Programme

Download the programme as a PDF.

Friday 24 June
Saturday 25 June
Sunday 26 June

Friday 24 June

10am onwards Registration opens, Workshop Theatre
11am-11.30am Opening Remarks, Workshop Theatre
Dr. Manuel Barcia Paz (Deputy Director of the ICPS)
11.30am-1pm Parallel Panel Session 1, Parkinson Basement Rooms

A. The Sacred in Contexts of Activism, Violence and Peace
Parkinson Basement Room B08
Chair: Professor Neil L. Whitehead

  • Barbara Meier: ‘Cosmology and Violence: Acholi Rituals between the Sacred Realm and Public Peace Agencies’
  • Donal O’Siodhachain: ‘ “Dreaming a Dream that is Dreamt in the Heart and Only the Heart can Hold”: Irish poets of the Celtic Revival and the 1916 Rebellion’
  • Marie L. Dick and Susan Schultz Huxman: ‘Peace Prose out of Paradox: The Consitutive Rhetoric of Chief Lawrence Hart’
B. Re-Thinking Interfaith
Parkinson Basement Room B09
Chair: Caroline Starkey

  • Melanie Prideaux: Interfaith Dialogue as a Secular Activity
  • Muntasir Al-Hamad: ‘Uncovering Commonalities in Abrahamic Faiths and their Impact on Community and Social Cohesion’
  • Lori Shelbourn, ‘The Cross-Cultural Sacred: Re-Thinking the Premises of Cross-Cultural and Interfaith Dialogue in Wilson Harris’s Fiction’
C. Empowerment and the Sacred: Epistemologies and Academia
Parkinson Basement Room B10
Chair: Mans Broo

  • Elliot Cohen: ‘Transpersonal Psychology:The Spiritualising of Psychology or the Psychologising of Spirituality?’
  • Anna Auguscik: ‘Reading Postsecular Readings: The Sacred in Literary Texts and the Empowerment of the Critic’
  • Silvia Henke: ‘Religious Narratives and the Sacred: Empowerment by the Imaginary?’
1pm-2pm Lunch, Parkinson Basement Rooms
2pm-3.15pm Keynote Address, Workshop Theatre
Professor Kim Knott: ‘The Sacred’ between Religious and Secular Contexts
Chair: Shaunaka Rishi Das
3.15pm-3.45pm Break, Parkinson Basement Rooms
3.45pm-4.30pm Training Session 1: Impact (Parkinson Basement Room 08)
4.30pm-5.30pm Parallel Panel Session 2, Parkinson Basement Rooms

A. Sacred Space: Environment, Empowerment and the Sacred
Parkinson Basement Room B08
Chair: Anthony Carrigan

  • James Hood: ‘Grounding the Sacred: The Rhetoric of Place in Contemporary American Nature Writing’
  • David Midgley: ‘Dharma Gaia: Engaged Buddhism and the Ecological Crisis’
B. Empowering Expression: The Sacred and the Performance Arts
Parkinson Basement Room B09
Chair: Dot Tuer

  • Vijaya Subramani: ‘Embodying Representation of the Unrepresentable in Classical Indian Dance’
  • Daniel Stadnicki: ‘The Art of Musical Vituperation in the Gospel Drum-Shed’
C. Church, the Sacred and Society: Negotiating Empowerment in Post-/Modern Spaces
Parkinson Basement Room B10
Chair: Michael Sandford

  • Rev’d Jane de Gay: ‘Virginia Woolf and Sacred Space: Discourses of Gender and Power’
  • Kat Neumann: ‘The Church as Post-Modern Survivor’
5.30pm-6pm Break, Parkinson Basement Rooms
6pm-7.30pm Plenary Panel, University House Religion, Education and Empowerment – A Conversation Between Professor the Baroness Haleh Afshar, Dr. Robert Beckford and Shaunaka Rishi Das

Chair: Professor Kim Knott
7.30pm-8pm Break, University House
8.15pm Conference Meal, Hansa’s Restaurant

Saturday 25 June

9am-9.30am Coffee and Tea, University House – St George and Clobery Rooms
9.30am-11am
A. Education, Empowerment and the Sacred
University House, Great Woodhouse Room
Chair: Muntasir Al-Hamad

  • Shaunaka Rishi Das: ‘The Educational Needs of the Hindu Community in the UK’
  • Farah Ahmed: ‘Tarbiya for Shaksiya (Education for Identity) – Muslim Women Seeking out Culturally Coherent Education to Empower Themselves and their Children’
  • Robert Ivermee: ‘The Religious and the Secular: Bengali Muslims and the Calcutta Madrasa’
B. Gender, Social Policy and the Sacred
University House, Little Woodhouse Room
Chair: Anna Piela

