguments for abolition from Angela Davis, Ruth Gilmore Wilson, Mariame Kaba, and others, I follow Malcolm X’s directive to achieve liberation “by any means necessary” and present a new mode of communication to the abolitionist discourse: the mystical.
“Were the Spirits Silent or Silenced?” argues for the return of the spirits to the study of Black Spiritualism. It proposes that secular progress narratives (which emphasize political liberation above other spiritual outcomes) have so dominated the field of Religious Studies that studies of Black Spiritualism are bereft of the spirits themselves. This analysis of extant literature recontextualizes and retheorizes the current relationship of the field to the gods, the spirits, and other more-than-human entities. Religion, particularly Black Spiritualism, can be about power while also not necessarily being about empowerment. It is about the power to heal (or to harm) and the power to communicate with those that have passed on. It is rarely about personal empowerment or an exercise in someone “finding their voice.” This paper explores the methodological implications of recognizing our “braided-ness” with the more-than-human while envisioning a future for the study of spirits.
This panel considers the philosophical and ethical significance of the intelligence, agency, and freedom of non-human species, especially in light of ecological sensitivity and environmental concerns. Working across a range of philosophical traditions, the panelists consider challenges to anthropocentrism in the central categories and methodologies of philosophy of religion, and they explore other, non-human modes of knowing and acting.
Papers
The rise of plant intelligence is both an epistemic and ethical event, revealing the contradictions of an age that has wielded knowledge in pursuit of mastery over nature—only to find that human mastery now demands its own undoing. Prominent botanists argue that recognizing plant intelligence requires reforming the scientific method, surpassing its limits to grasp cognition beyond the human. But this assumes that knowledge takes root in an antecedent ground revealed once we get our methods right. Drawing on pragmatist readings of Hegel, I argue that knowledge is instead rooted in the shifting criteria of historical authority, which change as thought’s boundaries are redrawn. Thought takes root not in fixed foundations, in other words, but in justification’s provisional grounds. The recent emergence of plant intelligence thus marks not just an expansion of knowledge but a reckoning with human mastery as the criteria justifying our domination of nature shift beneath us.
Situating human freedom and agency within the context of more-than-human forms of freedom and agency can correct false understandings of freedom as independence. The possibility of complex forms of freedom is predicated on the prior existence of simpler forms of freedom and carry with them heightened modes of interdependence and vulnerability. Recognition of the dialectic of freedom and dependency can correct human exceptionalism without obscuring the distinctive forms of freedom and agency that are possible for language-using animals. This paper develops such an account in dialogue with the philosophical anthropology of Helmut Plessner, Hans Jonas’s notion of “needful freedom,” and contemporary philosopher of biology Evan Thompson’s understanding of the autopoietic character of living organisms in constant exchange with their surroundings.
The underworld, as a mythical space in western culture, has often been associated with fear, horror, or damnation. It hasn’t typically been a space of desire: it’s not the sort of place that people dream of ending up. And yet, something has been changing in the underworld. The work of scientists—ecologists, foresters, mycologists—is revealing an underworld that is more alive, and more life-giving, than the underworld of western histories. Is this new underworld becoming a zone of salvation, rather than damnation? Or is the chill of horror in the underworld something we just can’t shake? This paper offers an experiment in plant, and fungal, thinking in order to explore—in conversation with roots, dirt, and mycorrhizal networks—the intimacies between life and death, beauty and horror, or possibility and closure that underworlds may have always (and may continue) to confront us with.
At the margins of Islamic orthodoxy in the 9th century, an esoteric philosophical society, the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ (Brethren of Purity), engaged the public in a utopian and equitable vision of collective life. Within their renowned encyclopedic treatise, Epistle 22: The Case of the Animals versus Man occupies a special place. This paper identifies three registers of critique within the animals’ grievances and humanity’s defense of its assumed superiority: anthropocentrism, logocentrism, and ethnocentrism. By integrating these critiques with the Quranic notions of Mīzān (balance), Khalīfah (lieutenancy), and Amānah (trust), this paper explores how this allegorical fable reveals the link between ecological injustices and unjust social imaginaries. The successors of the Ikhwān, the contemporary Ismailis, have continued this tradition of environmental stewardship. This paper maps the shared moral imperatives espoused by the Brethren onto the mission of the Aga Khan Development Network, an institution that has mobilized global efforts against climate crises.
The CPS Steering Committee seeks to understand more about the communication of esoteric and magical information. Scholarship has suggested the trade and spread of magical books was as important in the building of American and British Paganism as personal transmission and learning had been thought to be. What can we learn from microhistories of practitioners, embedded in the book trade while being authors themselves? Before the Internet, occult and new age spiritualities were often dependent upon such channels, but the contours of such operations have yet to be fully investigated. At the same time, these operations are not confined to the past. Works of popular books and television programs have provided gateway routes for discovery and inspiration of magical and Pagan discourse for generations. In areas often seen as culturally and economically devastated, can current developments in speculative fiction re-enchant and re-present regional older folk magic practices for new generations?
