As a resource for our readers, the Maydan presents panel, session, paper, and other events/reception information related to Islamic Studies at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting 2020, taking place virtually between Sunday November 29- Thursday, December 10, 2020.
You can find the online program book here, and a PDF version of the complete program book here. Although we have done our best to be comprehensive, we are sure we may have missed some very cool sessions/panels / other events. Please do let us know by emailing publish@themaydan.com and we will update the 2020 resource.
Sunday, November 29
Monday, November 30
Tuesday, December 1
Wednesday, December 2
Thursday, December 3
Monday, December 7
Tuesday, December 8
Wednesday, December 9
Thursday, December 10
Sunday, November 29
Tour: Mapping Malcolm’s Boston
A29-214 Sunday, November 29, 2:00 PM–3:00 PM
Kayla Renée Wheeler, Xavier University, Presiding
This presentation will provide a virtual tour of my digital humanities project, Mapping Malcolm’s Boston: Exploring the City that Made Malcolm X. Participants will be introduced to sites within the Greater Boston area that were important to Malcolm X’s political development between 1941 and 1953. Through showing what these sites looked like when Malcolm X was alive and what they look like now, I will discuss the role that gentrification and urban renewal has played in shaping Black Muslim life in Boston. This presentation will also provide participants with tips on how they can engage in digital humanities and incorporate it into their classrooms.
Monday, November 30
A30-212 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30
Religion, Memory, History Unit |Theme: Religion, Memory, and the State: Commemorating Power from Inquisition to Empire
Monday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Tim Langille, Arizona State University, Presiding
Pamela Stevens, Graduate Theological Union | “Ghostly Effigies, Suspended Shame: Assemblages of Garments of Shame in Churches During the Spanish Inquisition”
Rubina Salikuddin, Bryn Mawr College | “Saintly Shrines in Timurid Iran and Central Asia: Issues of State, Religion, and Collective Memory”
Maayan Raveh, Hebrew University, Jerusalem |”Witness in the Holy Land: The Formation of the Palestinian-Christian Narrative”
Verena Meyer, Columbia University | “The Agency of Memory: Modernism, Traditionalism, and Islamic Graves in Java”
Business Meeting: Rachel Gross, San Francisco State University, and Tim Langille, Arizona State University, Presiding
A30-307 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30
Islamic Mysticism Unit | Theme: Theoretical Sufism and the Lived Human Experience
Monday, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
Maria Massi Dakake, George Mason University, Presiding
Adam Tyson, University of California, Riverside |”Religious Pluralism and the Philosophy of Wahdat al-Wujud in Bedreddin’s Revolt”
Mohammed Rustom, New York University, Abu Dhabi | “Fallen in Love: ‘Ayn al-Qudat’s Satanology in Context
Arthur Schechter, University of Chicago | “Nearness to the Real: Sainthood as Ontological Proximity in the Thought of Dawūd al-Qayṣarī”
Elizabeth Sartell, University of Chicago | “The Letters of Creation in Judaism and Islam”
Kabira Masotta, Catholic University of Louvain | “Spiritual Anthropology of the Border in the First Ascetics of Islam”
Business Meeting: Cyrus Zargar, University of Central Florida, Presiding
A30-310 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30
Political Theology Unit | Theme: Political Theology and Imagination
Monday, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
Inese Radzins, California State University, Stanislaus, Presiding
Maria Tedesco, Seattle University | “Embodying Islamic Political Theology: Towards a Theory of Theological Imaginary”
Travis LaCouter, University of Oxford | “To Speak with Scorched Tongues: Denise Levertov’s Revolutionary Theopoetics”
Joseph Harroff, Temple University | “Reimagining Cosmopolitanism with Tianxia 天下: A Pluralizing Confucian Political Theology”
Syeda Beena Butool, Florida State University | “Liberation Without Reform? Mawdudi’s God and the Theopolitics to Decolonize the Muslims of India”
Responding: | An Yountae, California State University, Northridge
Business Meeting:
Inese Radzins, California State University, Stanislaus, and David Newheiser, Australian Catholic University, Presiding
Tuesday, December 1
A1-106 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1
Contemporary Islam Unit | Theme: The Ethics of Critique and Care
Tuesday, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
Kirsten Wesselhoeft, Vassar College, Presiding
Sayed Hassan Hussaini Akhlaq, Coppin State University | “The Islamic (Sunni-Shia) Unity and the Contemporary Mujtahids, (Case Study of Ayatollahs Mohseni and Salehi Najafabadi)”
Donohon Abdugafurova, Emory University | “Adab and Elder Care: Islamic Values of Elder Care in Central Asia”
Adel Hashemi, McMaster University | “Martyrdom, Messianism, and Sectarianism in the Contemporary Twelver Shi’ism: The Case of Martyred Shrine Defenders”
Iman AbdoulKarim, New York, NY | “Black Feminist Theory and Analyzing Contemporary Muslim Ethics on Race and Gender”
Business Meeting:
Zahra Ayubi, Dartmouth College, Noah Salomon, Carleton College, and Kayla Renée Wheeler, Xavier University, Presiding
A1-110 TUESDAy, DECEMBER 1
Qur’an Unit | Theme: Issues in Qur’anic Interpretation
Tuesday, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
