AAR 2018 Conference Book Panels on New Books, 2015-2018

This year’s American Academy of Religion annual meeting will host many panels focusing on books in the study of religion. Scholars from a wide variety of fields within religious studies will discuss these texts in depth, giving voice to diverse perspectives and delving into fascinating subjects. 

By Vilmarie Vega

Here I have compiled a collection of information about the panels concentrating on titles published between 2015 and 2018. The entries feature details about the books and the panelists. The dates, times, and locations of the panels are included in each entry.

The topics of the books discussed on the panels range from African American religious traditions to Asian religions, from Quaker studies to faith and mental health, from gender and sexuality to asceticism, from Native American religions to Islam, and numerous other intriguing issues. 

With such a broad scope of themes and scholarship areas represented, the AAR 2018 book panels promise to be engaging. 

                                                                 S A T U R D A Y,     N O V E M B E R     1 7,     2 0 1 8

A17-103 

Afro-American Religious History Unit 

Theme: The Challenge of Langston’s Salvation (NYU Press, 2017): Redirections in African American Religious History through Literature and the Arts 

Leslie Ribovich, Princeton University, Presiding

Saturday 11/17/2018, 9:00 AM-11:30 AM

Convention Center-103 (Street Level)

Panelists Benae Beamon, Vaughn Booker, Alisha L. Jones, and Brenton Miles Brock will discuss Langston’s Salvation: American Religion and the Bard of Harlem by Wallace D. Best. Wallace D. Best will respond.

Wallace D. Best’s Langston’s Salvation examines Langston Hughes’s life and poetry, particularly his understanding of religion and the influence of religion on his writing. According to reviewer Marilyn A. Batchelor, “Best creates an informative chronological trail that helps connect Hughes’s background with his signature religious poetry.”

Wallace D. Best is Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University. He specializes in 19th and 20th century African American religious history. His book Langston’s Salvation won the American Academy of Religion’s 2018 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Textual Studies. His upcoming publication is an anthology Elder Lucy Smith: Documents from the Life of a Pentecostal Woman Preacher.

Benae Beamon is a doctoral student in the Graduate Division of Religious Studies in the Religion and Society track at Boston University. Her focus is on black queer ethics, social history, womanist ethics, queer theory, and black theology and literature. 

Vaughn Booker is Assistant Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Dartmouth University. His scholarship focuses on the historical study of 20th-century African American religions, including religion and popular music, “race histories,” gender and religious leadership, and visual and material culture.

Alisha L. Jones is Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research focuses on religious music in the African diaspora, music of the “Black Pacific,” gender and sexuality, gastromusicology, ecomusicology, and future studies.

Brenton Miles Brock is a Master of Divinity student at Princeton Theological Seminary. His areas of interest include African American religious philosophy and ethics, spiritual formation through mystical traditions, theology of women, gender, and culture, black church studies, and theological reform.

A17-205

Buddhism Unit and Religion and Sexuality Unit 

Theme: Book Panel on José Cabezón’s Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism (Wisdom Publications, 2017) 

Sarah Jacoby, Northwestern University, Presiding

Saturday 11/17/2018, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM

Convention Center-Mile High 2A (Lower Level)

Panelists C. John Powers and Amy Paris Langenberg will discuss José I. Cabezón’s book Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism. José I. Cabezón will respond.

José I. Cabezón’s Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism is a detailed exploration of sexuality in South Asian Buddhism that uses feminist theory, gender studies, and queer theory to discuss gender, sex, and sexual orientation, among other issues. Reviewer Amy Paris Langenberg writes that “José Ignacio Cabezón’s monumental work on sexuality in South Asian Buddhism will form the baseline of scholarly work on sexuality and Buddhism for years to come … Cabezón has advanced scholarship on sexuality and Buddhism significantly in this important and impressive volume.” Cynthia Eller recently interviewed Cabezón. In the interview, Cabezón said, “Buddhism represents a distinctive tradition about questions of sex and sexual embodiment and sexual ethics: that on the one hand there is a kind of continuity between the texts, and on the other hand that they are not univocal.”

José I. Cabezón is Dalai Lama Professor of Tibetan Buddhism and Cultural Studies and Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the current Vice President of the American Academy of Religion. A prolific scholar focusing on Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, his work treats diverse issues including sexuality, philosophy, scholasticism, and dreams. His projects over the last decade have provided close readings of classical Indian and Tibetan Buddhist texts. He translated Jamgön Mipham’s The Just King: The Tibetan Buddhist Classic on Leading an Ethical Life. According to reviewer Dominique Townsend, Cabezón’s rendition is a “masterly translation of layers of aphorism, metaphor, and allusion.” 

C. John Powers is Research Professor on the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University. His scholarship focuses on Tibetan Buddhism. He is the author of The Buddha Party: How the People’s Republic of China Works to Define and Control Tibetan Buddhism. This book engages the People’s Republic of China’s propaganda efforts to influence Tibetan Buddhist faith, particularly “patriotic education” programs aimed at monks and nuns. This book is available for review here

Amy P. Langenberg is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Eckerd College. Her area of expertise is South Asian Buddhism, with a focus on Sanskrit Buddhist literature, monastic law, Buddhist medicine, and Buddhist thought on gender and sexuality. Her book Birth in Buddhism: The Suffering Fetus and Female Freedom earned an honorable mention for the American Academy of Religion’s 2018 Book Award for Best First Book in the History of Religions. This book deals with gender, bodies, and suffering in Buddhism, focusing on an early-first-millennium Sanskrit Buddhist work, “Descent into the Womb scripture” or Garbhāvakrānti-sūtra. A review is forthcoming from Liz Wilson.

A17-213

Ethics Unit and Liberal Theologies Unit and Theology of Martin Luther King Jr. Unit 

Theme: Breaking White Supremacy (Yale University Press, 2018): The Black Social Gospel Revisited

AnneMarie Mingo, Pennsylvania State University, Presiding

Saturday 11/17/2018, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM

Convention Center-Mile High 3A (Lower Level)

Panelists Angela Sims, Eboni Marshall Turman, Adam Bond, and Walter Earl Fluker will discuss Gary Dorrien’s book Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Black Social Gospel. Gary Dorrien will respond.

Gary Dorrien’s Breaking White Supremacy is a follow-up to his book The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel. It takes a close look at the Civil Rights Movement, focusing on King and other mid-20th-century black church leaders who supported the black social gospel. Reviewer Janine Giordano Drake writes that “this meticulously researched yet highly readable text will unquestionably remain an authority in the field of Social Christianity for decades to come.”

Gary Dorrien is Professor of Religion at Columbia University and Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary. His scholarly focus is on economic democracy and social justice politics, post-Kantian philosophy, and modern theology. Dorrien’s The New Abolition explores the early history of the black social gospel. A review is forthcoming from Jamall Andrew Calloway. 

Angela Sims is Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor of Ethics and Black Church Studies and Vice President of Institutional Advancement at Saint Paul School of Theology. Her research focuses on the ethical implications of lynching, as well as the characteristics, effects, and implications of poverty on systemic, global, national, and local levels. She is the author of Lynched: The Power of Memory in a Culture of Terror. This book investigates the history of lynching primarily through oral histories.

Eboni Marshall Turman is Assistant Professor of Theology and African American Religion at Yale Divinity School. She specializes in womanist/feminist liberation theologies and ethics, the black radical tradition, black women and theological liberalisms, black womanist aesthetics, and dogmatics in the African American Christian tradition. She is the author of Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation: Black Bodies, the Black Church, and the Council of Chalcedon. This book deals with the persistence of black women’s oppression in black churches.

Adam Bond is Associate Professor of Church History at Virginia Union University. He is the author of I’ve Been Called: Now What? and The Imposing Preacher: Samuel DeWitt Proctor and Black Public Faith. The former addresses questions one might have upon being called to ministry, and the latter explores the pulpit activism of Samuel DeWitt Proctor.

Walter Earl Fluker is Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Ethical Leadership at Boston University. He is the author of The Ground Has Shifted: The Future of the Black Church in Post-Racial America. This book analyzes the historical, current, and future role of the black church. Reviewer M. Sydney Park notes that “the entire volume ultimately wrestles with the historic, present, and future identity of Black Americans.” Fluker also edited The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman: Volume 3: The Bold Adventure, September 1943 – May 1949. According to reviewer Clifton L. Granby, “the volume deepens our understanding of Howard Thurman and Fellowship Church, as well as our engagement with American religious and political history more generally, and African American religious and political thought in particular.”

A17-224

Quaker Studies Unit and Women and Religion Unit 

Theme: Book Review Panel for New Critical Studies on Early Quaker Women, 1650-1800 (Oxford University Press, 2018) 

Stephen Angell, Earlham College, Presiding

Saturday 11/17/2018, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM

Convention Center-405 (Street Level)

Panelists David Harrington Watt, Nikki Coffey Tousley, Carole Dale Spencer, and Robynne Rogers Healey will discuss Michele Lise Tarter and Catie Gill’s book New Critical Studies on Early Quaker Women, 1650-1800. Michele Lise Tarter and Catie Gill will respond.

New Critical Studies on Early Quaker Women, 1650-1800, edited by Michele Lise Tarter and Catie Gill, is the first work focusing solely on historical records concerning Quaker women, showing how they contributed to the movement. This book examines different aspects of women’s participation in the Quaker religion in the 17th and 18th centuries—revolutions, disruptions, and networks. This book is available for review here.

Michele Lise Tarter is Professor of English at The College of New Jersey. Her research interests include 17th-and 18th-century manuscripts transcribed by transatlantic Quaker women. She gives annual lectures on the history and lore of witches. She created INKarcerated, a research project that works with women prison, enabling them to write their autobiographies.

