If the newsletter does not display properly, please click here.

Dear friends and colleagues,

Next week our Screening Religion series continues – this time we will show the film “Sacred Ground”.

In today’s Wednesday Weekly we would like to share with you the video recording of Lori Beaman’s Globe22 Inaugural Lecture, a Call for Abstracts, and a recommendation for an International Conference. In addition, we would like to point you to three Calls for Applications.

Take care and have a good week!

Anja & Lucy

Screening Religion: “Sacred Ground”, 22 March at naTo

We are happy to announce the next film in our Screening Religion series: The film “Sacred Ground”, directed by Sergey Kozmin, tells the story of Torfyanka, a small park in the Northeast of Moscow, where contention between the believers and park defenders has turned into a severe struggle with night watches, physical fights and mutual offence. Every Sunday half of them come to pray by a wooden cross, and another half is there to defend a small spot of land, which they want to stay public. The “200 Churches” development project started in 2011 by the Russian Orthodox Church in cooperation with Moscow government, provoked several severe conflicts in the city.

The film will be shown at the Cinémathèque Leipzig at naTo in Russian language with English subtitles. There will be a discussion afterwards. 

22 March | 7 pm (CET)

Cinémathèque Leipzig at naTo, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 46, 04275 Leipzig

Free entry, donations welcome

Lori Beaman’s Globe22 Lecture on “The Transformational Possibilities of Immanence: The Rise of Nonreligion and its Implications for the Climate Crisis” available on YouTube

During the Globe22 Research Festival, our Associate Member Lori Beaman gave her inaugural lecture for the Leibniz Professorship.

She explored the implications of the decline in the number of people who affiliate and identify with institutional religion in traditionally Christian countries vis à vis human relationships with the planet.

The video is now available on the YouTube channel of the Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe).

Call for Abstracts for the International Conference on “Islamic Law in the Crucible of the Modern State: Problems and Perspectives”, 10–12 July University of Münster

Our Senior Research Fellow Sita Steckel draws our attention to this Call for Abstracts for the International Conference on “Islamic Law in the Crucible of the Modern State: Problems and Perspectives”. The conference is organized by the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” at the University of Münster.

Paper proposals (500 words max.) as well as CV of applicants with advanced degrees (e.g. JD, LLM, SJD, PhD or other comparable degree) can be sent via e-mail. Following the conference, it is planned to publish the contributions to the conference in an edited volume.

Submission of paper proposals: 20 March

Conference Dates: 10–12 July

Venue: Schloss | Senatssaal Schlossplatz 2 | 48149 Münster

Job Opportunity I: Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University of Bergen/Norway starting 1 August

We would like to share three Calls for Applications with you:

The Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at University of Bergen/Norway invites applications for a four-year postdoctoral position in the interdisciplinary research project The Governmateriality of Indigenous Religions (GOVMAT), starting 1 August. Our Senior Research Fellow Bjørn Ola Tafjord works there as a Professor in the Study of Religions and he is also the coordinater of the GOVMAT project.

The advertised position has the primary objective of qualifying the appointee for work in top academic positions. The successful applicant’s research project will be a case study that addresses the main questions posed in the larger GOVMAT project, preferably from an intersection of ethnography and histories of Indigenous peoples, Christianities, colonialisms, and academic research. Applicants must hold a Norwegian PhD or an equivalent foreign degree in the Study of Religions or in an adjacent field like Anthropology, History, Cultural Studies, Art History, Museology, Indigenous Studies, or Science and Technology Studies.

Applications can be sent electronically via this link.

Deadline for applications: 11 April

Job Opportunity II: Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Max Weber Forum for South Asian Studies (MWF) Delhi starting 1 June

The Max Weber Forum for South Asian Studies (MWF), Delhi, is seeking to fill the position of a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the MWF's priority area of “Knowledge Production, Circulation, and Medialization”, expected to begin 1 June. The project deals with the society of South Asia from a historical, social science or indological perspective (from a region-specific or transnational perspective with regional reference) in an era from the early modern period to the present. Interdisciplinary approaches to research are appreciated.

Deadline for applications: 31 March

Job Interviews: Late April

Job Opportunity III: Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Max Weber Foundation’s Orient-Institut Istanbul

The Orient-Institut Istanbul of the Max Weber Foundation offers an open position for a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. The position is initially limited to three years. An extension for another two years is possible. The place of employment is Istanbul. The Orient-Institut Istanbul, in close cooperation with Turkish and international scholars, is a German academic institution dedicated to a variety of different research areas and, in particular, to scientific exchange between Germany and Turkey.

Deadline for applications: 11 April

International Conference “Religious Utopias”, 16–18 March in Berlin

We would like to draw your attention to this International Conference on “Religious Utopias”, organized by the SIEF Working Group on Ethnology of Religion in collaboration with Humboldt University Berlin. In the face of the current ecological destruction, intensified social conflicts, and increased uncertainty, not least due to the pandemic, the conference seeks to explore the utopian potential of the religious. The ‘religious’ is hereby understood broadly, including not only traditional institutional religions, but also new, alternative, or implicit religious and spiritual forms and movements. The concept of utopias is also cast broadly. It roughly refers to an “ideal society” or “ideal world.” Religious utopias encompass grand cosmologies of a coming “paradise”, but also infuse the day-to-day struggle with positive, hopeful, spiritual and religious meaning.

If you are interested in attending the conference, please register via e-mail.

16–18 March

Humboldt University of Berlin | Institute for European Ethnology | Møhrenstr. 40, 10117 Berlin, Room 408

If you have any content that you think suits the purpose of the weekly, please feel free to send it to us at multiple-secularities@uni-leipzig.de.