CFP: Religion, Race, and National Identity

[Monique Ingalls]

CALL FOR PAPERS
SOCIETY FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION
NOVEMBER 9 - 11, 2012
Hyatt Regency, PHOENIX, AZ

“Religion, Race, and National Identity”

For much of human history, religion has been tightly connected to
peoplehood and to territory – to blood and land. Collective identity
was a blending of faith with deep relational ties, in today’s terms,
religion and race/ethnicity. To be a part of a people was to be
located in a particular geographic place and social space, and bound
by one’s god(s). While the rise of universalist monotheisms, and then
modern society, challenged some aspects of these overlapping social
realities, the rise of the nation-state did not disrupt it completely,
as the existence of state churches and communalist national identities
in Europe testify. Even in – perhaps especially in – our globalized,
post-industrial society – ethno-religious connections form deep
national identities that have produced social conflicts, wars, and
even genocide in such disparate places as South Asia, the Balkans, the
Horn of Africa, and the Nordic countries. These connections also can
foster a deep sense of belonging in a world often seen as spinning out
of control.

One story about the U.S. posits that the “first new nation” rejected
these ascribed bases for national belonging, and was open to all
ethnicities, cultures, and religions. As the story goes, American
identity is an idea and an ideal to which one assented, not a tribe
into which one was born. And yet an enduring issue in American life
has been race. From the founding of the U.S. republic and the
Constitution’s 3/5th clause, to the Civil War, to Martin Luther King’s
“beloved community,” to the election of President Barack Obama and
recent debates over immigration, race has been a structural fact and a
cultural controversy in American life. And from John Winthrop’s “city
on a hill,” to Great Awakenings, to millions of immigrating Catholics,
Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, to debates over school prayer,
evolution, and claims as to whether the U.S. is a “Christian Nation,”
religion has been an integral part of our national consensus even as
it is often a source of deep conflict. These two staples of social
life, race and religion, have been consistent axes around which
American identity has revolved, as much in the 21st century as in the
18th.

Arizona has recently been at the center of a number of political
issues surrounding issues of race, immigration, and American national
identity. Many call recent Arizona policies implicitly racist, while
others argue that the state is acting in the best interests of
American territorial and cultural integrity. Clearly, issues of blood
and land remain salient in American life and politics. As such,
Phoenix becomes a setting in which we can confront the relations among
religion, race, and national identity with the perspectives of social
science.

Papers and discussions are invited on a broad range of topics in the
social scientific study of religion relating to the meeting theme,
including, but not limited to:

• Religion and the politics of immigration
• The ‘culture wars’ and religious commitments
• Religion and American political culture
• Religion and global migration
• Race and religious practices
• Multiracial churches and efforts at diversity
• Religious justifications of and challenges to racial inequality
• Theories of religion and social power
• Religion and multiple arenas of social conflict
• Religion and the election season of 2012

As always, we seek an inclusive mix of substantive, theoretical, and
methodological approaches. Therefore, proposals for sessions and
papers that fall outside the formal theme are also welcome.

All session and paper proposals must be submitted via the on-line
submission system that will be available on the SSSR’s web site,
www.sssrweb.org, beginning January 15, 2012. In addition to the
session proposer’s full contact information, a session proposal
requires a session title and an abstract of not more than 150 words
describing the goal of the session and how the proposer expects the
session to contribute to scientific knowledge about religion. Paper
proposals require the name(s) of the author(s), first author’s full
contact information, an abstract of not more than 150 words that
succinctly describes the question(s) motivating the research, the data
and methods used, and what the paper contributes or expects to
contribute to the knowledge or understanding of religion. The
submission deadline is March 1, 2012.

Submissions Open: January 15, 2012 (see http://www.sssrweb.org)
Submissions Close: March 1, 2012
Decision Notification: April 5, 2012

Please direct questions to:
Ryan T. Cragun, Program Chair
University of Tampa
401 W Kennedy Blvd.
Tampa, FL 33603
(813) 434-1458
rcr...@ut.edu; ryant...@gmail.com