  • Adriaan van Klinken: ‘Sacred Stories and Male Agency: The Case of St Joachim’s Catholic Men’s Organization in Zambia’
  • Carin Tunaker: ‘Santeria and Matrifocality: The Interplay between Religion and Gender in Afro-Cuban Households’
  • Madhumanti Mukherjee: ‘The Primal Power and her ‘Helpless’ Daughters in Contemporary India‘
C. Health, Healing and the Sacred: Body, Consciousness, Culture
University House, Beechgrove Room
Chair: Clare Barker

  • Rev’d Christopher Newell: ‘Becoming a Theologian, Becoming Empowered: A Perspective from the Experience of Long-Term and Enduring Mental Health Issues’
  • Melanie Dembinsky: ‘The Power to Heal: Spirituality and the Use of Bush Medicine amongst Yamatji Women with Breast Cancer’
  • Lars Langøien: ‘Yoga as a Tool for Change and Empowerment’
11am-11.30am Break, University House – St George & Clobery Rooms
11.30am-12.45pm Keynote Address, University HouseProfessor Neil L. Whitehead, ‘Divine Hunger – The Cannibal War-Machine’

Chair: Professor Lyn McCredden
12.45pm-1.45pm Lunch, University House – St. George & Clobery Rooms
1.45pm-3.30pm
A. Survival and the Sacred: Coping, Resisting, Transcending
University House, Great Woodhouse Room
Chair: Rev’d Christopher Newell

  • JoAnn McGregor: ‘Removal Centres as Spaces of Religious Revival: Re-Thinking Immigration Detention, Deportability and Resistance.’
  • Gustavo Morello: ‘Religious Discourse and Counter-Discourse: Catholicism Shaping Practices of Torture and Survival in Argentina’s State Terror’
  • Anthony Carrigan: ‘Reflections on Disaster and the Sacred’
  • Sarah Jane Cervenak: ‘Dignity, the Sacred, and the Ends of Black Performance’
B. Empowering Interpretations: Gendered (Re)Readings of Sacred Textualities and Traditions
University House, Little Woodhouse Room
Chair: Farah Ahmed

  • Diya Abdo: ‘My Qarina, My Self: Islamic Feminism in Alisa Rifaat’s “My World of the Unknown”
  • Anna Piela: ‘Muslim Women Online: Empowerment through Gender-Based Interpretations of Islamic Texts in Virtual Spaces’
  • Mikel Burley, ‘Ambivalent Images of Feminine Empowerment: Examples from Two Hindu Myths’
  • Shivani Rajkomar, ‘Brahmacharya and Resistance Against Colonialism in Mauritian Novel “Lal Pasina”‘
C. Social Change through the Sacred
University House, Beechgrove Room
Chair: Philip Lockley

  • Jonathon Vickery: ‘Communities of Resistance – Faith as the New Cultural Avant-Garde?‘
  • Laura Desfor Edles: ‘What is Sacred? The Symbolic Landscape of Christianity in the United States Today’
  • Michael Sandford: ‘The Roots of the Historical Jesus’ Social Ethics: Poverty, Wealth and Socio-Political Resistance amongst Jesus’ Contemporaries’
  • Jana Weiß: ‘Civil Religion as a Rhetorical Instrument of Empowerment: The “Martin Luther King Day” in the United States’
3.30pm-4pm Break, University House – St. George & Clobery Rooms
4pm-5.30 pm
A. Resistance: Indigeneity, Subalterneity and the Sacred
University House, Great Woodhouse Room
Chair: Gustavo Morello

  • Lyn McCredden: ‘The Sacred in Postcolonial Australian: Indigenous Challenges’
  • Claire Poirier: ‘Socializing with the Sacred: the Politics of a Plains Cree Knowledge Practice’
  • Dot Tuer: ‘What are the Signs of the Sacred? Mimicry, Alterity and the Transmutation of the Spiritual Realm in Guarani Indigenous Resistance to Colonial Rule in the Rio de la Plata, 1579-1739′
B. History, Agency and the Sacred
University House, Little Woodhouse Room
Chair: Jonathon Cronshaw