Papers
This presentation seeks to extrapolate data and trends relating to the esoteric book trade in Britain during the latter half of the Twentieth Century via a close examination of the notebooks of Doreen Valiente. The data presented can shed light on esoteric bookselling in general as well as on the early development of Wicca more specifically, considering Valiente's important contributions to the religion during its first decades. The notebooks reveal what books Valiente sought and purchased, the bookshops she frequented in Brighton, London and Glastonbury, and even – on occasion – the topics of the conversations and gossip she exchanged with or about the proprietors. An analysis of this data – as well as supporting materials in the form of letters to/from relevant booksellers – can serve to illustrate the role of the esoteric bookshop in the production and distribution of 'Rejected Knowledge' within the occult – and more specifically, Wiccan – milieus during the period.
Appalachia has struggled under a spell of disenchantment cast by books such as J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy. New works of speculative fiction resist this critique by social elites, re-enchanting Appalachian landscapes and people through Pagan themes of nature spirituality, fey beings, and magic. We will look at two novels and a serialized horror podcast to examine the important role of speculative fiction in re-enchanting both landscape and regional identity in a Pagan mode.
Respondent
Speaking of Rape: The Limits of Language in Sexual Violations examines how language shapes survivors' ability to process, resist, and heal from sexual harm. Tumminio Hansen explores whether the difficulty in articulating trauma stems solely from the nature of traumatic violence or also from linguistic limitations shaped by social constructs. Drawing parallels to theological critiques of masculine God-language, she argues that survivors face linguistic idolatry and irrelevance, which hinder healing and justice. Engaging trauma theorists, pastoral theologians, and feminist philosophy, she critiques current definitions of terms like "rape," "victim," and "perpetrator" while advocating for more empowering alternatives. She also reimagines justice through restorative practices centered on storytelling and survivor agency. By weaving theology, feminist philosophy, trauma studies, and first-person narrative, Tumminio Hansen offers a framework for rethinking language, justice, and healing—ultimately modeling how to speak the unspeakable in pursuit of liberation, resistance, freedom, and personal and collective transformation.
Speaking of Rape: The Limits of Language in Sexual Violations examines how language shapes survivors' ability to process, resist, and heal from sexual harm. Tumminio Hansen explores whether the difficulty in articulating trauma stems solely from the nature of traumatic violence or also from linguistic limitations shaped by social constructs. Drawing parallels to theological critiques of masculine God-language, she argues that survivors face linguistic idolatry and irrelevance, which hinder healing and justice. Engaging trauma theorists, pastoral theologians, and feminist philosophy, she critiques current definitions of terms like "rape," "victim," and "perpetrator" while advocating for more empowering alternatives. She also reimagines justice through restorative practices centered on storytelling and survivor agency. By weaving theology, feminist philosophy, trauma studies, and first-person narrative, Tumminio Hansen offers a framework for rethinking language, justice, and healing—ultimately modeling how to speak the unspeakable in pursuit of liberation, resistance, freedom, and personal and collective transformation.
In our post-colonial era, comparativists face the dual challenge of adhering to rigorous methodological standards while embracing the creative dynamics of comparison. This roundtable will examine the poetics inherent in the comparative process, understanding poetics both as poiesis—the creation of new meanings—and as a form of linguistic play. The roundtable will bring together a group of scholars of comparative theology, religion, and literature engaging diverse religious and literary traditions.
This roundtable aims to rethink the intersections of politics and theology through a poetics of singularity (i.e. how the imaginative expression of a single figure, event, or experience disables or activates collectivities in ways irreducible to human history, agency, and categories of identity). Bringing together scholars of anthropology, religious studies, and literature, it seeks to dis-imagine current versions of politics, universality, and subjectivity by locating the political at the intersection of mystical, environmental, aesthetic, technological, religious, and historical imaginaries.
Linking these entry points is shared interest in how claims to singularity efface difference, but also affirm a radical uniqueness, reifying the exception (i.e. in claims about the singularity of the Holocaust, the figure of the survivor, or death as a limit case). We hope to challenge these forms of categorical stasis by converging on a poetics of singularity and the enfleshed speech acts in which it is performed.
This roundtable aims to rethink the intersections of politics and theology through a poetics of singularity (i.e. how the imaginative expression of a single figure, event, or experience disables or activates collectivities in ways irreducible to human history, agency, and categories of identity). Bringing together scholars of anthropology, religious studies, and literature, it seeks to dis-imagine current versions of politics, universality, and subjectivity by locating the political at the intersection of mystical, environmental, aesthetic, technological, religious, and historical imaginaries.
Linking these entry points is shared interest in how claims to singularity efface difference, but also affirm a radical uniqueness, reifying the exception (i.e. in claims about the singularity of the Holocaust, the figure of the survivor, or death as a limit case). We hope to challenge these forms of categorical stasis by converging on a poetics of singularity and the enfleshed speech acts in which it is performed.