Catie Gill is Lecturer in English at Loughborough University. Her work focuses on Quaker writing in the 17th century, particularly women’s writing. Her current project concerns polemical literature and the writing of controversy in the 17th century.

David Harrington Watt is Douglas and Dorothy Steere Professor of Quaker Studies, Professor of Independent College Programs, and Affiliate Professor in the Department of Religion at Haverford College. His current research engages the history of the Society of Friends from 1830 to 1937, as well as Henry Cadbury’s views on war, violence, and peace. He is the author of Antifundamentalism in Modern America, which explores the fear of fundamentalism in American culture. According to reviewer Rosemary R. Corbett, Watt “demonstrate[s] that thinking differently about fundamentalism was and is possible, and his accessibly written and expertly researched book is offered in service of that project.”

Nikki Coffey Tousley is a doctoral candidate in Theology at the University of Dayton. Her current work uses Thomistic virtue ethics and contemporary narrative theology to study the Quaker tradition, particularly during the 18th century.

Carole Dale Spencer is Adjunct Professor of Spiritual Formation at George Fox University. His studies focus on Quaker history and theology, the history of spirituality, and Christian mystics.

Robynne Rogers Healey is Professor of History at Trinity Western University. Her areas of expertise include Quaker studies, gender, the Atlantic world, war and peace, and Canadian history.

A17-225

Religion and Disability Studies Unit 

Theme: Authors and Conversation Partners: Monica A. Coleman’s Bipolar Faith (Fortress Press, 2016) and Michelle M. Lelwica’s Shameful Bodies (Bloomsbury, 2017) 

Jesse Perillo, DePaul University, Presiding

Saturday 11/27/2018, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM

Convention Center-210/212 (Street Level)

Panelists Heike Peckruhn and Janice Thompson will discuss Bipolar Faith: A Black Woman’s Journey with Depression and Faith by Monica A. Coleman and Shameful Bodies: Religion and Culture of the Physical Improvement by Michelle M. Lelwica. Monica A. Coleman, Michelle M. Lelwica, and Judith Plaskow will respond.

Monica A. Coleman’s Bipolar Faith is a memoir about the development of her faith and her struggle with bipolar II disorder. This book touches on personal events that had a profound impact on her life, as well as a legacy of slavery, war, sharecropping, poverty, and alcoholism that affected her family. Reviewer Chase Montague writes that “Coleman’s story is one of faith gained, lost, and gained again.”

Michelle M. Lelwica’s Shameful Bodies explores how traditional religious narratives and modern philosophical assumptions influence Western societal expectations about the body. Reviewer Allison P. Coudert writes that this book is a “wide-ranging, insightful, and very instructive analysis of Western culture’s obsession with bodily perfection.”

Monica A. Coleman is Professor of Constructive Theology and African American Religions at Claremont School of Theology. She is a scholar and activist focused on issues of faith and social justice. Her research focuses on mental health and faith, congregational responses to sexual violence, and womanist theology. She is the author of six books.

Michelle M. Lelwica is Professor of Religion and Chair of the Religion Department at Concordia College. Her work focuses on body image, thinness, starvation, gender, and sexuality. She has regularly blogged for the Huffington Postand Psychology Today.

Heike Peckruhn is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Daemen College. Her scholarly interests include disability, gender, sexuality, race, and colonialism, as well as Christian theology and ethics. She is the author of Meaning in Our Bodies: Sensory Experience as Constructive Theological Imagination, an in-depth exploration of body theology. Reviewer Stefanie Knauss writes that Peckruhn “offers an important contribution to body theology by attending more closely to how we make meaning within our bodies, and especially in perceptual experiences.”

Janice Thompson is Associate Professor of Theology and Chairperson of the Department of Theology at King’s College. Her work focuses on systematic theology, as well as integrating service and learning.

Judith Plaskow is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at Manhattan College. Her research focuses on contemporary religious thought, specializing in feminist theology. She is co-author of Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology with Carol P. Christ. This book engages embodied theology in a theological conversation between the authors. Reviewer Samuel Wagar writes that it is “both a work of substance and of great clarity of expression.”

A17-226

Religion and Ecology Unit 

Theme: Author Meets Critics: Amanda Baugh’s God and the Green Divide: Religious Environmentalism in Black and White (University of California Press, 2017) 

Abby Mohaupt, Drew University, Presiding

Saturday 11/17/2018, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM

Convention Center-301 (Street Level)

Panelists Rebecca Kneale Gould, Melanie L. Harris, Richard L. Wood, and Laurel D. Kearns will discuss God and the Green Divide: Religious Environmentalism in Black and White by Amanda Baugh. Amanda Baugh will respond.

Amanda Baugh’s God and the Green Divide explores religious environmentalism as practiced by urban Americans. Reviewer Christopher Hrynkow writes that “there is much to stimulate reflection in Baugh’s work for those concerned with religious environmentalism and faith-inspired organizations.”

Amanda Baugh is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at California State University, Northridge. Her scholarship focuses on environmentalism, ecology, class, and race.

Rebecca Kneale Gould is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Middlebury College. Her work explores the intersection of religious identity and environmental advocacy. Her upcoming book is called Spacious.

Melanie L. Harris is Professor of Religion at Texas Christian University. Her research interests include ecowomanism, environmentalism, Christian social ethics, womanist ethics, interreligious dialogue, and Buddhist-Christian dialogue. She is the author of Ecowomanism: African American Women and Earth-Honoring Faiths. According to reviewer Amanda Baugh, “this book offers a fresh perspective on the ways that white supremacist thinking has been embedded in environmental history and discourse, and argues convincingly for what can be done about this problem.” Harris also wrote Ecowomanism, Religion and Ecology. A review is forthcoming from Elaine Noguiera-Godsey.

Richard L. Wood is Professor of Sociology at University of New Mexico. His specializations are community organizing, culture in social movements, and democratic theory. He is the author of A Shared Future: Faith-Based Organizing for Racial Equity and Ethical Democracy. Reviewer Aaron Stauffer writes that this book is “a necessary volume for anyone interested in the fight against economic inequality, policy paralysis and, most importantly, racial injustice.”

Laurel D. Kearns is Associate Professor of Sociology and Religion and Environmental Studies at Drew Theological School and the Graduate Division of Religion of Drew University. Her research focuses on religious involvement in ecological issues in the US, nature spirituality, and religious responses to global warming.

A17-231

Sacred Texts, Theory, and Theological Construction Unit

Theme: Un/Familiar Theology (T&T Clark, 2017), Un/Familiar Texts: A Panel Response to Susannah Cornwall

Filipe Maia, Pacific School of Religion, Presiding

Saturday 11/17/2018, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM

Hyatt-Regency-Centennial G (Third Level)

Panelists Brandy Daniels, Joseph A. Marchal, Cameron Partridge, and Rhiannon Graybill will discuss Un/Familiar Theology:Reconceiving Sex, Reproduction and Generativity by Susannah Cornwall. Susannah Cornwall will respond.

Susannah Cornwall’s Un/Familiar Theology delves into issues of adoption, pro-natalism, marriage, and queer theology. Reviewer Kate Ott writes that “in this book, Susannah Cornwall instead invites the reader to a mode of theological conversation that is un/familiar.”

Susannah Cornwall is Senior Lecturer in Constructive Theologies at the University of Exeter. Her work focuses on theologies relating to sex, gender, and sexuality, as well as disability, homelessness, postcolonial theologies, queer theologies, and theologies of art.

Brandy Daniels is Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer with the New College Curriculum Engagements at the University of Virginia. Her scholarship explores community and formation, constructive and political theologies, ethics, and feminist and queer theories.

Joseph A. Marchal is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Ball State University. His areas of study are gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. He coedited Sexual Disorientations: Queer Temporalities, Affects, Theologies with Elizabeth Freeman, Kent L. Brintnall, and Stephen D. Moore. As reviewer Alejandro Stephano Escalante notes, this book contributes to “the already burgeoning literature on affect, temporality, and queer studies in religion.” 

Cameron Partridge is Rector at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church.

Rhiannon Graybill is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Millard Professor of Religion, Program Director of Gender and Sexuality Studies at Rhodes College. She is a scholar of the Hebrew Bible whose work engages gender and sexuality, prophecy and psychoanalysis, and Near Eastern Literature. She is the author of Are We Not Men?: Unstable Masculinity in the Hebrew Prophets. As reviewer Anne LeTourneau notes, this book provides a “reflection on masculinity, embodiment, and prophecy in the Hebrew Bible.”

A17-232

Science, Technology, and Religion Unit

Theme: Do We Need Science for Wonder and Responsibility? A Zygon Panel Engaging Lisa Sideris’s Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge and the Natural World (University of California Press, 2017)

William B. Drees, Tilburg University, Presiding

Saturday 11/27/2018, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM

Convention Center-Mile High 1C (Lower Level)

Panelists Holmes Rolston, Sarah Fredericks, Donovan Schaefer, and Courtney O’Dell-Chaib will present papers about Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge and the Natural World by Lisa Sideris. Lisa Sideris will respond.

Lisa Sideris’s Consecrating Science critiques the anthropocentrism of the new cosmology movement, questioning the way the new stories affect our sense of wonder. Reviewer Peter Jordan writes that “perhaps the most rewarding aspect of this book is Sideris’s perceptive criticism of the new cosmologies by viewing them through the prism of wonder.”

Lisa Sideris is Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University. Her research topics include science and religion, religion and nature, environmental humanities, energy ethics, evolution controversies, and religion and the Anthropocene.

