2019 – Translation and the Analytical Study of Religion

How do we contend with translation as a function, not only of lexicality or even transmission across genres and media, but also of adaptation across time, technologies, space, power relations, immigration, and diaspora? How does translation surface or sublimate matters of religious minority, race, disability, gender, orientation, and class? In short, how do we talk about translation as a mode of social control? How should we consider translation as we acquire data, focus on specific texts or media, or process observations in the field? And how then might we ‘translate’ our own concerns about translation across disciplines and throughout the academy?

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Sponsors
University of Regina, Religious Studies Department
Religion Department, Claremont McKenna College

2018 – Race and the Analytical Study of Religion

How do we design research and collect data on race, the processes of racialization, and religion? How do we trace their intersections with disability, gender, orientation, and class while also challenging the idea that race or phenotypic preoccupation is a universal mode of human aggregation? How do we rejoin attention to these issues along with different scales of social and political aggregation and power?

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Sponsors
University of Regina, Religious Studies Department
University of Denver – Institutional Host
With thanks to Lynn Schofield-Clark

2017 – Appropriation and the Analytical Study of Religion

How is appropriation defined with respect to power and consumption? How is appropriation considered an act of interpretation and exchange? How are appropriation and its contestation meaningful for those we study? What do instances or ongoing acts of appropriation tell us about the politics of representation and classification? In this workshop we will consider the implicit and overt acts of exogenous and endogenous appropriation deployed by the subjects of our research, as well as those that we deploy ourselves when designing qualitative research. We shall look at appropriation as a function of exchange, agency, erasure, classification, and power. Jamel Velji, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Sean McCloud, and Ipsita Chatterjea will address the erasure of the Islamic origins of coffee, Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity, avenues for assessing mixing and power in new religious movements, and the endogamous appropriation and erasure of Black women’s labor. Finally, we will discuss how we as scholars cite, borrow, and adapt from other scholars.

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Sponsors
University of Regina, Religious Studies Department
Northeastern University – Institutional Host
With thanks to Elizabeth Bucar
Wellesley College, The Religion Department

2016 – Aesthetics and the Analytical Study of Religion

SORAAAD, in partnership with the German Arbeitskreis Religionsästhetik, will focus on aesthetics as an analytical concept – and the deployment of sensory data – in the study of religion. We do so with two valences in mind. First, we ask: More than thirty years after Bourdieu’s statements on schemes of action and perception, and on taste as a classifier of social subjects, how does aesthetics function as an artifact of power and social designation? Second, in keeping with McRoberts’ assertion that aesthetics and sensation need to figure into our accountings of religious experiences: How do we deploy aesthetics as a valance of research design on religion? How do we broaden the capacity of social scientists to observe, analyze, and represent human sensation? This year, Birgit Meyer, Alexandra Greiser, Jason Bivins, Josef Sorett, Annette Wilke, David Feltmate, Jolyon Thomas, Rebecca Raphael, Deborah Green and Jens Kreinath will address aesthetics as both data and lens for the study of: religious pluralism and conflict, race and secularism, ritual, disability, sound, jazz, animation, and media. Sally Promey, David Morgan and S. Brent Rodriguez Plate will join the workshop as respondents.

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Sponsors
In partnership with Arbeitskreis Religionsästhetik
Trinity University, Religion Department – Institutional Host
With thanks to Angela Tarango & Sarah K. Pinnock
Rebecca Raphael, Texas State University
William E. Arnal, University of Regina, Religious Studies Department

2015 – Canon and the Analytical Study of Religion

Twenty-five years after Guillory, what does canon mean as a conceptual valence of research design? How is canon – its creation, imposition, and contestation – meaningful for those we study? We will look at the implied and overt canons we deploy in designing qualitative research, the canons deployed by the subjects of our research, and the politics of representation and classification. Karen King, Jennifer Knust, Kecia Ali, Terje Stordalen, Karen Fields, Rudy Busto, Laura Ammon, and Doug Cowan will speak. Topics will include canon and canon-making in the study of Early Christianity; Gender and Islam; Race; and Science Fiction.

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Sponsors
Georgia State University, Religious Studies Department Institutional Host
with thanks to Monique Moultrie & Kathryn McClymond
University of Regina, Religious Studies Department
Critical Theories and Discourses on Religion Group – AAR
Cultural History of the Study of Religion Group – AAR
Metacriticism of Biblical Scholarship Consultation – SBL
Redescribing Early Christianity Group – SBL

2014 – Comparison and the Analytical Study of Religion

How has comparison served as a method in the study of religion? How do we design research projects wherein data vary across space, time, or conceptual valence? How do we structure comparative studies in order to identify and mitigate hegemonic assumptions? How do we relate deep studies of small populations to larger populations and discourses? How transferable are the insights and mechanics developed within different settings? Addressing these and related questions, SORAAAD seeks not only to recover subfields from essentialism, but also to foster new inter- and intra-disciplinary development.

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Sponsors
University of Regina, Religious Studies Department
Critical Theories and Discourses on Religion Group – AAR
Redescribing Early Christianity Group – SBL
Sociology of Religion Group – AAR
Cultural History of the Study of Religion Group – AAR
Metacriticism of Biblical Scholarship Consultation – SBL

2013 – Methodologies and the Analytical Study of Religion

SORAAAD will focus on the selection, design, and implementation of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, as well as responsible ways to use quantitative and qualitative research generated by other scholars outside of the study of religion.

SORAAAD’s Methodologies and the Analytical Study of Religion will be of particular interest for graduate students and established scholars who already enact social science and critical humanities research methodologies, who want to implement newer or different methodologies, or who need to integrate existing social science and critical humanities research outside of religion (Sociology, Anthropology, Cognitive Science, Critical and Social Theories) into their research design, data acquisition and analysis.

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Sponsors
Critical Theories and Discourses on Religion Group – AAR
Cultural History of the Study of Religion Group – AAR
Sociology of Religion Group – AAR
Ideological Criticisms of Biblical Studies Group – SBL
Metacriticism of Biblical Scholarship Consultation – SBL
Bible and Cultural Studies Section – SBL

2012 – The Analytical Handling of Norms and Values in the Study of Religion

Analysis of academic norms for the study of religion focuses on construction of a secondary discourse that accomplishes the following: (a) treats all religious phenomena as primary sources, i.e. the object of study; (b) adheres to common academic practices in the humanities and social sciences, as appropriate for the research question under investigation; and (c) incorporates self-critical reflection on the problematic of scholarly, secondary discourse vis-a-vis the primary, intramural discourse of the people and practices studied. These three goals are necessary to adequately formulate the study of religion as a discipline of scholarship in alignment with the Humanities, Social Sciences and Sciences.

Program PDF
Sponsors
Critical Theories and Discourses on Religion Group – AAR
Cultural History of the Study of Religion Group – AAR
Sociology of Religion Group – AAR
Ideological Criticisms of Biblical Studies Group – SBL
Bible and Cultural Studies Section – SBL
Equinox Publishing

2011 – The Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline?

Sponsors
Critical Theories and Discourses on Religion Group – AAR
Sociology of Religion Group – AAR
Ideological Criticisms of Biblical Studies Group – SBL
Bible and Cultural Studies Section – SBL