Author: Jan Platvoet

CfP for a book on African proverbs in honour of Prof. John S. Mbiti

A CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS to a book on African proverbs in honor of Prof. John S. Mbiti
Editors: Anne Kubai and Damaris Parsitau

Proposed title: Indigenous Epistemologies: African Proverbs on Human Relations, the Supernatural and the Environment

Prof. John Mbiti’s pioneering research and lifetime devotion to the study of African religions and philosophy is acclaimed globally. To honour Prof. Mbiti for his enormous contribution to scholarship, we are calling for essays to be put together in an edited volume.

When Prof. Mbiti gave his keynote speech at Egerton University during the AASR conference in 2012, he made a plea for research on African proverbs, which, in his view, is a theme that has not been adequately examined by African scholars of religion and philosophy. In his honor therefore, it is fitting for this volume to focus on a theme that he is interested in – that is the gap in current research on the philosophy and indigenous knowledge preserved in and transmitted through African proverbs.

With the processes of social change that have characterized the 21st Century, and the attendant weakening of ‘traditional’ social institutions, many societies are witnessing global challenges that call for multi-pronged responses. Without making the obvious reference to the terrain of social media, the question of knowledge – old and new – how it can be preserved, used and generated not only for social and economic advancement, but also as a common good in society, has come into sharp focus in recent times. One of the questions that needs to be answered is: what type of knowledge is not only necessary but also appropriate for different purposes? By focusing on African epistemologies through proverbs in his key note address at the African Association for the Study of Religions (AASR) conference in 2012, Prof. Mbiti called upon us at Egerton to take up the noble task of exploring this treasure of indigenous knowledge.

The contributions will take cognizance of Prof. Mbiti’s achievements in laying the foundation for the development of scholarship on African religion and philosophy, starting with his all-time classic An Introduction to African religions and Philosophy, published in 1969. The essays in the edited volume therefore, will be organized around (though not limited to) the following three broad areas:

(a) Analysis of proverbs that speak to the issues of human relations and wellbeing

•  social networks
•  peace and conflict
•  taboos, rituals, behavior, etc
•  gender relations
•  health – the body, sexuality, etc
•  rites of passage

(b) Analysis of proverbs that address the relationship between the supernatural and human beings

•  sacrifices
•  prayers

(c) Analysis of proverbs that address the relationship between human beings and the
environment, nature or natural resources

• sacred places: mountains, rivers, shrines, animals, etc
• human connection to land, sea, etc

Time frame
– Submission of abstracts: 30-12-2016
– Submission of first drafts of chapters: 30-4-2017
– Comments from reviewers to authors: 30-9-2017
– Submission of revised drafts: 30-12-2017

Please, send your proposal for a contribution to the editors:
Prof. Anne Kubai, anne.kubai@teol.uu.se
Dr. Damaris Parsitau, dparsitau@yahoo.com; dparsitau@egerton.ac.ke

NB. A writers’ workshop to bring together the writers for two days is envisaged in the project,
but this depends on the availability of funds.

Call for Papers: THE BIBLE AND GENDER TROUBLES IN AFRICA

Biblical scholars and other academics are invited to contribute an article to the forthcoming volume of the BiAS series. The articles should focus very rigidly on the topic of THE BIBLE AND GENDER TROUBLES IN AFRICA. Articles that tend to ignore the topic will be rejected. The volume will be peer-reviewed. Every contributor will be expected to act anonymously as peer-reviewer for another article.

Deadline for submission is END OF APRIL 2017. Please send your article to: joachim.kuegler@online.de  Please tell us as soon as possible if you are planning to contribute an article.

Style regulations:
Please avoid formatting a lot. Footnotes are reserved for real annotations. Bibliographical reference is given within the main te+t like this (Kuegler 2010:35) i.e. (Author Year: Page). For the full bibliographic information add a literature list at the end of your te+x. Please avoid internet links in the main te+t. Include them in the literature list and quote them according to the short way given above. Every article should start with a short summary (not more than 10 lines). At the end (after the literature list) some information on the author should be given: Full name (as used in publications); academic titles; professional status; university; research fields; one or two important publications; e-mail

Call for Papers: JSR special issue 2017: The Role of Religion in Violence and Peacebuilding

The role of religion in political and socio-economic violence as well as peacebuilding has been theorised and analysed in diverse ways and contexts. Political violence has been conceptualised in a narrow way as collective acts of political significance that result in direct physical harm to persons and property. Approaches taking in broader contexts have drawn attention to the systemic violation of people’s rights and dignity in modern states that claim a monopoly on legitimate violence and that have often normalised colonialism, racism, classism and sexism. The different forms of violence – direct, cultural and structural – have also been facilitated or opposed by actors who have deployed religion to meet their ends. This has been done through both violent and non-violent means, which have made reflections on the ethics of violent resistance and peacebuilding particularly salient.

We would like to invite interested authors to submit articles for a special issue of JSR (Journal for the Study of Religion, official journal of ASRSA, Association for the Study of Religion in Southern Africa) on the role of religion in political and socio-economic violence and peacebuilding. Analyses should be theoretically informed and applied to pertinent case studies (networked societies on the internet are relevant as well).

The aim of this edition is to publish a coherent body of analytical articles that focus on, but are not limited to, the following questions:
– In which ways have religious beliefs, practices and institutions been instrumentalised in political, ethnic and/or resource-based violence?
– Which roles have religious movements and religious actors played in secular politics towards peacebuilding and reconciliation?
– In which ways do networked groups on the internet use religion in discourses of violence and peacebuilding?

IMPORTANT DATES
1. Submission of abstracts: Abstracts for consideration should be submitted by 01 November 2016. Abstracts should be between 200-250 words, providing the research question, theoretical approach, methodology and case study / studies.
2. Notification of acceptance of abstract and invitation of full paper submission for consideration: 15 November 2016.
3. Full papers (6000 – 10 000 words), prepared according to the guidelines for authors at http://www.scielo.org.za/revistas/jsr/iinstruc.htm, are due by 31 January 2017.
4. Articles will be peer-reviewed during February and March 2017.
5. Authors will be notified of the outcome of peer-reviews by 31 March 2017.
6. Final revised papers are due by 30 April 2017.
7. Publication of first issue of JSR in June 2017.

Please send abstract submissions and all correspondence relating to this special issue to the guest editors:
Johan Strijdom (Religious Studies and Arabic, University of South Africa, South Africa). Email: strijjm@hotmail.com
Joram Tarusarira (Centre for Religion, Conflict and the Public Domain, University of Groningen, The Netherlands). Email: j.tarusarira@rug.nl