Holmes Rolston is University Distinguished Professor and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Colorado State University. His paper is titled Lame Science? Blind Religion? His work focuses on environmental ethics and the philosophy of biology.

Sarah Fredericks is Assistant Professor of Environmental Ethics and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Chicago. Her paper is titled Reacting to Consecrating Science: What Might Amateurs Do? Her work engages sustainability, sustainable energy, environmental guilt and shame, and environmental justice.

Donovan Schaefer is Assistant Professor of Material Religion & Visual Culture at the University of Pennsylvania. His paper is titledMere Science: Mapping the Land Bridge between Emotions, Politics, and Ethics. His work explores science and religion, embodiment, affect and emotion, religion and power, and secularism studies. He is the author of Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power, which engages affect theory and post-Darwinian evolutionary theory. Reviewer Pooyan Tamimi Arab writes that this book “brings together theories that rarely interact beyond a superficial level.”

Courtney O’Dell-Chaib is a doctoral candidate at Syracuse University. Her paper is titled The Shape of this Wonder? Consecrated Science and New Cosmology Affects. Her research interests include religion and ecology, queer ecologies, affect theory, material feminisms, and disability studies.

A17-315

Feminist Theory and Religious Reflection Unit

Theme: Cultural Approaches to Studying Religion: An Introduction to Theories and Methods (Bloomsbury, 2018) and The Bloomsbury Reader for Cultural Approaches to the Study of Religion (2018) 

Mary Keller, University of Wyoming, Presiding

Saturday 11/17/2018, 3:30 PM-5:00 PM

Hyatt Regency-Mineral D (Third Level)

Panelists Meredith Minister, Sarah Bloesch, Kathryn Lofton, Richard Newton, Grace Vargas, Brendan Jamal Thornton, and Jessica A. Book will discuss Cultural Approaches to Studying Religion: An Introduction to Theories and Methods and The Bloomsbury Reader for Cultural Approaches to the Study of Religion, both edited by Meredith Minister and Sarah Bloesch.

Cultural Approaches to Studying Religion gives readers an introduction to current cultural approaches to the study of religion, with each chapter written by a different scholar. A review is forthcoming from Andrew Walker-Cornetta.

The Bloomsbury Reader for Cultural Approaches to the Study of Religion is an anthology of primary sources from cultural theorists of the late 20th and early 21st century that showcases debates within the field of religious studies. A review is forthcoming from Andrew Walker-Cornetta.

Meredith Minister is Assistant Professor of Religion at Shenandoah University. Her areas of expertise are Christian theology, comparative religious studies, women’s and gender studies, and disability studies.

Sarah Bloesch is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University. Her work focuses on queer theory, critical race theory, and gender and sexuality.

Kathryn Lofton is Professor of Religious Studies and American History at Yale University. She specializes in American religious history, religion and modernity, capitalism, celebrity, sexuality, and the concept of the secular. She is the author of Consuming Religion, which examines the consumption of religion and popular culture. Reviewer Dana Wiggins Logan writes that “at its best, this book feels like an exciting revelation about who and what we should be addressing in religious studies.” 

Richard Newton is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. His work centers on theory and method in the study of religion, African American history, the New Testament in Western imagination, American cultural politics, and pedagogy in religious studies. His current book project is titled Identifying Roots: Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures.

Grace Vargas is a graduate student in the Religious Studies department at Southern Methodist University. Her research focuses on the history of Christianity in Latin America.

Brendan Jamal Thornton is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include anthropology, the social and cultural politics of belief, and ethnographic research in the Caribbean. He is the author of Negotiating Respect: Pentecostalism, Masculinity, and the Politics of Spiritual Authority in the Dominican Republic, an ethnography about the daily lives of young male churchgoers in the Dominican Republic. Reviewer Mary Puckett writes that this book “demonstrates the value of ethnographic studies of Pentecostalism.”

Jessica A. Boon is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work focuses on the history of science, mysticism and Passion spirituality, gender and sexuality, and Christian thought and culture in late medieval and early modern Europe.

A17-322

Nineteenth Century Theology Unit and Société Internationale d’Études sur Alfred Loisy 

Theme: Book Panel on Thomas Albert Howard’s The Pope and the Professor: Pius IX, Ignaz von Döllinger, and the Quandary of the Modern Age (Oxford University Press, 2017) 

Emily Dumler-Winckler, University of Notre Dame, Presiding

Saturday 11/17/2018, 3:30 PM-5:00 PM

Hyatt Regency-Capitol 1 (Fourth Level)

Panelists Grant Kaplan, Kenneth Parker, and Mark Chapman will discuss The Pope and the Professor: Pius IX, Ignaz von Döllinger, and the Quandary of the Modern Age by Thomas Albert Howard. Thomas Albert Howard will respond.

Thomas Albert Howard’s The Pope and the Professor is a biography of Ignaz von Döllinger, a German Catholic theologian and historian who was excommunicated during the time of the First Vatican Council. This book is available for review here.

Thomas Albert Howard is Professor of History and the Humanities at Valparaiso University. He is the author of Remembering the Reformation: An Inquiry into the Meanings of Protestantism and Protestantism after 500 YearsRemembering the Reformation examines commemorative events of the Reformation. This book is available for review hereProtestantism after 500 Years presents the work of fifteen scholars addressing the questions, as reviewer Inseo Song writes, “What did the Reformation accomplish, and how ought we to evaluate its influence nearly 500 years after the fact?” 

Grant Kaplan is Associate Professor of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University. His work focuses on 19th-century German Catholic theology, mimetic theory, fundamental theology, and modern theology. He is the author of René Girard, Unlikely Apologist: Mimetic Theory and Fundamental Theology, an in-depth analysis of René Girard’s thought. This book has been reviewed by Charles K. Bellinger.

Kenneth Parker is Professor of Historical Theology and Ryan Endowed Chair for Newman Studies at Duquesne University. His areas of specialization include papal authority in the 19th-century North Atlantic Catholic world. 

Mark Chapman is Professor of the History of Modern Theology at Ripon College, Cuddesdon. His research engages historical theology from 1750 and ecumenism. He is the author of The Oxford Handbook of Anglican Studies, a volume of “global scope” according to reviewer Peter Webster.

A17-323

Philosophy of Religion Unit 

Theme: Critical Responses to Noreen Khawaja’s Religion of Existence: Asceticism in Philosophy from Kierkegaard to Sartre (University of Chicago Press, 2016) 

Thomas A. Lewis, Brown University, Presiding

Saturday 11/17/2018, 3:30 PM-5:00 PM

Hyatt Regency-Capitol 2 (Fourth Level)

Michael Thate, Jason Cabitac, and Jill Hernandez will present papers about Religion of Existence: Asceticism in Philosophy from Kierkegaard to Sartre by Noreen Khawaja. Noreen Khawaja will respond.

Noreen Khawaja’s Religion of Existence analyzes the connection between existentialism and asceticism, closely examining the thought of many modern European philosophers. This book won the American Academy of Religion’s 2017 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Constructive-Reflective Studies It has been reviewed by William Leon McBride.   

Noreen Khawaja is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University. Her scholarship focuses on philosophy of religion, religion and modernity, and 19th and early 20th century European intellectual history. 

Michael Thate is Associate Research Scholar with the Center for the Study of Religion and the Faith and Work Institute at Princeton University. His paper is titled Œuvres incomplètes: Pascal’s Faith and the Philosophy of Religion. He coedited Albert Schweitzer in Thought and Action: A Life in Parts with James Carleton-Paget. This book is available for review here. He also coedited “In Christ” in Paul: Explorations in Paul’s Theology of Union and Participation with Constantine R. Campbell and Kevin Vanhoozer. This book has been reviewed by Rafael Bello. His current book project is called Godman and the Sea.

Jason Cabitac is a graduate student at Boston University. His paper is titled Reimagining the Secular: Religion as Praxis and Existential Engagement.

Jill Hernandez is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her paper is titled Existential Authenticity and Asceticism: 3 Challenges for Khawaja. She specializes in existentialism and the problem of evil. She is the author of Early Modern Women and the Problem of Evil: Atrocity & Theodicy. As reviewer Steve A. Wiggins notes, this book “focuses on atrocious harms, and what women in the early modern period had to contribute to the debate between theodicy and pernicious harm.”

A17-324

Practical Theology Unit 

Theme: Experiencing and Engaging Gregory Ellison II’s Fearless Dialogues: A New Movement for Justice (Westminster John Knox, 2017) 

Christian A. B. Scharen, Auburn Theological Seminary, Presiding

Saturday 11/17/2018, 3:30 PM-5:00 PM

Convention Center-Mile High 3A (Lower Level)

Gregory Ellison, II and Georgette Ledgister will discuss Ellison’s book Fearless Dialogues: A New Movement for Justice.

Gregory Ellison, II’s Fearless Dialogues analyzes the Fearless Dialogues project, an initiative founded by the author which aims to implement community change amidst issues such as chronic unemployment and violence. A review is forthcoming from Andrew Wright.

Gregory Ellison II is Associate Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Emory University. His work centers on pastoral care as activism, caring with marginalized populations, and 20th and 21st century mysticism. 

Georgette Ledgister is a doctoral candidate at the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University. She is also a researcher and animator at Fearless Dialogues where she focuses on experiential training and workshops on race, difference, and marginality.