Aisha (Ash) Geissinger, Carleton University, Presiding
Syed Zaidi, Emory University | ” The Use of the Qur’ān in the Brethren of Purity’s (Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’) Conception of Theurgy and Magic”
Zarif Rahman, University of Virginia | “Al-Māturidī’s Typology of Waḥī: Towards a Nuanced Understanding of a Central Islamic Term”
Younus Mirza, Shenandoah University | “Islamic Mary: Between Prophecy and Orthodoxy”
Business Meeting: Gordon D. Newby, Emory University, and Lauren Osborne, Whitman College, Presiding
A1-208 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1
Qur’an Unit | Theme: Boundaries and the Qur’an
Tuesday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Lauren Osborne, Whitman College, Presiding
Johanne Louise Christiansen, University of Southern Denmark |”“I Would Just Light a Fire in my Backyard and Burn It” (Imām from Arab Mosque in Denmark, 2018): A Qualitative Study of the Material Qur’ān”
Pieter Coppens, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | “Tafsīr and a Silent Print Revolution: Book Culture in Early 20th Century Damascus”
Shuaib Ally, University of Toronto | “Policing the Discipline in late 8th C Mamluk Cairo – Sirāj al-Dīn al-Bulqīnī and Qur’ānic Interpretation”
Omer Awass, American Islamic College | “The Quran and Its Structural Influences on Early Islamic Theological Discourse”
A1-115 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1
Religions, Medicines, and Healing Unit | Theme: Responding to COVID-19: A Comparative Religion & Healing Perspective
Tuesday, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
Linda L. Barnes, Boston University, Presiding
Panelists: William McGrath, Manhattan College | Marcus Harvey, University of North Carolina, Asheville | Matilde Moros, Virginia Commonwealth University | Shin Kwon Kim, Ajou University Medical College | Amy DeRogatis, Michigan State University | Isaac Weiner, Ohio State University | Rahimjon Abdugafurov, Emory University
A1-203 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1
Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Unit and Women and Religion Unit | Theme: Asian and Asian American Women in Theology and Religion
Tuesday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Grace Kao, Claremont School of Theology, Presiding
Panelists: Rita Brock, Volunteers of America | Su Yon Pak, Union Theological Seminary | Najeeba Syeed-Miller, Claremont School of Theology | Sharon A. Suh, Seattle University | Lisa Cunningham, Drew University
Responding:
Kelly Brown Douglas, Episcopal Divinity School | Kwok Pui Lan, Emory University
A1-310 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1
Religion and Cities Unit | Theme: Emerging Scholarship in Religion and Cities
Tuesday, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
Elise Edwards, Baylor University, Presiding
Fatimah Fanusie, Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies | “Mapping Islam and Justice onto the City of Boston: Mohammad’s Temple No. 11 and the Economic and Social Empowerment of 1948– 1998″
Joe Pettit, Morgan State University | “Blessing Oppression: The Support Given by Churches for Housing Apartheid and Racial Inequality”
Sher Afgan Tareen, Florida State University |”Rhythmanalysis of Cities and American Islam”
Christy Randazzo, Haddonfield Friends Meeting | “The Place of Reconciliation in Divided Cities: A Theological and Practical Framework for Reconciliation in Baltimore”
Abel Gomez, Syracuse University | “Defending Indigenous Sacred Places: Perspectives from Ohlone Territory/San Francisco Bay Area”
Katie Day, United Lutheran Seminary, Philadelphia | “Emerging Themes and Methods in the Routledge Handbook of Religion and Cities”
Business Meeting:
Elise Edwards, Baylor University, Presiding
A1-311 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1
Study of Islam Unit | Theme: “Physiology is Theology”: Gendered Bodies in Sufi and Islamic Discourses of the Self
Tuesday, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
Laury Silvers, University of Toronto, Presiding
Rose Deighton, Emory University | “Reading the Self Through a Sufi Hermeneutic of Divine Immanence: A Case Study of Shaykha Fariha al-Jerrahi”
Sara Abdel-Latif, University of Toronto | “Emaciation and Menstruation in Sufi Hagiographies of Women: Men Reading Female Piety and Self-Discipline in Corporeal Terms”
Arpan Bhandari, University of North Carolina | “A Space for the Truth: Mansur Hallaj, His Utterances, and His Attempts at Deconstructing and Redefining the Physical Body Through Sound and Space”
Garrett Kiriakos-Fugate, Boston University | ““Be Content with the Decree of Allah”: The Cisheterosexual Nafs in Shi’i and Sunni Fatwas on Transsexuality and Intersexuality”
A1-305 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1
Comparative Studies in Religion Unit | Theme: Darwinism in Asia: Panel Discussion of the Book, Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism (Springer, 2020)
Tuesday, 4:00 PM–6:30 PM
Mackenzie Brown, Trinity University, Presiding
Panelists: Justin R. Ritzinger, University of Miami | Brianne Donaldson, Rice University | Roger Jackson, Carleton College | Taner Edis, Truman State University | Kuan-yen Liu, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen
Responding: Hyung Park, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Business Meeting: Oliver Freiberger, University of Texas, and Ivette Vargas-O’Bryan, Austin College, Presiding
Wednesday, December 2
A2-107 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2
