2014
The Spiritual Highway: Religious World Making in Megacity Lagos, Exhibition at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, London, 9 April to 21 June 2014
The Spiritual Highway: Religious World Making in Megacity Lagos, an exhibition at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, London, 9 April to 21 June 2014, is a photography project by Akintunde Akinleye and Marloes Janson.
The 120-kilometre long Lagos-Ibadan Expressway that connects Nigeria’s economic hub Lagos with the city of Ibadan – the third largest metropolitan area in the country – is considered the most important and busiest road in Nigeria. It was opened to traffic in 1979 at the peak of the oil boom, a period often described as ‘paradise on wheels’. As from the 1990s deterioration set in. Resulting from the fact that it has become one of the most accident-prone highways in Nigeria, a popular label for the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is ‘Highway of Death’. While it has failed as the artery linking the north and the south of Nigeria, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway has succeeded as a stage for the performance of public religiosity to the extent that it can be described as a ‘Spiritual Highway’. It owes this name to the fact that since the late 1980s numerous Christian and Muslim movements have cropped up along the highway.
This exhibition is a result of the work that Akintunde and Marloes produced as part of a project to explore and record these centres of religion that have become known as ‘prayer cities’ in the summer of 2013 along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. They concentrated on two of these. The Christian Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries or MFM Prayer City and the Muslim Nasrul-Lahi-Fatih Society of Nigeria, which translates as ‘There is no help except from Allah’ and is abbreviated to NASFAT. These prayer cities are huge in scale with congregations of tens of thousands, competing with each other for new converts by offering a range of facilities and services ranging from faith healing, to education and health care. Challenging conventional assumptions of Christianity and Islam as bounded and distinct traditions, this project focuses instead on the convergence between the two religious traditions, thereby crossing boundaries and blurring sharp distinctions. The convergence of Pentecostal Christianity and revivalist Islam in the ways religion articulates with urbanity makes the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway a true crossroads.
2014
Esther Acolatse’s new book
Esther E. Acolatse 2014, For Freedom or Bondage?: A Critique of African Pastoral Practices.
Grand Rapids: Wm.B. Eeerdmans, 233 pp., ISBN ISBN: 978-0-8028-6989-0 (pbk), $39
In Ghana today, many people who suffer from a variety of human ills wander from one pastor to another in search of a spiritual cure. Because of the way cultural beliefs about the spiritual world have interwoven with their Christian faith, many Ghanaian Christians live in bondage to their fears of evil spiritual powers, seeing Jesus as a superior power to use against these malevolent spiritual forces. In For Freedom or Bondage? Esther Acolatse argues that Christian pastoral practices in many African churches include too much influence from African traditional religions. She examines Ghana Independent Charismatic churches as a case study, offering theological and psychological analysis of current pastoral care practices through the lenses of Barth and Jung. Facilitating a three-strand conversation between African traditional religion, Barthian theology, and Jungian analytical psychology, Acolatse interrogates problematic cultural narratives and offers a more nuanced approach to pastoral care.
REVIEW by Emmanuel Y. Lartey, Candler School of Theology, Emory University
“In this thoughtful, carefully researched, and much-needed book Esther Acolatse enters into critical engagement with African Christian pastoral practices, especially ‘deliverance’ ministries. . . . Her robust theoretical and practical approach, illustrated with actual contextual cases, avoids the dangers of over-spiritualization, under-psychologizing, and cultural irrelevance, which have marred effective care of souls in contemporary African cultures. For Freedom or Bondage? scratches exactly where African Christians currently itch. It should be required reading for all who have pastoral and educational responsibilities for persons influenced by African cultures.”
2014
John Templeton Foundation: Call for funding proposals
The John Templeton Foundation (JTF) will distribute more than $150M of funding in 2015 (up from $93M in 2013) for topics that range from quantum physics to the evolution of cultural complexity. A proportion of these funds are dedicated to topics relating to the social scientific study of religion (including non-religion), including sociological, psychological, anthropological, and economic approaches.
JTF gives grants for up to 3 years in duration and for projects ranging in scope from $50,000 to more than $5,000,000. There are no constraints on the nationalities of the principal investigator or project members. The application process begins with an Online Funding Inquiry (essentially a letter of intent); applicants who are successful at this first stage are invited to submit a more detailed full proposal. The process includes peer review and is highly competitive: ~85% of proposals considered in the Human Sciences portfolio are rejected at the first stage and ~50% are rejected at the second stage.
To apply visit https://portal.templeton.org/login. Deadline for applications: April 1, 2014
Learn more about JTF’s grantmaking process here:
http://www.templeton.org/what-we-fund/our-grantmaking-process
Learn more about Sir John Templeton’s philanthropic vision here:
http://www.templeton.org/sir-john-templeton/philanthropic-vision
2014
SSSR Annual Meeting, 31 October-2 November 2014, Indianapolis, USA
SOCIETY FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION,
Annual Meeting, 31 October – 2 November 2014, Indianapolis, Indiana (USA)
Conference Theme: Building Interdisciplinary Bridges in the Study of Religion
Session: Visual Bridges: Visual Research and the Study of Religion
Call for Session Papers
Organizer: Roman R. Williams, PhD (Calvin College); roman.williams@calvin.edu
Deadline for Proposals: 28 March 2014
Paper Session Description
The potential of visual research techniques for the study of religion is vast, but largely untapped. This comes as a surprise, however, given the visual, symbolic, and material nature of religion and spirituality. Houses of worship, for example, are a prominent feature of the modern landscape and images permeate religious culture. Everyday faith and practice are materially present in everything from clothing and jewelry to artifacts found in people’s homes and workplaces. Not only is the symbolic and material presence of religion palpable throughout society, religion also informs behaviors, practices, and attitudes which are embodied and enacted throughout the many domains of everyday life. Standard research methods that rely on words and numbers alone, however, are not sufficient to capture important dimensions of religion and spirituality in the contemporary cultural landscape. This paper session explores the potential of visual research methods to bridge academic disciplines, cross the qualitative-quantitative divide, connect academic and non-academic audiences, and extend knowledge related to the study of religion. Papers addressing these themes and/or reporting on relevant research are welcome.
Submitting Proposals
Proposals must be submitted to Roman Williams (roman.williams@calvin.edu) by 28 March 2014 and include the following information:
(1) Name and institutional affiliation of author (and co-authors)
(2) Contact information (email address of first author)
(3) Title of proposed paper
(4) Abstract (up to 150 words)
2014
KU-Leuven Vacancies for research in the Congo
KU-Leuven advertizes three four-year fully paid for doctoral reseach posts into technology and cultural interactions in Congolese cities such as Kinshasa, Kikwit, and Lumumbashi; and one permanent postdoc position for this research in Africa at large.
Deadline for submissions is March 31 2014. All candidates have to submit their applications via the electronic system of the KU Leuven. Selected candidates will be invited for an interview late May-early June. The project will start on Oct 1 2014. The researchers will be embedded in the Institute of Anthropological Research in Africa (IARA) at the University of Leuven.
For the project, cf. https://www.academia.edu/6110569/Comparing_Technologies_in_Urban_DR_Congo_1960-present_Kinshasa_Kikwit_and_Lubumbashi_2014-2019_team_research_