A17-410

Cultural History of the Study of Religion Unit 

Theme: Author Meets Critics: Irfan Ahmad’s Religion as Critique: Islamic Critical Thinking from Mecca to the Marketplace (University of North Carolina Press, 2017) 

SherAli Tareen, Franklin and Marshall College, Presiding

Saturday 11/17/2018, 5:30 PM-7:00 PM

Convention Center-603 (Street Level)

Panelists Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, Peter Gottschalk, Ebrahim E. I. Moosa, Teena Purohit, and Marcia Hermansen will discuss Irfan Ahmad’s book Religion as Critique: Islamic Critical Thinking from Mecca to the Marketplace. Irfan Ahmad will respond.

Irfan Ahmad’s Religion as Critique takes an interdisciplinary approach, combining ethnography, literary analysis, historiography, and philosophical evaluation to explore the function of critique in Islam. Hussein Rashid has reviewed this book.

Irfan Ahmad is Senior Research Fellow at Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. His academic interests include socio-cultural anthropology, cultural criticism, critique, secularization, identity, alterity, and power.

Ilyse Morgenstien Fuerst is Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies at the University of Vermont. She is the author of Indian Muslim Minorities and the 1857 Rebellion: Religion, Rebels, and Jihad, which analyzes the politics and identity issues of South Asian Muslims during the 19th century Rebellion. Sarah Griswold has reviewed this book, and Troy Mikanovich interviewed the author.

Peter Gottschalk is Professor of Religion at Wesleyan University. He is the author of Islamophobia and Antimuslim Bias: Picturing the Enemy. This book takes a close look at the phenomenon of American political cartoons about Islam. A review is forthcoming from Yasmine Flodin-Ali.

Ebrahim E. I. Moosa is Professor of Islamic Studies at Notre Dame University. His scholarship focuses on classical and modern Islamic thought, Islamic law, history, ethics, and theology. He is the author of What Is a Madrasa? This book sheds light on the Islamic learning institution. Muhammed Failurahman Pallikuzhi has reviewed this book.

Teena Purohit is Associate Professor of Religion at Boston University. Her areas of specialization include conceptions of religion in modern Islam and ways in which colonial forms of knowledge affect modern Muslim intellectual thought. Her current book project is titled Making Islam Modern.

Marcia Hermansen is Director of the Islamic World Studies Program and Professor in the Theology Department at Loyola University Chicago. Her work focuses on Islamic thought, Sufism, Islam and Muslims in South Asia, Muslims in America, and women in Islam.

                                                                 S U N D A Y,     N O V E M B E R     1 8,     2 0 1 8

A18-111 (=S18-123a)

Ethics Unit and SBL Ethics and Biblical Interpretation Unit 

Theme: Review of Bible and Ethics in Christian Life: A New Conversation (Fortress Press, 2018)

Amy Merrill Willis, Lynchburg College, Presiding

Sunday 11/18/2018, 9:00 AM-11:30 AM

Convention Center-407 (Street Level)

Panelists William P. Brown, Peter J. Paris, M. Daniel Carroll R., and Lisa Sowle Cahill will discuss Bible and Ethics in Christian Life: A New Conversation by Bruce C. Birch, Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda, Larry L. Rasmussen, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley. Bruce Birch, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, and Jaqueline E. Lapsley will respond.

In Bible and Ethics in Christian Life, a group of biblical scholars engage in a philosophical and ethical evaluation of identity and the use of scripture in a changing world. This book is available for review here.

Bruce C. Birch is Dean and Professor of Biblical Theology at Wesley Theological Seminary. His research interests include Old Testament theology, prophets of the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament ethics, and postcolonial studies.

Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda is Associate Professor of Old Testament and Director of the Center for Theology, Women, and Gender at Princeton Theological Seminary. Her scholarship focuses on climate justice, systemic injustice, and the ethical implications of reincarnation and resurrection.

Larry L. Rasmussen is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics Emeritus at Union Theological Seminary. He has written on the Bible and ethics, as well as ecology and ethics.

Jacqueline E. Lapsley is Professor of Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. Her work centers on literary theory, theological anthropology, gender theory, theology in the Old Testament, and ethics, particularly creation ethics. She co-edited After Exegesis: Feminist Biblical Theology with Patricia Tull. Kirsi Cobb has reviewed this book.

William P. Brown is William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. His areas of study are creation theology, faith and science, the Psalms, and wisdom literature. 

Peter J. Paris is Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor of Christian Social Ethics Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary. His research interests include ethical formation, preaching and social justice, globalization, public theology, and the interaction of race, gender, and religion. He is co-author of African American Theological Ethics: A Reader with Julius Crump. Emily Suzanne Clark has reviewed this book.

M. Daniel Carroll R. is Blanchard Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. His scholarship focuses on Old Testament social ethics, the social sciences, and literary theory.

Lisa Sowle Cahill is J. Donald Mohan Professor of Theology at Boston College. She specializes in New Testament and ethics, Christology and ethics, ethics of sex and gender, social ethics, and ethics of war and peacemaking.

A18-120

North American Religions Unit 

Theme: God’s Kingdom and American Empire: A Roundtable Discussion of Holy Humanitarians (Harvard University Press, 2018) and The Kingdom of God Has No Borders (Oxford University Press, 2018) 

Elizabeth Dolfi, Columbia University, Presiding

Sunday 11/18/2018, 9:00 AM-11:30 AM

Convention Center-605 (Street Level)

Panelists Andrew Jungclaus, Helen Jin Kim, David King, and Marla Frederick will discuss Holy Humanitarians: American Evangelicals and Global Aid by Heather D. Curtis and The Kingdom of God Has No Borders: A Global History of American Evangelicals by Melani McAlister. Heather D. Curtis and Melani McAlister will respond.

Holy Humanitarians explores the evangelical humanitarianism of the early 20th century newspaper the Christian Herald. Reviewer Gale L. Kenny notes that this book raises questions about contemporary humanitarianism in addition to providing historical analysis.

The Kingdom of God Has No Borders provides a wide-ranging historical analysis of American conservative Christians’ global evangelicalism over the past fifty years. A review is forthcoming from Brian J. Clites.

Heather D. Curtis is Associate Professor of Religion at Tufts University. Her work focuses on global Christianity, American religious history, evangelical Christianity, gender and women’s studies in religion, and religion, humanitarianism, and philanthropy.

Melani McAlister is Professor of American Studies and International Affairs at George Washington University. Her specializations are evangelical Christianity, the US in a global context, transnational US history, US media and cultural history, and religion and politics.

Andrew Jungclaus is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Religion at Columbia University. His research focuses on research philanthropy and the history of capitalism.

Helen Jin Kim is Assistant Professor of American Religious History at Emory University. Her specializations include modern American evangelicalism, as well as American history and religion in a global context. Her current book project is titled Transpacific Piety and Politics: Cold War South Korea and the Rise of Modern American Evangelicalism. She is also co-authoring a book on contemporary American nones.

David King is Assistant Professor of Philanthropic Studies at Indiana University. His work engages Christian humanitarian organizations and the interdisciplinary analysis of philanthropy. His current book project is titled Seeking to Save the World: The Evolution of World Vision, American Evangelicalism, and Global Humanitarianism.

Marla Frederick is Professor of African and African American Studies and the Study of Religion at Harvard University. Her scholarship engages religion and media, religion and economics, and black institutions. She is the author of Colored Television: American Religion Gone Global, an ethnography focused on the phenomenon of American television preachers’ international reception. A review is forthcoming from Madison Tarleton. She co-authored Televised Redemption: Black Religious Media and Racial Empowerment with Carolyn Moxley Rouse and John L. Jackson, Jr. This ethnography offers an in-depth historical analysis of black religious media’s effect on identity. Elonda Clay has reviewed this book.

A18-122

Pragmatism and Empiricism in American Religious Thought Unit 

Theme: Healthy Conflict in an Era of Trump

Thurman Willison, Union Theological Seminary, Presiding

Sunday 11/18/2018, 9:00 AM-11:30 AM

Hyatt Regency-Centennial D (Third Level)

Panelists Rosemary Kellison, Martin Kavka, Ebrahim E. I. Moosa, and Joseph Winters will discuss Healthy Conflict in Contemporary American Society: From Enemy to Adversary by Jason A. Springs. Jason A. Springs will respond.

Healthy Conflict in Contemporary American Society contextualizes current religious and political debates and considers the value of conflict in society and politics. Daniel J. Ott has reviewed this book.

Jason A. Springs is Associate Professor of Religion, Ethics, and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. His research interests include restorative justice, structural and cultural violence, Islamophobia in Europe and North America, American Pragmatist thought, and postliberal theology.

Rosemary Kellison is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of West Georgia. Her areas of specialization include comparative religious ethics, ethics of war, Christian and Islamic ethics, and feminist moral philosophy. Her current book project is titled Expanding Responsibility for the Just War: A Feminist Critique.

Martin Kavka is Professor of Religion at Florida State University. He specializes in the interaction between Jews in the modern West and modern Western philosophy.

Ebrahim E. I. Moosa is Professor of Islamic Studies at Notre Dame University. His scholarship focuses on classical and modern Islamic thought, Islamic law, history, ethics, and theology. He is the author of What Is a Madrasa? This book sheds light on the Islamic learning institution. Muhammed Failurahman Pallikuzhi has reviewed this book.

Joseph Winters is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Duke University. His work engages African-American Religious Thought, religion and critical theory, African-American Literature, and Continental philosophy. He is the author of Hope Draped in Black: Race, Melancholy, and the Agony of Progress. In this book, Winters brings attention to the benefits of paying attention to melancholy and loss when evaluating a history of racial violence and oppression. A review is forthcoming from Jamall Andrew Calloway.