Contemporary Islam Unit and Islam, Gender, Women Unit and Islamic Mysticism Unit and Qur’an Unit and Study of Islam Unit and Constructive Muslim Thought and Engaged Scholarship Seminar | Theme: Mentoring and Networking Session
Wednesday, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, University of Vermont, and Elliott Bazzano, Le Moyne College, Presiding
P2-103 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2
Society for Hindu-Christian Studies | Theme: Politics and Religions in India: Religious Freedom for all Citizens of India
Wednesday, 9:00 AM–11:30 AM
This panel will address the issue of religious freedom in a political climate in which a version of Hinduism is being promoted which seems to delegitimize other well-established religions and to increase social conflict. How should religion scholars understand and respond to this situation?
Ted Ulrich, University of St. Thomas, Minnesota | “The Emergence of the Rhetoric of Hindu-Muslim Strife in India’s Independence Movement”
Jose Abraham, Concordia University, Montreal | “Victimisation and Ghettoisation: A Girardian Reading of Recent Communal Violence in Delhi”
Anant Rambachan, Saint Olaf College | “The Legacy of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar Examined”
Responding:
Michael T. McLaughlin, Old Dominion University
A2-118 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2
Buddhist Pedagogy Seminar | Theme: Innovative Techniques for Teaching Buddhism in Modern Classrooms
Wednesday, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
Todd T. Lewis, College of the Holy Cross, Presiding
Nathan McGovern, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater | “Teaching Buddhism Alongside Islam in the Intro to Asian Religions Class”
Elizabeth Guthrie, University of Waterloo | “North American Religious Studies and “Built Pedagogy””
Alyson Prude, Georgia Southern University | “Engaging Buddhist Ethics to Engage Students”
Andrew Housiaux, Tang Institute at Andover | “Mahāpajāpatī, Misconceptions, and Religious Literacy: Reflections on an Early Buddhist Story”
Ivory L. Lyons, University of Mount Union | “The Mandala Project: A Class Activity”
Responding:
Jonathan Young, California State University, Bakersfield and Ben Van Overmeire, Duke Kunshan University
Business Meeting:
Gloria I-Ling Chien, Gonzaga University, and Trung Huynh, University of Houston, Presiding
A2-202 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2
African Religions Unit and Body and Religion Unit | Theme: Embodiment of African Religions
Wednesday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Wesley Barker, Mercer University, Presiding
Georgette Ledgister, Emory University | “Wrestling the Spirits: ‘Catch Fétiche’ and Congolese Women’s Embodiment of Ritual Power”
Douglas Bafford, Brandeis University | “African Bodies Out of Place: Evangelical Discourses of Material Religion in Contemporary South Africa”
A2-311 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2
Religion in South Asia Unit | Theme: The Implications of Being Earnest: Sincerity in South Asian Contexts
Wednesday, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
Sophia Nasti, Harvard University, Presiding
Shiv Subramaniam, Columbia University | “Learning to Read Earnestly”
Meghan Hartman, University of Virginia | “Sincere Scholarship: Miraji’s Cultivation of Earnestness and Theory of Translation”
Kenneth Valpey, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies | “Earnestness in Hearing and Reading the Bhāgavata Purāṇa”
Seth Ligo, Duke University | “The Importance of Bhairava’s Earnestness”
Responding:
James Reich, Pace University
Business Meeting:
Jennifer Ortegren, Middlebury College, and Sarah Pierce Taylor, University of Chicago, Presiding
A2-315 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2
Women and Religion Unit Theme: The Importance of Engaged Feminist Scholarship: A Cross-Disciplinary Discussion of Juliane Hammer’s recent book, Peaceful Families: American Muslim Efforts Against Domestic Violence (Princeton University Press, 2019)
Wednesday, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
Brittany Landorf, Emory University, Presiding
Panelists: Kayla Renée Wheeler, Xavier University | Saadia Yacoob, Williams College | Traci C. West, Drew University | Juliane Hammer, University of North Carolina
Thursday, December 3
A3-109 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3
Ecclesial Practices Unit | Theme: Accountability at the Intersections of Theology and Ethnography
Thursday, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
Natalie Wigg-Stevenson, University of Toronto, Presiding
Helen Cameron, University of Oxford | “Dual Accountability in a Faith-Based Organization: Critical Reflections on Turning First-Person Action Research into a Text”
Paul Houston Blankenship, Graduate Theological Union |”The Dark Night of Ethnographic Theology and What Lucifer Taught Me About How to be a Christian”
Marie Purcell, Southern Methodist University | ““But You Love Jesus, Right?”: Ethnographic Accountability Across Polarized Worldviews”
Ken Chitwood, Freie Universitat Berlin | ““I’ve Seen You”: Reflections on Ethnographic Theology, Accountability, & Christian-Muslim Relations”
Business Meeting:
Jonas Idestrom, Church of Sweden, Presiding
A3-206 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3
International Development and Religion Unit | Theme: Religion, Development and the Secular: Considering Perspectives from Local Faith Actors
