International Conference on Religious Studies

 25 August, 2017 - Warsaw, Poland

London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research

and

Interdisciplinary Research Foundation

 

Download Updated Conference Programme

Whether you consider yourself a religious person or not, or whether you think religion has played a positive or negative role in history, it is an incontrovertible fact that from the beginning of time, humans have engaged in activities that we now call religion, such as worship, prayer, and rituals marking important life passages. Moreover, religions have always asked fundamental questions, such as: What is the true meaning of life? What happens to us after death? How do we explain human suffering and injustices? The answers different religious traditions give to these important questions are many and varied and often contradictory. But the questions themselves are ones with which humans throughout time have grappled, and probably will continue to grapple with into the indefinite future. Thus, one of the first reasons to study religion is simply to deepen our understanding of others and ourselves.

We also study religion in order to learn more about how different aspects of human life—politics, science, literature, art, law, economics—have been and continue to be shaped by changing religious notions of, for example, good and evil, images of the deity and the divine, salvation and punishment, etc. By studying different religious doctrines, rituals, stories, and scriptures, we can also come to understand how different communities of believers—past and present, East and West—have used their religious traditions to shape, sustain, transform themselves.

More than ever before, the world we live in is both multicultural and global. We no longer need to travel across the ocean to visit a Hindu temple or an Islamic mosque or to meet a Sikh or a Jain. The chances are that you can find a temple or mosque within a few miles of where you live, and it is almost certain that you will be meet someone from any and all of these religious traditions anywhere. This makes it even more essential that we cultivate our ability to understand and interpret other people’s religious traditions.

Finally, the academic study of religion is inherently multidisciplinary. With religion one can learn about a range of disciplinary approaches, and, even more importantly, the connections and linkages among them. In this way studying religion invites us all to think in a more interdisciplinary and integral way about the world and our place in it. The conference offers an interdisciplinary approach to the critical study of religion: history, literature, languages, material culture etc.

Papers are invited on topics related, but not limited, to:

  • Anthropology of religion
  • Cultural anthropology of religion
  • Economics of religion
  • Geography of religion
  • History of religion
  • Literary approaches
  • Neurological approaches
  • Origin of religion
  • Psychology of religion
  • Sociology of religion
  • Law and religion
  • Religion and film
  • Philosophy of Religion
  • Religious Ethics
  • Theology

We also welcome poster proposals that address one of the conference themes.

Proposals up to 250 words and a brief biographical note should be sent by 10 July 2017 to: religion@lcir.co.uk

Download paper proposal form.

Papers presented at the conference will be published in an e-Book with an ISBN number.

Full registration fee – 70 EUR or 300 PLN

Student registration fee – 50 EUR or 220 PLN

Venue: KOPERNIKA Conference Centre, ul. Kopernika 30, Warsaw