A18-129

Teaching Religion Unit 

Theme: A Conversation about Pedagogy: Reading Of Education, Fishbowls, and Rabbit Holes: Rethinking Teaching and Liberal Education for an Interconnected World (Stylus Publishing, 2016) 

Molly Bassett, Georgia State University, Presiding

Sunday 11/18/2018, 9:00 AM-11:30 AM

Convention Center-501 (Street Level)

Panelists Kathryn McClymond and Richard Newton will discuss Of Education, Fishbowls, and Rabbit Holes: Rethinking Teaching and Liberal Education for an Interconnected World by Jane Fried. Kathleen Fisher will respond.

Jane Fried’s Of Education, Fishbowls, and Rabbit Holes reassesses the nature of higher education and the way one’s sense of identity affects learning. A review is forthcoming from Susan E. Hill.

Jane Fried is Professor of Counseling and Student Development at Connecticut State University. Her work focuses on pedagogy and ethics, particularly in higher education.

Kathryn McClymond is Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Professor of Religious Studies at Georgia State University. Her academic interests are comparative religions, ritual study, and moral injury. She is the author of Ritual Gone Wrong: What We Learn from Ritual Disruption, which presents case studies that illuminate the issue of ritual mistakes. A review is forthcoming from Sarah Burton.

Richard Newton is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. His areas of study include theory and method in the study of religion, African American history, the New Testament in Western imagination, American cultural politics, and pedagogy in religious studies. His current book project is titled Identifying Roots: Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures.

A18-217

Critical Theory and Discourses on Religion Unit and Religion, Affect, and Emotion Unit 

Theme: Author Meets Critics: Jessica Johnson’s Biblical Porn: Affect, Labor, and Pastor Mark Driscoll’s Evangelical Empire (Duke University Press, 2018) 

Sean McCloud, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, Presiding

Sunday 11/18/2018, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM

Hyatt Regency-Capitol 7 (Fourth Level)

Panelists Shreena Ghandi, John Modern, Donovan Schaefer, and Laurel Zwissler will discuss Biblical Porn: Affect, Labor, and Pastor Mark Driscoll’s Evangelical Empire by Jessica Johnson. Jessica Johnson will respond.

In Biblical Porn, Jessica Johnson analyzes the power dynamics and religious conviction among congregants of Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church. This book has been reviewed by Rebecca Barrett-Fox.

Jessica Johnson is Lecturer of Anthropology at the University of Washington. Her work focuses on ethnography, sociocultural anthropology, feminism and feminist theory, queer studies, sexuality, affect theory, violence and trauma, and popular culture.

Shreena Ghandi is on the faculty of the Religious Studies Department at Michigan State University. Her specializations are religion in the Americas, Hinduism, ethnic and race studies, and decolonization in religious studies.

John Modern is Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research engages religious history, literature, technology, and aesthetics. His book Secularism in Antebellum America explores the relationship between religion, secular ideology, and emerging technologies in the 19th-century America. This book has been reviewed by Sonia Hazard.

Donovan Schaefer is Assistant Professor of Material Religion & Visual Culture at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include science and religion, embodiment, affect and emotion, religion and power, and secularism studies. He is the author of Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power, which engages affect theory and post-Darwinian evolutionary theory. This book has been reviewed by Pooya Tamimi Arab.

Laurel Zwissler is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Central Michigan University. Her scholarship centers on the anthropology of religion, women and gender studies, and feminist theory. In her book Religious, Feminist, Activist: Cosmologies of Interconnection, she presents an ethnography investigating the connection between religion and activism among a group of feminists in Toronto. This book has been reviewed by Sharon P. Doetsch-Kidder.

A18-218

Men, Masculinities, and Religions Unit 

Theme: Book Panel Roundtable on Sarah Imhoff’s Masculinity and the Making of American Judaism (Indiana University Press: 2017)

Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada, Princeton University, Presiding

Sunday 11/18/2018, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM

Convention Center-702 (Street Level)

Sarah Imhoff, Lynne Gerber, Alana Vincent, Brendan Jamal Thornton, and Amy Koehlinger will discuss Sarah Imhoff’s Masculinity and the Making of American Judaism.

In Masculinity and the Making of American Judaism, Sarah Imhoff analyzes notions of manhood and masculinity among American Jews in early 20th-century America. A review is forthcoming from Lea Taragin-Zeller.

Sarah Imhoff is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her work specializes in religion and the body, including issues of gender, race, and ability. 

Lynne Gerber is Visiting Lecturer in the Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Harvard University. Her scholarship focuses on religion, morality, and the body in American Christianities. Her current book-length project is titled A Church Alive: AIDS and the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco.

Alana Vincent is Associate Professor of Jewish Philosophy, Religion, and Imagination at the University of Chester. Her work centers on Continental philosophy of religion and modern Jewish thought. 

Brendan Jamal Thornton is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His areas of focus are anthropology, the social and cultural politics of belief, and ethnographic research in the Caribbean. He is the author of Negotiating Respect: Pentecostalism, Masculinity, and the Politics of Spiritual Authority in the Dominican Republic, an ethnography about the daily lives of young male churchgoers in the Dominican Republic. This book has been reviewed by Mary Puckett.

Amy Koehlinger is Associate Professor at the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion at Oregon State University. Her specializations include North American religious history, American Catholicism, and religious embodiment. Her current book project is titled Rosaries and Rope Burns: Boxing and Manhood inAmerican Catholicism, 1880-1970.

A18-220

Native Traditions in the Americas Unit and Religion in the American West Unit and Religion, Colonialism and Postcolonialism Unit 

Theme: Authors Meet Critics: Jennifer Graber’sThe Gods of Indian Country (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Pamela Klassen’s The Story of Radio Mind (University of Chicago Press, 2018) 

Adrian Hermann, University of Bonn, Presiding

Sunday 11/18/2018, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM

Convention Center-Mile High 1A (Lower Level)

Panelists Kathleen J. Martin, Sylvester Johnson, Tiffany Hale, and Greg Johnson will discuss The Gods of Indian Country: Religion and the Struggle for the American West by Jennifer Graber and The Story of Radio Mind: A Missionary’s Journal on Indigenous Land by Pamela Klassen. Jennifer Graber and Pamela Klassen will respond.

Jennifer Graber’s The Gods of Indian Country analyzes the evangelization of the Kiowa Native Americans in the 19thcentury. Reviewer Emily Suzanne Clark remarks that this book presents “a significant counter-perspective to how the field typically narrates 19th-century American religion.”

In The Story of Radio Mind, Pamela Klassen examines the 1920s-era Canadian missionary Frederick Du Vernet’s complicated relationship with the religious impact of colonial settlement. According to reviewer Amanda Porterfield, Klassen “treats Du Vernet with empathy,” demonstrating what “makes his story hopeful as well as tragic.”

Jennifer Graber is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her scholarship focuses on American religions, religion in the American West, Native American religions, religion and violence

Pamela Klassen is Professor of Religion at the University of Toronto. She specializes in the anthropology of religion, religion and the secular, ritual and ritual theory, and religious diversity in North America. She co-authored Ekklesia: Three Inquires in Church and State with Paul Christopher Johnson and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan. In this book, the three authors interact and complicate the separation of church and state in the Americas. This book has been reviewed by Finbarr Curtis.

Kathleen J. Martin is Professor of Ethnic Studies at California Polytechnic State University. Her work focuses on indigenous studies, Native American religious traditions, and education. 

Sylvester Johnson is Professor of Religion and Culture and Director of the Center for Humanities at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His areas of expertise are African American religions, humanity in the age of intelligent machines, and artificial intelligence. He co-edited The FBI and Religion: Faith and National Security Before and After 9/11 with Steven Weitzman. This book provides a historical analysis of the interaction between the FBI and religion. This book has been reviewed by Michael Yandell.

Tiffany Hale is a doctoral candidate at Yale University. Her dissertation explores state institutions’ treatment of indigenous religions after the Civil War.

Greg Johnson is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His scholarship focuses on contemporary indigenous traditions, religion and law, repatriation, and method and theory. He co-edited the Handbook of Indigenous Religions with Siv Ellen Kraft. Reviewer Elizabeth Lowry notes that this book “maps out key conversations and debates across multiple fields of inquiry.” 

A18-222

Open and Relational Theologies Unit

Theme: Christ and the Cosmos (Cambridge University Press, 2015): Keith Ward’s Trinity and Open-Relational Theologies 

Wm. Andrew Schwartz, Center for Process Studies, Presiding

Sunday 11/18/2018, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM

Convention Center-Mile High 1F (Lower Level)

Thomas Oord and Paul Greene will present papers about Christ and the Cosmos: A Reformation of Trinitarian Doctrine by Keith Ward. Keith Ward will respond.

In Christ and the Cosmos, Keith Ward engages Trinitarian theology, placing it in relationship with science. Reviewer Charles G. Conway writes that “this book results from decades of research and teaching, follows over forty other volumes he has authored, and represents the current overview of his theological thought.”

Keith Ward is Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Roehampton. His scholarship engages include religion and science, ethics, comparative religion, and theology. He is the author of The Christian Idea of God: A Philosophical Foundation for Faith, which explores the relationship between philosophy and science. This book has been reviewed by William Greenway. 

Thomas Oord is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Northwest Nazarene University. His work focuses on religion and science, open theism, and the theology of love. His paper is titled Affirming and Extending Keith Ward’s Trinitarian Proposal: Why God Naturally and Necessarily Relates with Creation.

Paul Greene is Assistant Professor of Theology at St. Catherine University. He specializes in interreligious theologies, liberation ethics, and monastic spiritualities. His paper is titled Trinity and Unity in Threefold Love Communion and Fourfold Love. He is the author of The End of Divine Truthiness: Love, Power, and God. This book connects theologies of love in Buddhism, Christianity, and Taoism.

