2016
2020 IAHR Congress to be held in New Zealand
For more on this announcement, see the IAHR website: http://www.iahr.dk/index.php
2016
AASR at the 2016 AAR/SBL Conference
Each year the AASR sponsors multiple panels at the joint American Academy of Religion (AAR) and Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) conference. This year the conference will be in San Antonio, TX, USA, from 19-22 November 2016. See below for information regarding AASR sponsored panels, as well as information on panels sponsored by the African Religions Group that will also be of interest to AASR members. In addition to the panels, we are also planning a dinner for Saturday, 19 November, at 19:00. The location is to be determined, but we will meet immediately following the AASR panel (‘Eschatology and African Religions’), which ends at 18:30.
Eschatology and African Religions
Esther Acolatse, Duke University, Presiding
Saturday – 4:00 PM-6:30 PM
Grand Hyatt-Lone Star F (2nd Level)
Throughout the world, prophets of doom have been characterized and caricatured by their signs proclaiming, “The end is nigh!” They are espousing an eschatological vision—they have a sense that the end of the world as we know it could be just around the corner. Yet many scholars have noted that eschatology is largely absent from African traditional religion. African religions tend to focus on the “here and now,” safeguarding the stability of community life. Even in the case of ancestor veneration, African religionists are not looking backward as much as securing right relations between the living and the dead to ensure the fertility and security of the community. Nevertheless, in the past century, most of Africa has come in contact with Islam or Christianity—both of which are religions with strong eschatological visions. Papers on this panel offer analyses of ways African traditional religions are responding to eschatological concerns; and how the Christian and Muslim eschatological notions are incorporated to cast new eschatological visions to meet uniquely African interests.
Loreen Maseno, Maseno University, and Kupakwashe Mtata, University of Bayreuth
Eschatological Prophecies: Female Pentecostal-Charismatic Preachers Self-Legitimation in Africa
Chammah J Kaunda, University of South Africa
The Bemba Eschatology and Socio-Relational Evolution: Implications for Bemba Christians in Pentecostal Assemblies of God in Zambia
Tim Carey, Boston College
“That All May Have Life, and Have It Abundantly”: Inter-Religious Perspectives of HIV and AIDS in Eastern Africa within Catholicism and Sunni Islam
Responding: Elochukwu Eugene Uzukwu, Duquesne University
We will meet for the AASR dinner immediately following the session.
Debility and Personhood in African Religions
Lovemore Togarasei, University of Botswana, Presiding
Sunday – 3:00 PM-4:30 PM
Grand Hyatt-Bonham B (3rd Level)
Across the continent of Africa, many associate the condition of debility and/or physical “abnormality” with spiritual and moral concerns. Such conditions might result from a religious transgression, as in the case of neglected ancestors, or they might result from spiritual “foul play” in the case of witchcraft. Some consider physical difference to be a source of power, which has both positive and negative implications. This panel explores the intersections of personhood, debility/physical abnormality, and religion from various perspectives and from several regions in Africa examining how African religions define and diagnose debility and physical abnormality, and how they account for the personhood of disabled people, while paying attention to analysis of both the positive and negative social implications of debility and physical abnormality.
Danoye Oguntola-Laguda, Lagos State University
Omoluabi: A Critical Analysis of Yoruba Concept of Person
Abimbola Adelakun, University of Texas
Prosperity Gospel and the Exorcism of Debility
Responding: Nathanael Homewood, Rice University
Business Meeting: Elias Kifon Bongmba, Rice University, and Corey Williams, Leiden University
Co-sponsored session with the African Religions Group: The Good Life and Social Justice in Africa: Ethical and Religious Responses to Exclusion
Monday – 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Grand Hyatt-Bonham B (3rd Level)
The papers in this session explore various approaches to the Good, as well as tensions among them, that currently prevail on the African continent. Against the New Atheists’ assumption that religion is the root of all evil, the papers pursue ways in which African ethical and religious systems educate pupils, empower persons, enfranchise citizens, enhance health, expand rights, or fulfill other goals even as they question simplistic understandings of what is best in life. The papers engage these questions in a variety of contexts – from indigenous communities in Cameroon to a Kenyan refugee camp – and from a variety of methodological perspectives. This co-sponsored session is a response to the theme of the AAR 2016 meetings, Revolutionary Love, and to the AAR’s call for plenary sessions over the next three years on the theme of religion and hatred.
The session will be followed by the business meeting of the African Religions Group.