Thursday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Emma Tomalin, University of Leeds, Presiding
Nicolette Manglos-Weber, Boston University | “Promiscuous Practices: How Collective Caregiving Crosses Religious and Political Boundaries in Uganda”
Olivia Wilkinson, Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities | “The Triple Nexus and Local Faith Actors in South Sudan”
David Tittensor, Deakin University | “Becoming Secular, Yet Remaining Religious: The Gülen Movement and the Golden Generation”
A3-210 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3
Religion and Ecology Unit and Study of Islam Unit | Theme: New Book Roundtable: Anna M. Gade’s Muslim Environmentalisms: Religious and Social Foundations (Columbia University Press, 2019)
Thursday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Jaclyn Michael, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, Presiding
Panelists: Muhamad Ali, University of California, Riverside | Etin Anwar, Hobart and William Smith Colleges | Nur Amali Ibrahim, Indiana University, Bloomington | Lisa Sideris, Indiana University | Sarra Tlili, University of Florida
Responding: Anna M. Gade, University of Wisconsin
A3-211 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3
Religion and Politics Unit | Theme: Thinking About Religious Violence
Thursday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Ann Duncan, Goucher College, Presiding
Dan-Erik Andersson, Lund University | “The Public Debates on Violent Extremism in Sweden; New Concepts and Meanings and Consequences for Religious Practice”
Dragos Stoica, Concordia University | “A Virtuous Ummah Under Siege: The Mythology of Universal Conspiracy in Sayyid Qutb’s Coranic Commentary”
David Kirkpatrick, James Madison University | “The Latin American Bullring: Billy Graham, John F. Kennedy, and the Origins of the “Global War on Christians””
A3-301 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3
Afro-American Religious History Unit | Theme: Mormon, Muslim, Coptic, Webb: Blackness and Identity in New Religious Movements
Thursday, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
Joseph Laycock, Texas State University, Presiding
Judith Huenneke, Mary Baker Eddy Library | “Marietta Webb and the “Colored” Christian Science Churches of Los Angeles”
Leonard McKinnis, Saint Louis University | ““I Told Jesus it Would be Alright if He Changed my Name”: Performative Imagination and Identity Formation as Rituals of Freedom in the Black Coptic Church”
Megan Leverage, Central Michigan University | “Black Mormon Tells Her Story: Religion, Race and Gender in the Post-Civil Rights Era”
Patrick Bowen, Arvada, CO | “Exploring Local Histories of African American Islam Through the Black Press”
A3-302 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3
Arts, Literature, and Religion Unit and Cultural History of the Study of Religion Unit | Theme: Global Formations of Religion and Literature
Thursday, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
Zhange Ni, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Presiding
Craig Tichelkamp, Stonehill College | “Mystifying the Letter: Religion and Literature in the Twelfth Century”
Micah Hughes, University of North Carolina | “Reading Sufism at the University: The Literary Remaking of an Islamic Tradition in Twentieth-Century Turkey”
Yunus Dogan Telliel, Worcester Polytechnic Institute | “The Untranslatable and its Opposite in Secular Modernity”
Christopher Douglas, University of Victoria | ““The Failure of the Postsecular””
Responding: Elizabeth Ann Pritchard, Bowdoin College
Monday, December 7
A7-115 MONDAY, DECEMBER 7
Study of Islam Unit | Theme: Knowledge, Authority, and Power in Early-Modern and Modern Islam
Monday, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
Yasmine Flodin-Ali, University of North Carolina, Presiding
Mary Elston, Harvard University |”Debating Turāth: Religious Knowledge in Egypt’s al-Azhar”
Naveen Ramamurthy, University of California, Los Angeles | “The Canon and the Canonization of Law in Islamicate South Asia (c. 1300s–1500s)”
Samuel Kigar, University of Puget Sound | “When Map is Territory: Morocco’s Claim for the Western Sahara”
Pieter Coppens, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | Reassessing the Rise of Salafism in Damascus: A Social Network Analysis
Ermin Sinanovic, Shenandoah University | Theological Innovation on the Edges of Islam: Evidence from the Balkans and Southeast Asia
A7-202, MONDAY, DECEMBER 7
Public Understanding of Religion Committee | Theme: 2020 Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion Forum: Khaled Abou El Fadl
Monday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Asma Afsaruddin, Indiana University, Bloomington, Presiding
This session celebrates this year’s recipient of the Martin Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion, Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl. Over the past two decades, public scholarship on Islam has been a critical component in conversations about social inclusion, foreign policy, and interreligious dynamics. Abou El Fadl’s work engages these issues in ways that are accessible to both specialist and nonspecialist audiences. This group of distinguished panelists will consider efforts to advance the public understanding at the intersection between Islam and politics in the United States since 9/11, taking up key themes in Abou El Fadl’s scholarship including Islamic ethical approaches to global challenges, religious tolerance, and human rights.