A18-326

Religions in the Latina/o Americas Unit

Theme: Authors Meet Readers: Socorro Castañeda-Lile’s Our Lady of Everyday Life (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Laura E. Pérez’s Eros Ideologies (Duke University Press, 2018)

Luis Leon, University of Denver, Presiding

Sunday 11/18/2018, 3:30 PM-5:00 PM

Convention Center-105 (Street Level)

Panelists Maria Del Socorro Castañeda-Liles and Laura E. Pérez will discuss Castañeda’s Our Lady of Everyday Life: La Virgen de Guadalupe and the Catholic Imagination of Mexican Women in America and Pérez’s Eros Ideologies: Writings on Art, Spirituality, and the Decolonial. Jessica Delgado and Elaine Padilla will respond.

In Our Lady of Everyday Life, Maria Del Socorro Castañeda-Liles examines the impact of Our Lady of Guadalupe—La Virgen— on the cultural identity of Mexican Catholic women in the US. This book is available for review here.

Laura E. Pérez’s Eros Ideologies analyzes the role of art and the decolonial in Western and non-Western thought about the care of self and others. This book is available for review here.

Maria Del Socorro Castañeda-Liles is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University. Her academic interests include sociology of religion, Catholic studies, ethnographic methods, Chicanx/Latinx sociology, feminist studies, and the relationship between race, class, gender, religion, and sexuality. Her upcoming book project is titled Portraits of the Dream: The Importance of Investing in Undocumented America, and it is co-edited with Josef Castañeda-Liles. This book focuses on stories of undocumented professionals, artists, academics, and activists who have been public about their status.

Laura E. Pérez is Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her specializations are post-sixties US Latina/o literary, visual, and performance arts; US women of color, feminist and queer thought; decolonial spiritualities; and decolonial aesthetics. She is currently co-editing a book about the multimedia artist, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, with Ann Marie Leimer.

Jessica Delgado is Assistant Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Her areas of study include women, gender, and sexuality, the Catholic Church in colonial society, race, and caste. Her book Laywomen and the Making of Colonial Catholicism in New Spain, 1630-1780 is a history of laywomen and the church in colonial Mexico. She is currently working on a book titled The Beata of the Black Habit: Religious and Racial anxieties in Late Colonial Mexico. This book examines the story of an unknown mystic in the late 18th century and the mystic’s impact on changes in religious authority during that time period.

Elaine Padilla is Associate Professor, Philosophy & Religion, LatinX/ Latin American Studies at the University of La Verne. Her work focuses on religious thought, mysticism, ecology, gender, and race. She co-edited Christianities in Migration: The Global Perspective with Peter C. Phan. This book provides theological reflections on migration, globalization, and the mission of Christianity. Her current book project, The Darkness of Being, examines the relationship between views on the soul, interiority, race, and gender.

A18-336

Yogācāra Studies Unit

Theme: Roundtable Discussion ofThe Mind Illluminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness(Touchstone, 2017)

Karin Meyers, Kathmandu University, Presiding

Sunday 11/18/2018, 3:30 PM-5:00 PM

Convention Center-Mile High 1F (Lower Level)

Panelists David Carpenter, Tadeusz Zawidzki, Bryce Huebner, Eyal Aviv, and Jonathan Gold will discuss The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness by John Yates, Matthew Immergut, and Jeremy Graves.

The Mind Illuminated is a detailed guide to meditation that considers modern neuroscience and cognitive science. It is co-written by a neuroscientist who is also a meditation master. This book is being reviewed by John Whalen-Bridge.

John Yates, also known as Culadasa, is a mediation master and Director of Dharma Treasure Buddhist Sangha in Tucson, Arizona. His work interlaces teachings of the Buddha with science of the mind.

Matthew Immergut is Associate Professor of Sociology at State University of New York: Purchase College. His research interests include new religious movements, spiritual virtuosity, and contemplative education.

Jeremy Graves is a teacher at the Dharma Treasure Online Community. His areas of expertise are meditation, spiritual practice, and spiritual community.

David Carpenter is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Saint Joseph’s University. His areas of specialization are Indian religious history, ancient India, classical Hinduism, and Indian Buddhism.

Tadeusz Zawidzki is Department Chair, Associate Professor of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the Mind-Brain Institute at George Washington University. His research interests include mindfulness, social cognition, cognitive enhancement, and evolutionary changes in brain and cognition.

Bryce Huebner is Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. His scholarship focuses on moral psychology and the metaphysics of the mind, as well as cognitive science.

Eyal Aviv is Assistant Professor of Religion at George Washington University. His scholarship engages Buddhist philosophy and intellectual history, the Buddhist renaissance in modern China, and the Yogacara school. In his current book project, titledTelling Pearls from Fish-Eyes: Ouyang Jingwu’s Search for Authentic Buddhism, he examines the influence of Indian Buddhist philosophy on the development of modern Chinese Buddhist thought. 

Jonathan Gold is Associate Professor of Religion and Director of the Program in South Asian Studies at Princeton University. His work specializes in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, with a particular interest in Buddhist approaches to language and ethics. His book Paving the Great Way: Vasubandhu’s Unifying Buddhist Philosophy provides close studies of Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu’s corpus.

A18-437

Tillich: Issues in Theology, Religion, and Culture Unit

Theme: Book Panel: The Religion of White Supremacy in the United States (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) by Eric Weed

Stephen G. Ray, Chicago Theological Seminary, Presiding

Sunday 11/18/2018, 5:30 PM-7:00 PM

Convention Center-603 (Street Level)

Panelists Jennifer Harvey, Angela Sims, and Michele Watkins will discuss The Religion of White Supremacy in the United States by Eric Weed. Eric Weed will respond.

In The Religion of White Supremacy in the United States, Eric Weed examines the theological and historical impact of race in the US, focusing on the role of white supremacy in American culture and society. This book is available for review here.

Eric Weed is Adjunct Professor at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. His work explores the connection between culture and religion, utilizing critical race theory, political theory, and critical whiteness studies.

Jennifer Harvey is Professor of Religion at Drake University. Her areas of study include religiosity and ethics in relation to race, gender, activism, politics, spirituality, and justice.

Angela Sims is Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor of Ethics and Black Church Studies and Vice President of Institutional Advancement at Saint Paul School of Theology. Her work centers on the ethical implications of lynching, as well as the characteristics, effects, and implications of poverty on systemic, global, national, and local levels. She is the author of Lynched: The Power of Memory in a Culture of Terror. This book investigates the history of lynching primarily through oral histories.

Michele Watkins is Gerald L. Schlessman Professor of Methodist Studies and Assistant Professor of Theology at Iliff School of Theology. Her specializations include feminist and womanist theologies.

                                                              M O N D A Y,     N O V E M B E R     1 9,     2 0 1 8

A19-111

Ethics Unit and Religion and Politics Unit

Theme: Roundtable Discussion onJean Bethke Elshtain: Politics, Ethics, and Society(University of Notre Dame Press, 2018)

Michael LeChevallier, University of Chicago, Presiding

Monday 11/19/2018, 9:00 AM-11:30 AM

Convention Center-Four Seasons 1 (Lower Level)

Panelists Victor Anderson, James T. Johnson, Robin W. Lovin, and Charles Mathewes will discuss Jean Bethke Elshtain: Politics, Ethics, and Society, edited by Debra Erickson and Michael LeChevallier. Debra Erickson will respond.

In Jean Bethke Elshtain, contributors engage the works of this ethicist, political philosopher, and public intellectual, primarily writings displaying her thought on politics and religion. A review is forthcoming from Steven Lane.

Debra Erickson is Instructor of Philosophy at Bloomburg University. Her areas of specialization include social and political ethics, global ethics, and environmental ethics.

Michael LeChevallier is a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago. His areas of study are religious ethics and environmental ethics.

Victor Anderson is Oberlin Theological School Professor of Ethics at Vanderbilt University. He is also Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies and Religious Studies. His work focuses on theological and social ethics, philosophy of religion, African American religious studies, and American philosophy and religious thought.

James T. Johnson is Distinguished Professor of Religion at Rutgers University. He specializes in religious ethics, religion and society, and just war theory.

Robin W. Lovin is Cary Maguire University Professor of Ethics at Southern Methodist University. His fields of interest include social ethics, religion and law, and comparative religious ethics. He co-edited Theology As Interdisciplinary Inquiry: Learning with and from the Natural and Human Sciences with Joshua Mauldin. This volume joins together scholars from various fields to connect with scientific inquiry. Rosemary P. Carbine has reviewed this book.

Charles Mathewes is Carolyn M. Barbour Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. His research interests are comparative religious ethics and the theory of religion. He co-edited Comparative Religious Ethics: The Major Works with Matthew Puffer and Mark Storslee. This book is a collection of scholarship in the relatively new field of comparative religious ethics. He is currently working on a book titled The Future of Political Theology.

A19-114 

Philosophy of Religion Unit and Religion, Media, and Culture Unit 

Theme: Author Meets Critics: Martin Shuster’s New Television: The Aesthetics and Politics of a Genre (University of Chicago Press, 2017) 

Kathryn Reklis, Fordham University, Presiding 

Panelists Travis Ables, Sarah Beckwith, Robert Davis, Ada Jaarsma, Vincent Lloyd, Kathryn Lofton, Michael L. Morgan, S. Brent Plate, and Larisa Reznik will discuss New Television: The Aesthetics and Politics of a Genre by Martin Shuster. Martin Shuster will respond. 