Ann K Riggs, Loyola University, Chicago
The Good Life in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya
David Ngong, Stillman College
Ground Cargo and the Good Life: A Cameroonian Conception of Material Things
Ladislas Nsengiyumva, Boston College
African Theology of Disease: Understanding the Theological Meaning of Life from Abundant Life to Physical and Mental Afflictions
Business Meeting: Adriaan van Klinken, University of Leeds
In addition to the AASR sponsored panels, there are also a number of panels sponsored by the African Religions Group that will certainly be of interest:
African Religions Group and Anthropology of Religion Group: Researching Religion in Africa: Methodological Contributions and Challenges to Religious Studies
Adriaan van Klinken, University of Leeds, Presiding
Saturday – 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Grand Hyatt-Bowie C (2nd Level)
Researching Religion in Africa: Ethnographic, Linguistic, Theological, and Philosophical Approaches and Reflections
Devaka Premawardhana, Colorado College, Presiding
Sunday – 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Grand Hyatt-Bowie B (2nd Level)
African Religions Group and Indigenous Religious Traditions Group: Roundtable on Robert Baum’s West Africa’s Women of God: Alinesitoué and the Diola Prophetic Tradition (Indiana University Press, 2015)
Dianna Bell, Vanderbilt University, Presiding
Monday – 1:00 PM-3:30 PM
Convention Center-212B (2nd Level – West)
African Religions Group and Lesbian-Feminisms and Religion Group: African Responses to Violence in the Realms of Gender and Sexuality: Action, Ethics, Popular Art, and Religion
Tuesday – 8:30 AM-10:00 AM
Grand Hyatt-Bonham B (3rd Level)
2016
AAR Officer Elections: Voting closes 20 October!
For those AASR members who are also AAR members, the AAR is currently holding elections for the following:
Vice President: Janet R. Jakobsen and Laurie L. Patton
Program Unit Director: Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado and Kathryn McClymond
At-Large Director: Afe Adogame and Leela Prasad
The voting closes tomorrow, 20 October at 12:00PM Eastern Time. For more information about the candidates, visit the AAR Website.
2016
AASR e-Journal Issue 2.1 now online!
The new issue of the Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and its Diaspora is now available online: Issue 2.1 (October 2016). You can also download it here as a PDF file.
CONTENTS:
Afe Adogame: Editor’s Note
Charles Prempeh: Peeping into the Sacralisation of Marijuana in Urban Slums: A Study of Muslim Youth in Maamobi, Ghana
Thomas W. Seat II: Christian Confrontations with Indigenous Beliefs in the Niger Delta
Mobolaji Oyebisi Ajibade: A Christian Construction of Domestic Violence in Electronic Media: A Case Study of Ìdààmú Ilémoṣú by Kolade Segun-Okeowo
Briana Wong: Review Essay
2016
NASR Conference: 12-15 September 2016
NIGERIAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGIONS (NASR)
37th ANNUAL CONFERENCE
THEME: RELIGION, MARRIAGE AND FAMILY VALUES IN AFRICA
In contemporary society, the issues of religion, family and marriage have received different conceptions and interpretations. These range from the role of religion in marriage and family formation as well as the definitions of the latter. The budding or thriving debates bordering on family conception and size; marriage, conceived from its heterosexual and homosexual union and the place of religions in Africa are not just interesting but more importantly affecting their traditional understanding. Although a lot of debates have been had from Christian and Islamic viewpoints, the African Traditional/Indigenous Religious perspectives have been skewed or lost in cultural argument. In fact, some have argued that there are metaphysical implications of family and marriage within the scope of African Traditional/Indigenous Religion, which align with the eschatological arguments in Christianity and Islam. Other religious perspectives are also visible. All of this also has existential implications on Nigerian (African) societies. This is so because of the criminalisation and decriminalisation of homosexuality/gay/lesbianism and how Africa has become the ground for further contest. Consequently, the Nigerian Association for the Study of Religions (NASR) calls for papers that will investigate the issues raised above and other related ones in her 37th Annual Conference.
Sub-themes
- Conceptual and empirical definitions of marriage and family in Africa
- African religious thoughts on traditional marriage and family
- African values of extended families, past and present
- African religion, Christianity and Islam on nuclear family
- Christian perspectives on marriage and family
- Islamic perspectives on marriage and family
- African cultural perspectives on marriage and family
- Modernity, marriage and family in Africa
- Homosexuality and African religious thought
- Metaphysical implications of homosexual unions in Africa
- (Social) change, marriage and family values in Nigeria
- African Christianities and homosexuality debates
- African Islam and homosexuality debates
- The future of marriage and family in Nigeria
- Western influences on African/Nigerian family values
- Globalisation, migration, religion and family values in Africa
- African Diaspora, marriage and family values
- Religion, gender, feminism and gay/lesbianism
- History of homosexuality in Nigeria
- Philosophical debates on marriage, family values and homosexuality
- Moral and ethical implications of homosexuality and family values in Nigeria
- Sociological understanding of marriage, family and homosexuality in Nigeria
- Marriage, family values and human rights in Nigeria
- Other related topics
Date: 12th – 15th September, 2016
Venue: Department of Religious Studies, University of Benin, Benin City, Edo State.
Keynote Speaker: Professor Afe Adogame (Princeton, USA)
Lead Paper Presenters: Professor A. R. O. Kilani and Professor (Mrs.) Martina Atere
Dr. Benson Ohihon Igboin bensonigboin@gmail.com, nigeria.nasr@gmail.com 08160220622 General Secretary, NASR
LOC, Secretary Dr. Lateef K. Adeyemo lateef.adeyemo@uniben.edu 08035814343
Registration fee: Old members: N12000; New members: N15000; Postgraduate students: N5000.
Skye Bank Account No: 1140071667
