2018
19th Annual Africa Conference at The University of Texas at Austin – March 29 – 31, 2019
The 2019 Africa Conference will critically examine the highly intricate and contested processes of identity formation and its significance for African societies. Furthermore, the conference will engage with discussions on identities that are intimately linked to notions of African diaspora across the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean. The primary aim of the conference is to reflect on the varying and varied forms of social practices and processes through which identities are constructed, contested, negotiated, and reconfigured in relation to one another. Simultaneously, the conference intends to create an intellectual space for examining the politics of identity that systematically marginalizes, excludes, disempowers, and denudes certain social groups. Beyond the specific emphasis on Africa, the overarching focus of the conference is to engage with different theoretical inflections that have emerged in the existing scholarship on imbricated identities as well as to probe into the ways in which they have been challenged and reformulated within the academia.
See the Call for Papers for further information
2018
Job Posting: U. Pennsylvania, Ass’t Prof in World Christianity (Premodern Focus)
The Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor in the field of Global Christianity in the Premodern World focused on any period between the onset of Islam through the Christianization of the New World. We are especially interested in applicants whose work pursues connections across the Indian or Atlantic Oceans into continents beyond Europe or examines Christianity within a multi-religious environment like the Iberian Peninsula, but the position is open to applications from any sub-field and time period within the parameters described above. The successful candidate for this new faculty position should have a compelling and original research agenda and a commitment to pursue it within the interdisciplinary framework offered by the Department of Religious Studies, the School of Arts and Sciences, and the wider University. In addition, we are seeking an excellent and enthusiastic teacher to participate in the department’s undergraduate and graduate programs. PhD is expected at the time of appointment.
Interested candidates should apply at http://facultysearches.provost.upenn.edu/postings/1440 and submit a letter of application, CV, statement of research, writing sample, and the names of three individuals who will be contacted by the University with instructions for submitting letters of recommendation. The Department will begin reviewing applications on October 16th, 2018. Applications will continue to be considered until the position is filled.
The Department of Religious Studies is strongly committed to Penn’s Action Plan for Faculty Diversity and Excellence and to creating a more diverse faculty (for more information see: http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/volumes/v58/n02/diversityplan.html). The University of Pennsylvania is an EOE. Minorities/Women/Individuals with disabilities/Protected veterans are encouraged to apply.
2018
CfP: Magic, Spirits & Power (Nov 15–16, 2018, University of Copenhagen)
Call for Papers – PhD Course and Research Workshop
Magic, Spirits and Power: Transgressing the Religious / Secular Divide
Centre of African Studies and the PhD school at the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen
Since the early pioneering studies by Evans-Pritchard in the 1930s, the study of witchcraft has been
a prominent theme in anthropological and African studies. The classical legacy has been challenged
and developed by later generations of scholars such as Peter Geschiere, Harry West, Isaak Niehaus,
Adam Ashforth. Others, such as Florence Bernault have discussed witchcraft and the fetish from a
historical perspective, looking particularly into the how witchcraft was part of the colonial lexicon.
From a different context, Nils Bubandt has argued against perceiving witchcraft as a system of
belief that people draw on in order to explain the world. On the contrary, in the context of an
Indonesian island, Bubandt argues that witchcraft is more about doubt and confusions than about
explanation.
In this Ph.D. course / workshop, we will address the question of how to approach and understand
magic and spirits and their relationship to power. It is widely recognised (in anthropology, religious
studies and African studies) that in African societies for instance there is a strong linkage between
the political and the spiritual spheres. Spirits are part of the world people inhabit and they have
agency. This course addresses both methodological and theoretical questions of how to understand
magic and spirits. How do we on the one hand avoid using pejorative and exotisising terms
(implying that we are studying something irrational) and on the other hand move beyond a
particular culturally informed analysis? The analysis of magic and spirits has for long been closely
related to analytical categories of belief and specific religious ideas. In this course, we wish to open
up such debates and examine other ways of analysing and understanding spirits. Moreover, we seek
to question the underlying oppositional categories of the religious and the secular by indicating that
magic and spirits in a broad sense is part of how people perceive and act in the world.
The course will be organized as a one-day course (lunch-to-lunch), with presentations from invited
key notes speakers and workshops with paper presentation from Ph.D. students and other interested
scholars.