In New Television, Martin Shuster applies a philosophical approach to the phenomenon of television, putting forth the view that it is an art form for modern times. This book is available for review here

Martin Shuster is Director of Judaic Studies and Assistant Professor at the Center for Geographies of Justice at Goucher College. His areas of expertise include Jewish thought and philosophy, philosophy of religion, ethics, aesthetics, social and political philosophy and theory, and critical theory. He translated Jean-Francois Kervegan’s The Actual and the Rational: Hegel and the Objective Spirit with Daniela Ginsburg.  

Shuster is currently working on several book projects. His book Genocide and the State: The Coldest of Cold Monsters employs philosophy and critical and political theory to analyze genocide and nation states. In How to Measure a World? he presents a history of Jewish philosophy about the idea of “world.” He is co-editing Logics of Genocide: The Structures of Violence and the Contemporary World with Anne O’Byrne, and the Oxford Handbook of Theodor W. Adorno with Henry Pickford. 

Travis Ables is an Affiliate Faculty member at Regis College. His research areas include apocalypticism, Christology, Augustine, Anselm, and Bonaventure. His current book project is titled The Body of the Cross: A Theological History of the Atonement

Sarah Beckwith is Katherine Everett Gilbert Professor of English at Duke University. Her work focuses on late medieval religious writing, medieval and early modern drama, and ordinary language philosophy. She is currently working on a book about Shakespearean tragedy and philosophy. 

Robert Davis is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Fordham University. He specializes in medieval Christian mysticism and spirituality, hermeneutics and biblical interpretation, gender and sexuality, and theories of affect and emotion. His book The Weight of Love: Affect, Ecstasy, and Union in the Theology of Bonaventure applies affect theory to the writings of Bonaventure. 

Ada Jaarsma is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities at Mount Royal University. In Kierkegaard After the Genome: Science, Existence and Belief in this World, she connects existentialism and science studies. 

Vincent Lloyd is Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University. His work centers on philosophy of religion, religion and politics, and race. His book Religion of the Field Negro: On Black Secularism and Black Theology associates secularism and theology by utilizing critical theory. This book has been reviewed by Corey D. B. Walker. In Black Natural Law he examines political aspects of African American religious thought. This book has been reviewed by Rick Elgendy.  

Lloyd co-edited Race and Secularism in America with Jonathon S. Kahn. This book analyzes the racializing process of secularism. This book has been reviewed by Lucia Hulsether. He also co-edited Anti-Blackness and Christian Ethics with Andrew Prevot. In this book, contributors engage racism and racial justice in relation to Christian ethics. A review is forthcoming from Gregory Chatterley. 

Kathryn Lofton is Professor of Religious Studies, American Studies, and History at Yale University. Her scholarship explores American religious history, religion and modernity, capitalism, celebrity, sexuality, and the concept of the secular. Her book Consuming Religion investigates the connection between religion and popular culture. This book has been reviewed by Dana Wiggins Logan. 

Michael L. Morgan is Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Jewish Studies at Indiana University. His areas of focus include philosophy, literature, and film, as well as ethics, political theory, and philosophy of religion. 

S. Brent Plate is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Hamilton College. His scholarly interests include cultural anthropology, art history, film studies, and cognitive science. In his book Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-creation of the World, he offers an analysis of the comparability of religious practices and film. This book has been reviewed by Anthony J. Ballas.  

Plate edited Key Terms in Material Religion, which provides introductions to diverse topics in the field of material religion. This book has been reviewed by Sarah “Moxy” Moczygemba. Plate co-edited Religion in Museums: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives with Gretchen Buggeln and Crispin Payne. In this book, scholars grapple with issues such as repatriation, conservation, and what exactly makes an object a religious artifact. This book has been reviewed by Francis Steward. 

Larisa Reznik is Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Goucher College. Her work engages critical theory, political theory, and queer theory.

A19-117 

Religion and Humanism Unit 

Theme: Author Meets Critics: Anthony Pinn’s When Colorblindness Isn’t the Answer: Humanism and the Challenge of Race (Pinchstone, 2017) 

Slavica Jakelic, Valparaiso University, Presiding 

Monday 11/19/2018, 9:00 AM-11:30 AM 

Convention Center-Mile High 1A (Lower Level) 

Panelists Valerie C. Cooper, Jason Springs, Carol Wayne White, and William David Hart will discuss When Colorblindness Isn’t the Answer: Humanism and the Challenge of Race by Anthony B. Pinn. Anthony B. Pinn will respond. 

In When Colorblindness Isn’t the Answer, Anthony B. Pinn examines the ways in which humanism can contribute to efforts toward racial justice. This book is available for review here

Anthony B. Pinn is Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religion at Rice University. His scholarship focuses on liberation theologies, religion and popular culture, humanism, constructive theology, African American religious traditions, and African American religious thought. He has written, edited, and co-edited over thirty-five books. 

Pinn’s book Humanism: Essays in Race, Religion, and Cultural Production explores the role of humanism in the thought of “nones.” He edited Humanism and Technology: Opportunities and Challenges, which takes an interdisciplinary approach to the relationship between technological advancements and humanism.  

Pinn also edited Just Religion, in which he investigates the involvement of religion in issues of race, class, and gender. He co-edited Religion in Hip Hop: Mapping the New Terrain in the US with Monica R. Miller and Bernard “Bun B” Freeman. In this volume, scholars analyze the impact of religion on hip hop, and hip hop’s effect on religion. This book has been reviewed by John Gill.  

Valerie C. Cooper is Associate Professor of Religion and Society and Black Church Studies at Duke University. Her work centers on religion, race, politics, and popular culture. Her current book project, titled Segregated Sundays, offers an assessment of attempts at racial reconciliation in Christian churches from the 1990s onwards. 

Jason Springs is Associate Professor of Religion, Ethics, and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. His specializations are religious ethics, moral philosophy, and political and social theories in modern Europe and North America. His book Healthy Conflict in Contemporary American Society: From Enemy to Adversary engages diverse perspectives in philosophy and modern political thought to seek out positive aspects of conflict. This book has been reviewed by Daniel J. Ott. 

Carol Wayne White is Professor of Religious Studies at Bucknell University. Her areas of interest are philosophy of religion, religion and critical theory, process philosophy, religious naturalism, and animal and human connections in Western thought. In her book Black Lives and Sacred Humanity: The Emergence of an African-American Religious Naturalism, she reevaluates the idea of sacred humanity while considering issues raised by African American thinkers. 

William David Hart is Margaret W. Harmon Chair and Professor of Religious Studies at Macalester College. His research areas include religion, ethics, and politics. He is currently working on two projects—a study of antiblackness and an analysis of human sacrifice.

A19-126 (=S19-121) 

Study of Judaism Unit and SBL Jewish Christianity/Christian Judaism Unit 

Theme: Review Forum on Daniel Boyarin’s Judaism (Rutgers University Press, 2018) 

Cynthia M. Baker, Bates College, Presiding 

Monday 11/19/2018, 9:00 AM-11:30 AM 

Convention Center-203 (Street Level) 

Panelists Adele Reinhartz, Simcha Gross, Shaul Magid, Susannah Heschel, Shlomo Fischer, Martin Kavka, and Seth Schwartz will discuss Judaism: The Genealogy of a Modern Notion by Daniel Boyarin. Daniel Boyarin will respond. 

In Judaism, Daniel Boyarin dissects the term “Judaism,” exploring the concept’s Christian theological underpinnings. Adele Reinhartz is reviewing this title. 

Daniel Boyarin is Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture in the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also an Affiliated Member of the Department of Women’s Studies. He has published extensively in the field of Jewish studies. 

Boyarin’s book A Traveling Homeland: The Babylonian Talmud as Diaspora analyzes the concept of diaspora and connects the nature of the Talmud to this idea. This book has been reviewed by Yuval Katz-Wilfing. Boyarin co-authored Imagine No Religion: How Modern Abstractions Hide Ancient Realities with Carlin A. Barton. In this volume, the authors closely examine two Latin and Greek terms—religioand threkesia—which they contend cannot properly be translated to “religion.” This book has been reviewed by Ben Sheppard. A collection of Boyarin’s essays, The Talmud—A Personal Take: Selected Essays, was edited by Tal Hever-Chybowski. This book is available for review here

Adele Reinhartz is Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa. Her research interests include the New Testament, early Jewish-Christian relations, the Bible and film, and feminist biblical criticism. Her book Cast Out of the Covenant: Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John offers a critical assessment of the “expulsion hypothesis” in the Gospel of John. A review is forthcoming from Sheldon Steen. 

Simcha Gross is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. His areas of specialization include ancient Jewish and Christian history, particularly Jews and Syriac Christians living under Sasanian Persian and early Arab-Muslim governance. He co-authored The History of the Slave of Christ: From Jewish Child to Christian Martyr with Aaron Michael Butts. This volume provides the first critical editions and English translations of two versions of a Syriac text about a Jewish child who converts to Christianity. 

Shaul Magid is Jay and Jeannie Schottenstein Chair in Jewish Studies and Professor of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. His work focuses on Kabbala, Hasidism, Judaism and gender, Israel and Palestine, and American Jewish thought and culture. In his book Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism, Magid analyzes Hasidism in light of what he calls “incarnational thought.” This book has been reviewed by Menachem Feuer. 

Susannah Heschel is Chair of the Jewish Studies Program and Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. Her work centers on the history of biblical scholarship, the history of antisemitism, and Jewish-Christian relations during the 19th and 20th centuries.  

Shlomo Fischer teaches sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His areas of study include the Haredi population, religious nationalism, and Israeli politics and society. 

Martin Kavka is Professor of Religion at Florida State University. In his work, he explores ways that Jews in the modern West have interacted with modern Western philosophy. 