Panelists: Khaled Abou El Fadl, University of California, Los Angeles | Mohammad Khalil, Michigan State University | Nader Hashemi, University of Denver | Ziba Mir-Hosseini, University of London
A7-204 MONDAY, DECEMBER 7
Afro-American Religious History Unit | Theme: Sites, Sources, and the Historical Imagination: Trajectories in Graduate Research of African-American Religion
Monday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Tobin Shearer, University of Montana, Presiding
Cori Tucker-Price, Dartmouth College | “Beyond Azusa: Mapping Black Religion in Los Angeles”
Ahmad Greene-Hayes, Princeton University | “New Orleans 300 Years Later: The Study of African American Religions in a Southern City”
Ambre Dromgoole, Yale University | “Into the Archive: Excavating the Influence of Twentieth Century Gospel Music Composer Roxie Ann Moore”
Krishni Metivier, Duke University | Breaking My Master’s Chains: Advancing Intersectional Histories of Black and Hindu
Jacob Havel, University of Iowa | Religion or Culture?: Re-thinking Categories from the Bottom Up with the Five Percenters
Yasmine Flodin-Ali, University of North Carolina | Writing Resistance: The Archives’ Racialization of Omar ibn Said
A7-207 MONDAY, DECEMBER 7
Interreligious and Interfaith Studies Unit | Theme: Decolonizing and Resetting the Interfaith Table
Monday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Margarita M. W. Suarez, Meredith College, Presiding
Matthew Sayers, Lebanon Valley College | A Broader Table: Bringing Missing Voices to the Interfaith Table
Jenny Small, Convergence, J.T. Snipes, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’ Sachi Edwards, University of Tokyo; and J. Cody Nielsen, Convergence | Emerging Frameworks for Critical Analysis of Religion and Interfaith Studies: Reflections on Pluralism and Decolonization in Higher Education
Feryal Salem, American Islamic College | Decolonizing Christian-Muslim Relations: Historical Frameworks, Premises, and Power Dynamics
Rachel A. Heath, Vanderbilt University | Decentered Inclusivity: The Limits and Possibilities of Hospitality and Inclusion in Multifaith Models for College and University Chaplaincies
A7-312 MONDAY, DECEMBER 7
Religion in South Asia Unit | Theme: Religion and the Modern Islamicate: Cosmopolitans, Composites, and Colonial Critique in South Asia
Monday, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
Anna Bigelow, Stanford University, Presiding
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, University of Vermont | “Muslims, Modernity, and Memorializations of the 1857 Indian Rebellion”
Hayden Bellenoit, US Naval Academy | “Kayasthas and their Islamicate cultural associations in north India, 1760-1930″
Hayden Bellenoit, US Naval Academy | “A Modern, ‘Eternal’ Religion: The Sanatana Dharma of Shraddha Ram Phillauri”
Timothy Dobe, Grinnell College | “Khilafat’s Islamicate Solidarities: Gandhian Sufis, Delhi’s Badshah Khan and Bio-Moral Beef”
Quinn Clark, Columbia University | “Love and Money: Sufi Shrines, Politics, and Comparative Secularism in North India”
Tuesday, December 8
A8-103 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8
Public Understanding of Religion Committee and Religion and Politics Unit | Theme: Religion and Public Life in and after the COVID-19 Pandemic
Tuesday, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
John D. Carlson, Arizona State University, Presiding
Panelists from several disciplines in the study of religion will host a conversation about the recent and future impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on different issues, themes, and vectors in religion and public life. Specific themes for reflection include cultural fault lines, women’s rights, race, public health, climate change, state power, civil religion, the body politic, truth and post-truth, and public theology among others. Specific questions the panelists will consider include the following: How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted or altered how we approach, think about, and understand these themes? Does the resilience of these themes suggest whether things might return to pre-COVID conditions? How are things likely to change going forward? What underlying challenges has this pandemic helped to expose or exacerbate? What constructive insights has it helped to generate? What role can scholars of religion play to improve the public’s understanding and conversations about this crisis?