The themes of the course include (but are not limited to):
witchcraft and the categories of religion and secularity
witchcraft and rationality
withcraft, belief and doubt
witchcraft, insecurity and uncertainty
witchcraft as practice and discourse
social science on and as witchcraft
Date and time: 15 November (Lunch) – 16 November (Lunch) 2018
Keynote speakers: Florence Bernault, Professor of African history, Sciences Po, Paris.
Nils Bubandt, Professor of Anthropology, University of Aarhus.
ECTS: 2.25 ECTS
Registration: You apply by sending an e-mail to Niels Kastfelt (nk@teol.ku.dk) AND
Karen Lauterbach (kjl@teol.ku.dk). The registration deadline is 20
September 2018. The e-mail should include: Name, position,
institutional affiliation, paper title and a paper abstract of maximum 200
words.
Course preparation: Participants must submit a paper of maximum 6,000 words by 1
November 2018. It is expected that all participants read all papers.
Moreover, there will be required reading as preparation for the course.
Course capacity: Maximum 15 participants
Format:The course will consist of a combination of keynote lectures and
workshops with paper presentations.
Venue: Faculty of Theology, South Campus, University of Copenhagen, Karen
Blixens Plads 16, Room 6B.1.62
Organizers: Associate Professor Niels Kastfelt (Department of Church History,
Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen)
Associate Professor Karen Lauterbach (Centre of African Studies,
University of Copenhagen)
2018
Call for Applications: Leiden ASA Visiting Research Fellowship January-February-March 2019
Call for Applications:
Leiden ASA Visiting Research Fellowship January-February-March 2019
The Leiden African Studies Assembly calls for applications for a three-month (90 days) visiting fellowship at Leiden University (African Studies Centre) from September up to and including November 2018. Applications from all academic disciplines are welcome. An application must include an element of collaboration with a researcher of the African Studies Centre Leiden and a researcher of another faculty/department of Leiden University. The output of that collaboration can be a joint seminar or workshop, a joint research proposal, or a joint publication.
Requirements for a visiting fellowship
In order to be eligible for a LeidenASA 90-days Visiting Research Fellowship, the applicant has to fulfil all of the following criteria. He or she must:
1. Hold a PhD degree, by the time of applying;
2. Have conducted research, as part of the PhD and/or in later projects; with a focus on Africa;
3. Be actively pursuing an academic/research career;
4. Have published books, book chapters and/or journal articles in recent years that meet international standards;
5. Propose a research project for the fellowship that is likely to contribute to interfaculty collaboration at Leiden University; as shown in statements of collaboration (enclosed with the application) from one African Studies Centre Leiden scholar and (at least) one other Leiden University scholar. Overview of scholars to be found here: http://www.ascleiden.nl/sites/default/files/leidenasaresearchmembersmay2018.pdf
6. In accordance with visa regulations, be ready to return to the country of which he/she is a citizen and/or a current resident upon completion of the fellowship.
In the assessment of applications that meet these requirements,
A. Preference will be given to applicants based in Africa. ‘Africa’ here refers to the member states of the African Union. ‘Based in’ Africa is understood to have lived in Africa during at least two of the last four years; and
B. Emphasis will be placed on the quality, intended outputs and feasibility of the research project proposed for the fellowship.
A fellowship includes
– A return ticket (economy class).
– A daily stipend to cover living expenses.
– Single accommodation in Leiden with shared facilities.
– The use of (shared) office facilities and of library facilities.
How to apply?
Please complete application form below and send it, together with all required additional documents, to:
LeidenASA@asc.leidenuniv.nl
Incomplete applications will not be reviewed.
Applications must be submitted in English or French.
However, Visiting Research Fellows may pursue their research in any language(s) of their choice, in agreement with their ASCL/Leiden University counterparts.
The deadline for applications is 25 August 2018.
2018
CfP: 2018 Fela Anikulapo Kuti Int’l Conference on African Homelands and Social Theory (10-11th Oct)
CENTRE FOR BLACK ORIENTATION AND AFRICAN CONSCIOUSNESS, CEBOAC, IBADAN, NIGERIA
AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES DEPARTMENT, UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN, IBADAN.
In collaboration with DOMINICAN UNIVERSITY, SAMONDA, IBADAN.