  • Lindsay Driediger-Murphy: ‘Divine Commands, or Commanding the Divine? Religion and Empowerment in the Roman Republic’
  • Philip Lockley: ‘Awaiting or Making the Millenium? Visionary Rituals, Agency and Socialism in Industrial England’
  • Luis Guilherme: ‘Can there be Empowerment without the Sacred?’
C. Empowering Identity: Conversion and Transmission
University House, Beechgrove Room
Chair: Reza Pankhurst

  • Mark Lindley-Highfield: ‘The Politics of Religious Conversion to Islam and Anglican Christianity in Mexico’
  • Jasjit Singh: ‘Sikh-ing Belief: The Meaning and Importance of Belief for Young British Sikhs’
  • Lynda Chouiten: ‘Faith, Race and Power: Isabelle Eberhardt’s Representations of Islam and Muslims’
5.30pm-6.15pm Break, University House – St. George & Clobery Rooms
6.15pm-7.30pm Plenary Panel, University House Empowerment, the Sacred and the Arts: Chartwell Dutiro and George Simon in Conversation

Chair: Professor Catherine Karkov

Sunday 26 June

9.15am-11am
A. Gender, Development and the Sacred
University House, Great Woodhouse Room
Chair: Ann Kaloski-Naylor

  • Emma Tomalin: ‘International Development Engages with Religion – Positive or Negative Outcomes for Women?’
  • Omobolaji Olarinmoye: ‘Negotiating Empowerment: Women and Faith in Nigeria’
  • Anne Cassidy: ‘ “Just Good Women”: The Role of Catholic Sisters in a Community Development Setting’
  • Caroline Starkey: ‘Gender, Buddhism and Education: Dhamma, Empowerment and Social Transformation in the Theravada Tradition’
A. Changing Forms of the Sacred – New Forms of Empowerment?
University House, Little Woodhouse Room
Chair: Robert Ivermee

  • Mans Broo: ‘Constructing Sacred Practice: Yoga in Turku, Finland‘
  • Suzanne Owen: ‘From Secular to Religious: Druidry and the Charity Commission Decision’
  • Terhi Utrianen: ‘Angelically Resourced: Young Finnish Women Working with Michael and Co’
  • Tina Eftekhar: ‘Iranian Women’s Empowerment in “Inter-Universal Mysticism”‘
C. The Sacred and the Politics of Memorialization
University House, Beechgrove Room
Chair: Jessica Moody

  • Steph Berns: ‘The Fate of Sacred Objects in Post-Enlightenment Museums’
  • Mariam Al-Mulla: ‘Heritage in Qatar: An Example of Creating Sacred Status to Build Cross-Cultural Relations and Dialogue’
  • Heidi Chirugwa-Gomi: ‘Performance of Power’
11am-11.30am Break, University House – St. George & Clobery Rooms
11.30am-12.15pm Training Session: Research Methodologies: Researching the Sacred – An Open Mike SessionChair: Dr. Emma Tomalin
12.15pm-1.15pm Lunch, University House – St. George & Clobery Rooms
1.15pm-2.45pm
A. The Sacred and the Imagination of Community
University House, Great Woodhouse Room
Chair: Peter Morey

  • Sean McLoughlin: ‘Muslim Travellers: Homing Desire, the Umma and British-Pakistanis’
  • Claire Chambers: ‘A Tale of Two Screenings: “Four Lions” and the Politics of Reception’
  • Reza Pankhurst: ‘Rehabilitating a Global Polity’
B. Empowerment, the Sacred, and the Counter-Cultural
University House, Little Woodhouse Room
Chair: Jonathon Vickery

  • Tina Block: ‘Don’t Think – Feel! Mainstream Churches and the Sixties Counter-Culture in Western Canada’
  • Roy Ward: ‘Jack Kerouac’s “Wake Up” and the Creation of Beat Buddhism’
  • Chris Beetle: ‘Evidence of Empowerment in the Hare Krishna Movement’
C. Artistic Practice, Politics and the Sacred
University House, Beechgrove Room
Chair: Mariam Al-Mulla

  • Nika Spalinger: ‘Artistic Practice as Gateway to the Religious and the Sacred’
  • Jonathon Cronshaw: ‘Jacob Epstein’s “The Risen Christ”
  • Lyrica Taylor: ‘Women and Artistic Agency in Inter-War British Religious Painting: Winifred Knights and the British School at Rome, 1920-1925′
2.45pm-3.15pm Break, University House – St. George & Clobery Rooms
3.15pm-4.30pm Keynote Address, University House Professor Bart Moore-Gilbert and Dr. Peter Morey

Chair: Dr. Claire Chambers
4.30pm Closing Remarks

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