Panelists: Robert P. Jones, Public Religion Research Institute | Marie Griffith, Washington University, St. Louis | Kristy Slominski, University of Arizona | Nichole Phillips, Emory University | Evan Berry, Arizona State University | Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Northwestern University | Philip Gorski, Yale University | Tracy Fessenden, Arizona State University | Charles Mathewes, University of Virginia | Pamela Klassen, University of Toronto
A8-116 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8
Religion, Media, and Culture Unit | Theme: Machines that Surveil and Enchant
Tuesday, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
Hussein Ali Agrama, University of Chicago, Presiding
Panelists: Christopher Glen White, Vassar College | Suzanne Van Geuns, University of Toronto | Sylvester Johnson, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | Sharmin Sadequee, City University of New York
Business Meeting: Kathryn Reklis, Fordham University, and Deborah Whitehead, University of Colorado, Presiding
A8-205 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8
Contemporary Islam Unit and Political Theology Unit | Theme: Contemporary Islamic Political Theology: Ethnographies of Tribulation in the Age of Global War
Tuesday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Aaron Eldridge, University of California, Berkeley, Presiding
Bilal Nasir, Northwestern University | “Between Uhud and Terror: Policing, Race, and Islam in the City of Angels”
Zunaira Komal, University of California | “Aafat: Divine Calamity and the Military Psychiatry Hospital in Kashmir”
Muneeza Rizvi, University of California, Davis | “Syria in London: Aid Convoys, the Umma, and Islamic Traditions of Charity”
Basit Iqbal, University of California, Berkeley | “Ambivalence and Askesis in Zaatari Refugee Camp”
Responding:
Hussein Ali Agrama, University of Chicago
A8-209 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8
Qur’ān Unit and Traditions of Eastern Late Antiquity Unit | Theme: Translation, Transmission and Intertextuality in Eastern Late Antiquity
Tuesday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Jason Mokhtarian, Indiana University, Bloomington, Presiding
Louise Gallorini, American University of Beirut | “A Mystical Function: Angels in the Sufi Commentaries on the Qur’ān”
Charles Haberl, Rutgers University | “Meryey, Standing at the Boundary”
Responding:
Gordon D. Newby, Emory University
A8-307 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8
History of Christianity Unit and World Christianity Unit | Theme: Contesting Western Colonial Logics and Legacies in the East
Tuesday, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
Roy Fisher, University of California, Berkeley, Presiding
Jennifer Welsh, Lindenwood University-Belleville | “‘Chinchinning Joss’ and Throwing Pamphlets: Nineteenth-Century Christian Missionaries and Western Views of Okinawa”
Jethro Calacday, Yale University | “Canon Law and Colonial Logic: Francisco Gaínza and the Creation of the Native Clergy in the Philippines, 1863–1879″
Philip Hopkins, Gateway Seminary, Los Angeles | “Proselytization Efforts of American Protestant Missionaries in Iran during the Last Years of the Pahlavis”
A8-311 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8
Qur’ān Unit | Theme: Reading the Qur’ān
Tuesday, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
Gordon D. Newby, Emory University, Presiding
Mian Ahmed Shaheer Afaqi, Indiana University – Purdue University, Indianapolis | “Mechanisms for Producing Emotion: Al-Ghazālī on Experiencing the Qur’ān”
Nadir Ansari, York University | “Coherence, The Titles of Sūras, and Central Ideas: A Study of the Tafsīr of ‘Alā’uddīn al-Muhā’imī”
Sohaib Saeed, University of Freiburg | “Towards a “Canonical Translation” of the Qur’ān”
A8-316 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8
Sociology of Religion Unit | Theme: Crossing Global and Religious Boundaries: Social Change, Identity, and Power
Tuesday, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
Jonathan Calvillo, Boston University, Presiding
Francesco Cerchiaro, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven | “Christian-Muslim couples dealing with religious difference A qualitative inquiry in three European countries”
Mathew J. Guest, Durham University | “Stigma and Suspicion in the Lives of Muslim Students: How the ‘radicalisation’ narrative has changed higher education in Britain”
Jualynne E. Dodson, Michigan State University | ““Integrated Religious Multiplicity”: Challenge to Sociology of Religion”
Drishadwati Bargi, University of Minnesota | “Social Revolution by other Means: The Writing of Conversion in Dalit Autobiographies in Postcolonial India”
Wednesday, December 9
