In-person November Annual Meeting 2025 Program Book

Readers of the Qur’an often emphasize the verses outlining what we imagine as fetal development in “the wombs” as evidence of an inherent Islamic reverence for conceiving bodies. Yet, there is more to the Qur’an than a reading that values women based on their assumed fertility. Drawing on gender and disability studies, I argue that the Qur’an conveys a complicated relationship with women and reproduction, both affirming and unsettling binary understandings of female embodiment. While the Qur’an’s maternal citations support readings that elevate motherhood to a status that is almost sacred, its narrative dimensions hint at the complexities of these embodied experiences. The term “barren,” for example, is semantically linked to the notion of Divine Punishment; however, Sarah’s reaction to the annunciation suggests that she preferred her “barren” body and did not desire to achieve the conceiving ideal highlighted by many readers.

This paper situates menstruation within the discussion of reproductive freedom in Islam, analyzing how the everyday phenomenology of menstruation disrupts traditional ‘ulama-led knowledge-making related to women’s bodies. The paper asks: how do ordinary Muslim women draw on nuances of their menstruating bodies to create Islamic knowledge related to menstrual purity (tahārah)? Drawing on the pietistic emphasis on menstruation (hayd) in the Islamic tradition at large, basing analysis on contemporary ethnographic accounts of menstrual effluent disposal in Pakistan, and using frameworks of embodied phenomenology, this paper inverts the doctrine-making direction of menstruation laws in Islamic fiqh by showing how the bodily nature of menstruation dictates a context of its Islamic interpretation. The paper shows how challenges of effluent disposal raise questions of agency for women, answered by the discursive closeness of menstruation with vernacular concepts of purity and pollution, re-imagined as the ‘Islamic’ norms of menstruation by women in Pakistan.

This paper analyzes North American Muslim religious discourses on elective abortion. With references to the Qur'an, Islamic oral traditions, jurisprudential discourses, feminist Islamic scholarship, and contemporary Muslim American social media posts, I analyze discourses that seek to limit, on one hand, or to expand on the other, a pregnant Muslim's recourse to terminating pregnancy through elective abortion. Considering various circumstantial factors and drawing upon the Foucauldian concept of biopower, I track how pregnant people may be encouraged to procreate through tactics of coercion that seek to mold pregnant bodies into docile reproductive forms in the name of religious compliance. Yet, nuances in Islamic approaches to reproductive-related decision-making create fissures in which pregnant people can maintain pious aspirations and simultaneously exercise their reproductive agency in jurisdictions where reliable reproductive care is readily accessible. 

The overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision put women’s reproductive freedom in significant peril. The decision also generated debate within the American Muslim community on the permissibility of abortion in Islam. Muslim organizations submitted an amicus brief opposing overturning Roe v. Wade, arguing that Islamic law permits abortion (before a certain period). Other Muslim groups disputed this claim, stating that abortion is based on values which are not upheld by Islamic law. Hinging on this tension, this paper explores legal discussions in the Hanafi legal school on abortion (isqat al-haml) to investigate the juristic assumptions regarding the reproductive body and the fetus and how this shapes their conception of women’s reproductive rights. To address this, the paper asks whether the fetus is a legal person. What is the nature of the fetus’ rights and how were these rights considered in relation to the rights of the pregnant person? 

Nakada Juji 中田重治 (1870–1939) was a Christian leader in Japan whose theology merged with nationalism, shaping his views on Jewish people. This paper explores his theological influences, missionary work, and advent movements, analyzing his support for nichiyu dōsoron日猶同祖論 (Japanese-Jewish common ancestry theory) and alignment with Japan’s militarization. Using emotional capital theory, it examines how Nakada’s beliefs structured religious and national identity, depicting Japan as a spiritual mediator. His case highlights how religious ideology intertwines with political ambitions, contributing to discussions on faith, nationalism, and historical discourse.

The 1934 International Eucharistic Conference in Argentina signified decades of advocacy and work by Catholic Nationalists to perpetuate the mythos of the "Catholic nation." Around these years, we can see a proliferation of Protestants combatting their Catholic opponents with rhetoric around notions of citizenry and patriotism. This period saw the pitching of nationalism from both ends, one with a rigid integralist/conservative Catholic vision and the other espousing a Protestant civic liberal position. This paper takes the period of the 1930-1940s as a critical point to understand these two positions that articulated their disparate visions through the language of patriotism and nationalism. Through a reconceptualization of the past, Catholics and Protestants sought to establish themselves as proper "heirs" to the construction of the Argentine political project. Thus, Nationalism becomes the center point of these contested visions of democratic common life. 

This paper compares the works of two theologians based in Taiwan—Huang Po-ho and Chow Lien-hwa—to explore how, in the construction of contextual theology and the establishment of indigenized Christian churches, two kinds of “freedom” were pursued: a freedom concerning liberation from political and theological colonization, and a freedom concerning independence from Western cultural and religious imperialism. In the theological methods practiced or espoused in these treatises, we are able to see a tension between differing views of national ideology and visions for the church, thus nuancing two ideas in the current academic discussion: the meaning of “Taiwanese theology” and the boundaries of what counts as “Chinese theology.” Ultimately, the goal of this paper is to aid in the imagination and construction of contextual theologies that truly bring freedom to Taiwanese people and churches today as well as communities that find themselves in similar circumstances. 

