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Dear friends and colleagues,

This week we would like to announce a conference taking place at Leipzig University and draw your attention to a call for papers, an online workshop as well as a guest lecture. Besides that, we have a recommendation for a TV documentary for you.

Enjoy, have a good week and take good care of yourselves and each other!

Invitation and CfP: Annual Conference of the German Association for the Study of Religions (Jahrestagung der Deutschen Vereinigung für Religionswissenschaft) on "Religion in Relation"

Our director Christoph Kleine is happy to announce the XXXIV. Annual Conference of the German Association for the Study of Religions (Jahrestagung der Deutschen Vereinigung für Religionswissenschaft). From 13–16 September, the Institute for the Study of Religion at the University of Leipzig will be organising the event as an online conference. The framework theme of this conference was deliberately chosen so that it intersects as much as possible with the research questions of the Multiple Secularities Project: Its title is "Religion in Relation", which includes the thematic field of "Religion in Relation to its Social Environment", which is particularly relevant for us.  

We would like to encourage you to make an active contribution to this conference. Here you find the Call for Papers. We envisage that at least two panels will be registered from among the KFG staff and fellows. While the primary conference language is German, English-language panels and papers are also welcome.

Date: 13–16 September 2021 | online

Submission of panels: 28 February

Submission of papers (abstracts): 15 March

Call for Papers for Online Workshop "Heritage out of Control: Inheriting Waste, Spirits and Energies"

Our Associate Member Markus Dressler draws our attention to a Call for Papers for the Online Workshop "Heritage out of Control: Inheriting Waste, Spirits and Energies" in May. The workshop will be organised by Annika Kirbis and Çiçek İlengiz from the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity as well as Serawit B. Debele, Junior Research Group Leader within the Africa-Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth. The workshop is a call for broadening the theoretical, epistemological and methodological purchase of the spatial aspects of heritage-making. It aims at asking questions such as: How can we think about waste and wasteland as heritage? Under what circumstances does the material heritage turn into waste? How do we make sense of the presence of spirits and energies in relation to heritage? Welcome are abstracts (maximum 250 words) from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds including anthropology, comparative literature, religious studies, history, art history, geography, sociology and area studies.

Deadline for Abstracts: 28 February

Date of Workshop: 17–19 May

SNF-Online Workshop "Religion in Kontakt und Konflikt" ("Religion in Contact and Conflict")

In this workshop, on the one hand, the spheres of the religious and the secular are understood as interwoven and mutually constituting, and on the other hand, in the sense of a 'shared history', both connecting and dividing aspects of religious relations across great distances are taken into account. Methodological, theoretical and content-related questions in the scientific examination of religious phenomena in their global dimension will be discussed. The event is organized by the Swiss National Science Foundation Project "Katholische Mission im Zeitalter von Kolonialismus und Dekolonisation" ("Catholic Mission in the Age of Colonialism and Decolonisation").

Deadline for registration: 14 February via E-Mail

Date: 18 February | 8:45 a.m. – 5:15 p.m. (CET)    

Guest lecture on "Mesopotamia between Science and the Senses" at Leipzig University

Our Associate Member Markus Dressler points to the upcoming guest lecture of The Institute of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Leipzig University with Shiyanthi Thavapalan, who received her PhD in Assyriology at Yale University. Her talk seeks to explore if people in ancient Mesopotamia perceive the world in the same way as we do today. Which truths about nature and the cosmos did the Assyrians and Babylonians seek to know and what role did their language and customs play in representing this knowledge? In her lecture, she focuses on colors and colorful materials, how they were used, categorized and valued in society and shows that color was much more than an ocular phenomenon of ancient art and architecture. The lecture will take place online, registration is not necessary.

Date: 4 February | 11 a.m. (CET)

Online via Zoom (Meeting ID: 536 154 8416; Kenncode : 3sZ3LQ)

Finding: TV-Documentary "Der Islam der Frauen" ("Women's Islam")

In her documentary "Women’s Islam" director and journalist Nadja Frenz portrays Muslim women who have set themselves the goal of finding their own path to emancipation. With them, she examines the role of women in Islam and explores the suras of the Koran. Islam and women – a relationship that needs to be redefined after many hundreds of years of male interpretation. The theme of this documentary anticipates that of "The light in her eyes" – a film that we will be showing on 24 March as part of our Screening Religion series.

Date: 4–5 February | Online in ARD media library

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.