The landscape of politics in the U.S. and around the globe is fraught with anxiety, distress, and suffering. We are witnessing unprecedented political tensions, deepening ideological polarization, rising authoritarianism (including Christian Nationalism), and erosion of democratic institutional norms. Competing narratives of truth, a proliferation of misinformation and disinformation, the marginalization of vulnerable communities, and geopolitical tensions further contribute to this anxiety. How might practical theology be done in these politically fraught times? How can practical theologians and practitioners respond meaningfully, critically, and compassionately to these global political challenges? What are the implications of these theologies and practices for conceptions and experiences of freedom?
The Practical Theology Unit regards practical theology – a discipline committed to bridging theological reflection and lived reality – uniquely positioned to offer critical insights and transformative practices to these important questions. This session brings presentations ranging across various sub-disciplines of practical theology, as well as global contexts.
Papers
The landscape of politics in the U.S. and around the globe is fraught with anxiety, distress, and suffering. What role can pastoral/spiritual care play in dealing with the resulting violence and political trauma? An important method to address these highly-activating times is a turn to embodiment. As Bessel Van der Kolk and other trauma theorists remind us, our bodies literally “keep the score” of the pains and traumas in our lives. Bodies are always communicating, even without conscious awareness. In pastoral/spiritual care, feminist, womanist and intercultural scholars of pastoral care have emphasized the importance of attention to embodiment in healing, notably in the healing from trauma. Yet embodied praxis requires more attention to be integrated in the field. This paper explores the components of a body-centered approach to pastoral/spiritual care, including attention to embodied compassion, body psychotherapy, and spiritual practices that center embodiment.
In an era marked by political polarization and competing narratives of truth, this paper examines how humour in prophetic preaching cultivates cognitive virtues essential for critical engagement with unjust systems. In this paper I argue that Jesus’ use of hyperbole, irony, and satire in the Synoptic Gospels models cognitive virtues such as pattern recognition, error detection, and intellectual humility—skills that empower congregants to interrogate dominant narratives and envision transformative alternatives. Integrating Walter Brueggemann’s prophetic imagination and Steven Gimbel’s Cleverness Theory, this study demonstrates how humour disrupts oppressive ideologies and equips communities to evaluate political rhetoric and misinformation. Addressing the AAR’s 2025 theme of “Freedom,” this work offers a homiletic method grounded in biblical exegesis, positioning humour as a pedagogical tool for fostering cognitive agility and resistance to authoritarian epistemologies.
This paper will examine the limits and distortions of how preachers deal with political tensions and division circumstances in preaching, particularly in matters related to rising right-wing extremism and Christian nationalism in the South Korean context, and suggest a new homiletical method and direction to respond to the challenges and desire of justice, truth, reconciliation, and freedom.
This study analyzes the anti-democratic conflicts of South Korea, particularly focusing on the political injustice emerging from the alliance between conservative political forces and extreme right-wing Christianity. It examines the sermons of key pastors who lead and mobilize right-wing Christian groups, as well as those of major church pastors who are impotent in the current situation. Through this analysis, the study seeks to uncover the underlying problematic structures within these sermons. Finally, it explores the directions and theological discourse necessary for sermons that respond to political suffering and suggests practical structural forms for such preaching.
The recent landscape of politics in the United States has further marginalized communities that were already vulnerable based on their identities. One notable example is the significant increase in hate crimes targeting the Asian American community in the United States following the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper aims to explore the empirical question of how specifically Korean American women pastors approached preaching and providing pastoral care following such acts of hate crimes against Asian Americans. The research will draw from a range of seven to ten preliminary interviews with Korean American women pastors to investigate how having Korean American women leaders ultimately helps shape the theological and political subjectivities of their congregants. The new findings of this work will provide a deeper understanding of the dynamic between Korean American women pastors and their congregants, which then can help churches develop new strategies to empower and motivate their community towards civic action.
Title: Practical Theology in Politically Fraught Times: A Transformational Response to Christian Nationalism and White Nationalism
Abstract The contemporary political landscape, marked by increasing ideological polarization, Christian Nationalism, and the erosion of democratic institutions, necessitates a robust engagement from practical theology. This paper explores how practical theology can offer prophetic critiques of unjust political systems through the lens of Transformational Leadership. Using the Four I’s of Transformational Leadership—Idealized Influence, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation, and Individualized Consideration—this study examines the work of ecclesial leaders such as Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde and Human Rights activist Bishop William Barber as prophetic voices against the rise of Christian Nationalism and White Nationalism in America.
With the vast increase in the phenomenon of eco-anxiety (Hickman et al., 2021) as a result of human-induced climate change, many people are seeking to reconnect with the Earth in sustainable and loving ways. Rooting oneself in nature offers psychological and spiritual benefits, and a garden is a place where people can connect with one another, with nature, and with God. This paper offers practical theological insights from the praxis of spiritual gardening with kids as a transformative location for pastoral care. Drawing on a case study, and integrating multidisciplinary research from psychology, children’s spirituality, and religious education, this paper considers three concrete pastoral care practices that can take place in a garden to help children cope with eco-anxiety.