This paper examines Brazilian Christian Nationalist networks and their role in shaping ideological and practical engagements across faith communities and political landscapes. These networks establish complex national, transnational, and multinational coalitions that leverage faith communities as local bases while positioning representatives in federal politics. However, their strategy extends beyond politics, incorporating business leaders, military personnel, and artists to promote a vision of governance called “government of the just.” This movement aspires to dominate spiritual, cultural, economic, and political spheres. Additionally, the paper highlights the multidirectional relationships between Brazilian and U.S. Christian Nationalist networks. It uncovers evolving border-crossing alliances with reciprocal influences by mapping transnational exchanges, illuminating the operative theopolitics and strategies of transnational coalitions in contemporary contexts.

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Religious scenic areas in China are widely perceived as endeavors by the government to boost local economies. While these sites are doubtlessly driven by economic pressures, I suggest that other tacit motivations may be at play. This paper uses Bourdieu’s frameworks of field and capital, and Tony Bennett’s (2006) concept of “civic seeing” to interrogate two diametrically different features at the Jiuhuashan Dayuan Buddhist Culture Park that was established by a state-owned enterprise in 2013 below the renowned Buddhist mountain Jiuhua. The first feature, a monumental Kṣitigarbha (Dizang) statue, suggests that the project is a statement of superioritybestriding other Buddhist sites at Mount Jiuhua and colossi everywhere else. The second feature, a Mount Jiuhua miniature in the park’s museum, evinces the containment of the mountain’s temples under the aegis of the state. Future studies of Chinese religious scenic areas should account for nuances of rivalry in a religious marketplace.

The presentation will analyze two recent exhibitions on Buddhism held at Ryukoku Museum in Kyoto, Japan, and at the Musée royal de Mariemont in Belgium. While the two museums have a different religious/secular affiliation, the presentation will identify in both exhibitions a shared view on the origins of modern displays of Buddhist objects that revises univocal narratives of modernization as secularization. The exhibition in Kyoto shows how Buddhist communities actively appropriated the modern tool of museum display for Buddhist proselytization purposes in the early Meiji period (1870s). The one in Belgium reveals the link between European scholarship on Asian religions, freemasonry rituals, and collection of Buddhist objects in late nineteenth century Europe. Through an analysis of the multiple temporalities implied at these exhibitions, the presentation will contribute to recent scholarship by complicating the narrative of museumification as secularization and by stressing the agency of Buddhist communities in this process.

The exhibition “Oh! Kokuhō: Resplendent Treasures of Devotion and Heritage” (April 19th-June 15th, 2025), marks the 130th anniversary of the Nara National Museum. The exhibition features numerous national treasures (kokuhō), many of which have been periodically displayed in the museum since its founding in 1895. Taking this exhibition as a starting point and Hōryūji’s Kudara Kannon (one of the Buddhist images on display) as a primary focus, this paper will examine the variety of encounters numinous national treasures have had with people and objects as they travel between national museums, temple halls, and temple museums in Japan. The paper builds upon prior Japanese and English-language scholarship on Japanese national museums, Japanese temple museums, and conceptions of fine art versus religious images in Japan; it will also be informed by fieldwork and grounded in archival materials including temple treasure surveys, tourist guidebooks, and travel diaries.

This presentation focuses on the exhibit, Sutra and Bible: Faith and the Japanese American World War II Incarceration (Japanese American National Museum/USC Shinso Ito Center of Japanese Religions and Culture), as an interesting case study in the larger conversation on Buddhism and museums. Unlike the more common experience of Buddhist objects presented in a museum setting, this exhibit featured objects and practices created by immigrants over time as their experiences in a new environment prompted them to evaluate their ritual and spiritual needs. Through an examination of key objects and display strategies, this presentation contributes to the broader conversation of how museums and exhibits featuring Buddhism expand the understanding of changing interpretations of Buddhism, and how these interpretations affect the beliefs and practices of Buddhism.

In 1842, American collector Nathan Dunn’s Chinese collection was exhibited at Hyde Park Corner, London. Buddhist art constituted a substantial part of the exhibition, featuring three colossal Buddhas, a Chinese pagoda, temple architecture, and even Buddhist priests. Through visual and iconographic analyses of Chinese Buddhist art in the exhibition catalogues, I pose the following questions: How did the Hyde Park exhibition interpret Buddhist art? What attitudes toward Buddhism, and by extension, China, did the Hyde Park exhibition reflect? How did this exhibition impact other international exhibitions and European artistic depictions of Chinese Buddhist art? I argue that the British curator removed Chinese Buddhist art from its ritual context, inventing novel iconographies and pseudo-ritual scenes. This exhibition reinforced a narrative of China as backward while asserting Britain’s imperial superiority. Such representations, influenced by early Jesuit travel books and Chinese export art, shaped later European art and international exhibitions on China.

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