Presents
2018 FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AFRICAN HOMELANDS AND SOCIAL THEORY
(A 2-Day International Conference in Honour of Fela Anikulapo Kuti)
CONFERENCE THEME:
Religion-State Relationship in Postcolonial Africa: Issues, Contexts and Perspectives
VENUE: UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN, IBADAN.
DATE: 10 -11TH OCTOBER, 2018
TIME: 10:00AM DAILY
CONFERENCE OVERVIEW: Fela Anikulapo Kuti International Conference on African Homelands and Social Theory is an annual international conference that brings together academicians and research scholars in African and Diaspora Studies and importantly researchers in the Fela phenomenon. The international conference provides the medium and opportunity to exchange ideas, share knowledge, and develop academic researches done in the gear of decolonizing knowledge in the African educational system and with the sole aim of adding values to knowledge production in its Africanity. The conference seek to promote intellectualism in its Africaness, Culture education and traditions of African homelands and the diaspora. In fulfilling this, while the international conference provides an environment for cross- fertilization of ideas to produce knowledge and new thoughts and philosophies, the conference as well accommodates political education for the decolonization of African homelands as a step to rescue the westernization of education in Africa.
CALL FOR PAPERS
The 2018 FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AFRICAN HOMELANDS AND SOCIAL THEORY is planned to feature paper presentations on some selected thematic issues relating to the concept note. Participants are invited from different fields and practices including: religious studies, music, theatre and film, literary and cultural studies, political science, sociology, history, philosophy and other related areas. The paper abstract must not be more than 300 words.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT THE OPENING CEREMONY
Professor Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin, USA
LEAD PAPER PRESENTERS:
Prof. J.K Ayantayo, Prof. of Christian theology, Head, Department of Religious Studies, U.I
Prof. Anthony Akinwale, Vice- Chancellor, Dominican University, Samonda, Ibadan
CONFERENCE CHAIR
Emeritus Professor Femi Osofisan, University of Ibadan.
THEMATIC ISSUES: Conference papers will cover the under listed thematic issues:
a. Religion, International political system and Africa
b. Religion, Ideology and Nationalism
c. Religion and Philosophy
d. Religion and Music in the African Context
e. Religion and Language in the African Perspective
f. Religion and Conventional Thoughts
g. Religion, Education and Law
h. Historiography of Religion within the African Context
i. Comparative Approach to Non-African and African Belief Systems
j. Religion and Emerging Gender Issues
k. Religion, Terrorism, Peace and Strategic studies
l. The Foreign in African Traditional Religions
m. Religion and Humanity in the African Context
n. Political economy of religion
o. Comparative Study on Religion, Spirituality and Culture
p. Religion and African mystery system
q. Religion and Secret societies
r. Religion, methodology and politics of knowledge production
s. Religion, Postcolonial Africanities and human development
t. Religion, Secularism and globalization
u. Religion and Environmental issues
v. Religion, Archaeology and social Anthropology
w. Religion and classical studies
Prospective paper presenters are to adhere strictly to the APA Format for writing research papers.
Abstracts and full papers can be submitted by email to the Conference Convener, Olusegun Michael Ogundele at mcmikewrights@gmail.com or to the official conference email address: felaconference@gmail.com
IMPORTANT DATES
Publicity: 15th May, 2018
Deadline for submission: 5th August, 2018
Notification of acceptance: 19th August, 2018
Deadline for final paper submission: 5th September, 2018
Conference date: 10- 11 October, 2018
The international conference will have as part of its special features A FRENCH PANEL. This French panel is being sponsored by IFRA- NIGERIA and Alliance Francais, Ibadan. Papers to be presented at this French panel will be submitted in French Language, especially to encourage participation from African research scholars in Francophone countries. Presentation at the panel will be in French language. There is as well a possibility for a French translator to English Language so that the parallel session will not close its door against other participants in the conference.
CONTACT PERSONS FOR THE ORGANISATION OF THE FRENCH PANEL:
Dr. Nicolas Michelland, Director, Alliance Francaise, Ibadan, Nigeria
Dr. Elodie Apard, Director, French Institute for Research in Africa, University of Ibadan, Ibadan.
Prof. Tunde Ayeleru, Head, Department of European Studies, University of Ibadan, Ibadan.
Prof. Anthony Akinwale, Vice Chancellor, Dominican University, Samonda, Ibadan.
OLUSEGUN MICHAEL OGUNDELE
Conference Convener
07066249160
