The Law and Religion Program at the University at Buffalo focuses on the multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural study of the intersection of law, religion, society and culture. Law and religion are present in all human societies. Law and religion are also cultural products. We seek to understand how these two powerful social and cultural sets of ideas, practices, and institutions have come to be seen as separate and how they interact and have interacted and recombined in diverse ways across space and time. What is distinctive about the program at Buffalo is that it is the very pluralism, openness and contingency of law and religion and their interrelationship that engages a very diverse set of scholars, historians, anthropologists, social theorists, sociologists, and lawyers.
November 18, 2009
The cheese, the worms, and Major Hasan
What does the academic study of religion have to contribute to public discussions concerning Major Hasan's religious identity? What do we know about religion and religious identity? We are worried about stereotypes and we are anxious, but what do we know?
It is common in the academic study of religion to speak of groups of people–Muslims, Christians, atheists—as enjoying certain common characteristics over time and space, even while we give attention to the limitations of these denominations. In these conversations we work on further specifying characteristics—evangelical Christians—catholic Christians—orthodox Christians. Or further still—liberal Catholics—conservative Catholics—Irish Catholics—Hispanic Catholics. Or cradle Catholics, Catholic converts. In all these efforts we are speaking of collectivities, of the characteristics of collectivities, generalized across these populations. We know about these characteristics from our study of historical evidence and from sociological research.
We also write about individuals—usually virtuoso individuals. Ibn Arabi, Asoka, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Anne Hutchinson, Martin Luther King, Gandhi. Prophets, saints, seers, shamans, visionaries . . . innovators and conservators of traditions.
Linking these two ways of speaking is almost always awkward. Are we fascinated by these individuals because they are exemplary or because they break the mold? Is Luther properly regarded as Catholic or Protestant? Is he better understood using psychology or theology? Was Anne Hutchinson more or less true to the church than those who condemned her? Was her fate sealed by her gender or by her religious ideas and practices? Was the Buddha a Buddhist? If these famous exemplars do not fit the crude forms we make, what about ordinary people? [Read More]
The International Association for the History of Religions invites scholars of religion to respond to the call for papers to be delivered at its XXth Quinquennial World Congress to be held at the University of Toronto from 15 to 21 August, 2010.
Scholars are invited to focus attention on religion and religions insofar as they are publicly available to the research tools and techniques of the historical, social, and natural sciences. The structure of the Academic Program of the Congress is designed to facilitate a bridging of traditional specializations in the field by encouraging scholars to present their research in an academic framework of well-defined methodological approaches in the study of religions. (See Congress Theme.)
Deadline for submissions is April 30, 2010.
Details can be found by visiting the conference website.