A9-105 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9
Comparative Theology Unit | Theme: Sound as God-Talk: Approaches to Comparative Theology of Music
Wednesday, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
Mark Edwards, Princeton Theological Seminary, Presiding
Lucinda Mosher, Hartford Seminary | “Is It “Praying Twice?” An Anglican Christian Comparative Theological Consideration of Chanting and Hymn-Singing in Bhakti Hindu, Sikh, and Sufi Muslim Traditions”
Thomas Cattoi, Graduate Theological Union | “Sounds of the End: Music and Eschatology in Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time and the Tibetan Practice of Chöd”
Michael VanZandt Collins, Boston College | “Beyond A Love Supreme? John Coltrane’s Classic, Muslim-Christian Comparative Theology, and an Ethic of Listening”
Wilhelmus Valkenberg, Catholic University of America | ““How Easily Things Get Broken”: Leonard Bernstein and Osvaldo Golijov on the Body and Blood of Christ”
Loye Ashton, Aoyama Gakuin University | “Rhythm and Reality: Constructing a Comparative Theology of Creativity and Dynamic Non-Duality Abstract”
Kijin James Wu, Chang Jung Christian University School of Theology |” Ritual and Music: A Comparative Study”
Business Meeting:
Bede Bidlack, Saint Anselm College, Presiding
A9-114 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9
Religion in Southeast Asia Unit | Theme: New Decade, New Directions: Advancing the Study of Southeast Asian Religions
Wednesday, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
Charles Carstens, Harvard University, Presiding
Panelists: Alexandra Kaloyanides, University of North Carolina, Charlotte | Richard Fox, University of Victoria | Oona Paredes, University of North Carolina, Los Angeles | Chiara Formichi, Cornell University | Penny Edwards, University of California, Berkeley | Alicia Izharuddin, Harvard University | Cuong T. Mai, Appalachian State University | Kelly Meister, University of Chicago | Thomas Borchert, University of Vermont | Nathan McGovern, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater
Business Meeting: Etin Anwar, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and Alexandra Kaloyanides, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, Presiding
A9-116 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9
Study of Islam Unit | Theme: Author-Meets-Critics: SherAli Tareen’s Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020)
Wednesday, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
Ali Altaf Mian, University of Florida, Presiding
Panelists: Kecia Ali, Boston University | Arvind Mandair, University of Michigan | Megan Robb, University of Pennsylvania | Basit Iqbal, University of California, Berkeley
Responding: SherAli Tareen, Franklin and Marshall College
Business Meeting: Elliott Bazzano, Le Moyne College, and Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, University of Vermont, Presiding
A9-212 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9
Study of Islam Unit | Theme: The Politics of Everyday Islam: Space, Place, and Devotion
Wednesday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Marcia Hermansen, Loyola University, Chicago, Presiding
Parnia Vafaeikia, University of Toronto | “The Poetics and Politics of Walking: An Ethnography of The Arbaeen Pilgrimage”
Timothy Gutmann, University of Chicago | “Constant Bonds: Wang Daiyu’s 王岱輿 Islamic Humanism”
Aun Hasan Ali, University of Colorado | “The Sanctuary of The Twelfth Imam in Hillah”
A9-308 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9
Religion in Southeast Asia Unit and Study of Islam Unit | Theme: Islam in Southeast Asia: Formation, Indigenization, Modernization
Wednesday, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
James Hoesterey, Emory University, Presiding
Andi Herawati, Indiana University Bloomington | “Traditional Islam and Modernity in Indonesia: The Activism of the Nahdatul Ulama and Its Leaders”
Muhamad Ali, University of California, Riverside | “Judging Religious Others: Islam and Religious Pluralism in Contemporary Indonesia”
Torsten Tschacher, Freie Universität Berlin | “The Idea of Religion and the Criminalization of Moharram in the Straits Settlements, 1830-1870″
Siti Sarah Muwahidah, Emory University | “The ‘Alids Came to Nusantara: Shi i Imams and the Creation of IndoMalay Sacred Geography”
Thursday, December 10
A10-108 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10
Middle Eastern Christianity Unit | Theme: Middle Eastern Christianity and Gender
Thursday, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
Deanna Womack, Emory University, Presiding
Tracy Russell, Saint Louis University | “The Bridal Chamber of the Heavenly Bridegroom: Gender and the Metaphor of Betrothal in Syriac Virgin Martyr Texts”
