Deadline now extended to July 16th!

BASR’s 2014 conference takes place on September 3-5th, at the Open University in Milton Keynes. This year’s conference has two themes: “religion, art and performance” and “the cutting edge”. Both can be interpreted broadly. Panels and papers are invited. Please use the menu at the top of the page for more information.

Religion, art and performance
Religion is at least represented in artistic and dramatic ways. It has been argued that theatre began in religious rituals, that visual arts began as demonstrations of religious knowledges, and that literature arose from religious myth-telling. Perhaps pre-modern arts of all kinds were fundamentally religious. Contemporary religion has interesting relationships with art and performance: from the use of ritual-like acts on stage to the staging of religious rites to impact a wide public; from the portrayal of religious themes in art to the emerging emphasis on “religion as act” or “religioning” in recent scholarly theorising. Perhaps religion is a performative art. Is it still valid to distinguish ritual from drama on the grounds that the former involves only participants while the latter invites audiences? What difference does the display of religious acts or things in museums, galleries, theatres, heritage and tourist venues make? Ideas and questions like these (and there are many more) seem likely to enhance the value of the study of religions to interdisciplinary scholarship. Perhaps the study of religion could be improved by dialogue with scholars of art or performance, and/or vice versa. The BASR 2014 conference provides an opportunity to explore these and other questions and debates. Therefore, we invite panels and papers about religion, art and performance (all defined broadly).

The cutting edge
Many BASR members also belong to scholarly associations for the study of specific religions or for the advancement of specific approaches to religion(s) (e.g. anthropology, philosophy, sociology and more). We invite panels on the cutting edge of debates that focus on specific religions or apply specific approaches. In doing so we hope various forms of cross-fertilisation will enrich the field of studies of religion.

Submitting proposals
The programme committee particularly invites panels but will gladly consider offers of individual papers on the conference themes. Papers should take 20 minutes (followed by 10 minutes discussion). Paper proposals should provide a title, abstract of no more than 250 words and the presenter’s name and institutional affiliation. Panel proposals should group papers together (to comprise a 90 minute session) and also provide a panel title, short abstract and the name of the panel convener / chair. Proposals for open roundtable and discussion sessions will be considered.

Proposals should be sent to arts-basr@open.ac.uk by 1 July 2014.

All Registration and Accommodation details are available on the Registration Form that needs to be completed and returned by 1 August 2014 to the address provided on the form