Monica Mitri, Claremont School of Theology | “The Female as Anthropological Role Model in Jacob of Serugh”
Ramy Marcos, Hartford Seminary | “Women’s Conversion and Religious Toleration in Ottoman Islamic Egypt: The Case Study of Fāṭimah of Asyūt”
Mitri Raheb, Dar al-Kalima University | “Karimeh Abboud: A Female Arab Christian entrepreneur in British Mandate Palestine”
A10-114 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10
Religious Reflections on Friendship Seminar | Theme: Round-Table Paper Discussions
Thursday, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
Anne-Marie Ellithorpe, Vancouver School of Theology, Presiding
Hussam S. Timani, Christopher Newport University | “The Shahada: Act of Faith, Act of Friendship”
John M. Thompson, Christopher Newport University | “Becoming a Friend to the World: Śāntideva on “Bodhisattva Friendship””
Hans Harmakaputra, Boston College | “Friends of God, Friends of Humans: A Muslim-Christian Comparative Theology Reflection on Sainthood and Friendship”
Jennifer Fields, University of Cambridge | “Questioning the Promotion of Friendship in Interfaith Dialogue”
Joas Adiprasetya, Jakarta Theological Seminary | “Let the Stranger Stay in the Table of Friends”
Jeffery D. Long, Elizabethtown College | “Because You Are My Friend: Inter-Religious Friendship and Religious Pluralism”
Hans Gustafson, University of Saint Thomas | “Interreligious Friendship for Changemaking and Leadership”
Adam Tietje, Duke University | “A Path Through the Hell of War Trauma: Pavel Florensky’s Theology of Friendship”
Sarah Bixler, Princeton Theological Seminary | ““Musing on Cicero’s Thoughts”: Methodology in Aelred of Rievaulx’s Practical Theology of Spiritual Friendship”
Karen Bray, Wesleyan College, and Christy Cobb, Wingate University | “Neither Single nor Coupled, But Friended: Biblical and Theological Sources for Friendship as Our Central Relationship”
Dorothy Dean, Berea College | “Theology, Friendship, and the Human Animal”
Michael Wilcher, University of Cambridge | “Simone Weil on Friendship: Pythagoreanism, Trinity, and the Practice of Attention”
Joud Alkorani, University of Toronto | ““Sisters for the Sake of Allah”: Mediating Friendship Through God”
Courtney Rabada, Northwestern University | “Audre Lorde and the Erotic Power of Female Friendships”
Olivia Bustion, University of Chicago | “Participation as Plural Agency: An Augustinian Proposal”
Laura Duhan-Kaplan, Vancouver School of Theology | “Isaiah’s Vision of the Lion and the Lamb: A Paradigm for Civic Friendship”
A10-201 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10
Chinese Religions Unit | Theme: Religion in Chinese Spaces of Political Conflict and Contestation
Thursday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Kelly Hammond, University of Arkansas, Presiding
Benno Weiner, Carnegie Mellon University | “From Patriotic Religious Representatives to Wolves in Monks’ Robes: Tibetan Buddhism, Islam and the Party on an Ethnocultural Frontier of Early Maoist China”
Sandrine Catris, Augusta University | “From Mao to Xi: Religion and Repression in the Uyghur Region”
H.S. Sum Cheuk Shing, University of Chicago | “Religion as Resistance: Chinese Religions in the Hong Kong AntiExtradition Bill Movement”
Responding:
Shawn Arthur, Wake Forest University
A10-208 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10
Religion, Colonialism, and Postcolonialism Unit | Theme: Postcolonial Perspectives on Religion in China, South
Asia, and the Americas
Thursday, 1:45 PM–3:15 PM
Syed Adnan Hussain, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Presiding
Kathy Chow, Yale University | “The Invention of Religion in China”
Rebecca Faulkner, Princeton University | “Colonialism and Caliphate”
Heather Burrow, Claremont Graduate University | “Conquistadors, Colonialism, and Christianity: From Church and Empire to States”
A10-302 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10
Contemporary Islam Unit | Theme: Representing and Surveilling Modern Muslims
Thursday, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
Zareena Grewal, Yale University, Presiding
Kathleen Foody, College of Charleston | “The World of Islam”
Ehsan Sheikholharam, University of North Carolina | “Making Space for Muslims: Aesthetics in the Age of Forced Assimilation”
Mohamad Jarada, University of California, Berkeley | “Securing the Mosque: On the Logic of Fortification and Risk after Hate Violence”
Johnathan Norris, Boston University | “Fear, Politics, and the Holy Spirit: Islamophobic Discourses in Charismatic News Media”
Sam Houston, Stetson University | ““It Is Because of Our Islam That We Are Here”: Community Organizing, Civic Virtue, and the South African Muslim Struggle Against Apartheid”