Seth Schwartz is Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Classical Jewish Civilization at Columbia University. His work examines the social, cultural, and political history of ancient Jews, particularly in their Hellenistic, Roman, and early Christian contexts.

A19-215

Interreligious and Interfaith Studies Unit

Theme: Interreligious/Interfaith Studies: Defining a New Field (Beacon Press, 2018)

Eboo Patel, Interfaith Youth Core, Presiding

Monday 11/19/2018, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM

Convention Center-Mile High 4A (Lower Level)

Panelists Homayra Ziad, Jennifer Howe Peace, Younus Mirza, and Hans Gustafson will discuss Interreligious/Interfaith Studies: Defining a New Field, edited by Eboo Patel, Jennifer Howe Peace, and Noah Silverman. Laurie Louise Patton will respond.

In Interreligious/Interfaith Studies, contributors from a variety of disciplines address the nature and value of the interreligious/interfaith field of scholarship. As reviewer Patrick Horn writes, “the authors interrogate both theory and practice in a way that enriches the field of study and enhances the effectiveness of the interfaith/interreligious movement in turn.”

Eboo Patel is the Founder of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), an organization that fosters religious literacy by providing training to interfaith leaders and setting up religious diversity education programs on college and university campuses. His book Interfaith Leadership: A Primer offers guidance to leaders who strive to serve groups composed of members who adhere to different faiths. This book has been reviewed by Kate McCarthy.

Jennifer Howe Peace is Associate Professor of Interfaith Studies at Andover Newton Theological School and Co-Director of the Center for Religious and Communal Leadership Education (CIRCLE). She is also the founding Co-Chair of the American Academy of Religion group “Interreligious and Interfaith Studies.”

Noah Silverman is the Senior Director of Learning and Partnerships of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC). His areas of expertise are young adult leadership, interfaith understanding, and conflict resolution. 

Homayra Ziad is the Scholar of Islam at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies (ICJS). Her research focuses on Indo-Persianate Islamic traditions in the precolonial and colonial eras, giving attention to reconciliation and identity creation. 

Younus Mirza is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Allegheny College. His work explores the relationship between the Bible and the Qur’an, particularly the stories they have in common. He co-authored The Bible and the Qur’an: Biblical Figures in the Islamic Tradition with John Kaltner. In this volume, the authors examine similarities between various narrative accounts in both textual traditions. This book has been reviewed by Nicholaus Pumphrey.

Hans Gustafson is Adjunct Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of St. Thomas and Associate Director of the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning. He specializes in constructive philosophical theology, comparative theology, theologies of religion, and interreligious and interfaith studies. He edited Learning from Other Religious Traditions: Leaving Room for Holy Envy. In this book, contributors engage in appreciation of religious traditions outside of their own faiths. A review is forthcoming from Andrew Massena.

Gustafson also wrote Finding All Things in God: Pansacramentalism and Doing Theology Interreligiously, in which he delves into methodology for constructing an interreligious theology.

Laurie Patton is President of Middlebury College. Her scholarship centers on South Asian history and culture. She co-edited Dialogue in Early South Asian Religions: Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Traditions with Brian Black. This book analyzes the intricacies of conversational episodes in ancient South Asian religious texts.

A19-233

Women’s Caucus

Theme: Response-Ability and Emerging Scholars’ Reflections on Keri Day’s Religious Resistance to Neoliberalism: Womanist and Black Feminist Perspectives (Palgrave, 2016)

Presiding: Meredith Minister, Shenandoah University; Alicia Panganiban, Princeton Theological Seminary; and Theresa A. Yugar, California State University, Los Angeles

Monday 11/19/2018, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM

Convention Center-112 (Street Level)

Panelists Linda Claros, LaChelle Schilling, Eboni Marshall Turman, and Jonathan Jodamus will discuss Religious Resistance to Neoliberalism: Womanist and Black Feminist Perspectives by Keri Day. Keri Day will respond.

In Religious Resistance to Neoliberalism, Keri Day critically evaluates neoliberalism, taking into account race, womanism, and feminism. This book is available for review here

Keri Day is Associate Professor of Constructive Theology and African American Religion at Princeton Theological Seminary. Her research interests include womanist/feminist theologies, social critical theory, cultural studies, economics, and Afro-Pentecostalism.

Linda Claros is a doctoral candidate in Religious Studies at Claremont Graduate University. 

LaChelle Schilling obtained her doctorate at Claremont Graduate University. She is currently working on a book titled Minimalism, Mindfulness, and the Middle Way, which engages wisdom literature.

Eboni Marshall Turman is Assistant Professor of Theology and African American Religion at Yale Divinity School. She specializes in womanist/feminist liberation theologies and ethics, the black radical tradition, black women and theological liberalisms, black womanist aesthetics, and dogmatics in the African American Christian tradition. She is the author of Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation: Black Bodies, the Black Church, and the Council of Chalcedon. This book deals with the persistence of black women’s oppression in black churches.

Jonathan Jodamus is Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Western Cape. His areas of focus include Pauline studies, gender critical theory, identity theory, race theory, materialist feminism(s), and epistemologies of gender and sexuality(ies).

A19-302

African Religions Unit

Theme: Roundtable on Laura Grillo’s Book: An Intimate Rebuke: Female Genital Power in Ritual and Politics in West Africa (Duke University Press, 2018)

Adriaan van Klinken, University of Leeds, Presiding

Monday 11/19/2018, 3:00 PM-5:00 PM

Convention Center-104 (Street Level)

Panelists Joseph Hellweg, Dianne Stewart, Sian Hawthorne, and Jacob K. Olupona will discuss An Intimate Rebuke: Female Genital Power in Ritual and Politics in West Africa by Laura Grillo. Laura Grillo will respond.

In An Intimate Rebuke, Laura Grillo examines the religious and political significance of a West African ritual conducted by postmenopausal women to expel evil. This book is available for review here.

Laura Grillo is an Affiliated Faculty member in the Theology Department at Georgetown University. Her work focuses on contemporary West African indigenous religions.

Joseph Hellweg is Associate Professor of Religion at Florida State University. His specialization is cultural anthropology, with an emphasis on religion, politics, Islam, performance, and health in West Africa. His current book project, titled Practical Religion: Hunting, Islam, and the Poetics of Action in the Songs of Dramane Coulibaly, analyzes songs and epics sung by hunters in Côte d’Ivoire.

Dianne Stewart is Associate Professor of Religion at Emory University. Her scholarship explores various topics in Africana religions, including womanism, theory and method, and the influence of African civilizations on religion in the African diaspora. Her current book project is titled Local and Transnational Legacies of African Christianity in West-Central Africa and the Black Atlantic World. This book investigates 18th-century Kongolese Catholicism and Afro-Protestantism.

Sian Hawthorne is an Academic Staff Member in the Department of Religions and Philosophies at SOAS, University of London. Her areas of study include religion and gender, feminist historiography, postcolonial theory, and cultural memory. She edited Gender: God, in which contributors present feminist, queer, and transgender evaluations of religion. 

Jacob K. Olupona is Professor of African Religious Traditions, with a joint appointment as Professor of African and African American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. His research focuses on the religious practices of Africans who emigrated to America over the past forty years, as well as spirit possession, Pentecostalism, and animal symbolism. He co-edited Ifá Divination, Knowledge, Power, and Performance with Rowland O. Abiodun. In this volume, scholars contextualize Ifá and Ifá divination utilizing philosophy, performance studies, and cultural studies. This book has been reviewed by Afe Adogame.

A19-311

Comparative Studies in Religion Unit

Theme: Roundtable Discussion on Just Debt: Theology, Ethics, and Neoliberalism (Baylor University Press, 2017)

Valentina Napolitano, University of Toronto, Presiding

Monday 11/19/2018, 3:30 PM-5:00 PM

Convention Center-Mile High 1D (Lower Level)

Panelists Nimi Wariboko, Mohammad Khalil, and Moses Pava will discuss Just Debt: Theology, Ethics, and Neoliberalism by Ilsup Ahn. Ilsup Ahn will respond.

In Just Debt, Ilsup Ahn examines the ethics involved in the phenomenon of debt. Ahn contextualizes debt, utilizing analytical tools of various disciplines ranging from anthropology to economics. This book explores the ethics pertaining to debt in the three monotheistic religions. According to reviewer Jean François Bissonnette, Ilsup desribes debt as more than a “mere contractual agreement” that  “obfuscate[s] the social and moral nature of credit, it also legitimates immoral practices that proliferate under the guise of economic ‘convenience.'”

Ilsup Ahn is Professor of Philosophy at North Park University. His work centers on philosophical and religious ethics. He co-edited Asian American Christian Ethics with Grace Y. Kao. This volume treats ethical issues relevant to Asian American Christians, including race relations, education, and plastic surgery. 

Nimi Wariboko is Walter G. Muelder Professor of Social Ethics at Boston University. His scholarly interests include economic ethics, Christian social ethics, African social traditions, Pentecostal studies, and philosophical theology. His book The Spirit of God: Pentecostalism and Critical Theory provides a critical analysis of Pentecostal Christianity’s philosophy of God. A review is forthcoming from Kyle Brooks. He also co-edited Paul Tillich and Pentecostal Theology: Spiritual Presence and Spiritual Power with Amos Yong. In this book, scholars put Paul Tillich’s theology in conversation with Pentecostal theology. 

Mohammad Khalil is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Michigan State University, Adjunct Professor of Law, and Director of the Muslim Studies Program. His work focuses on Islamic thought. His book Jihad, Radicalism, and the New Atheism investigates the claim that Islam is inherently violent, engaging with the views of New Atheists.

Moses Pava is Professor of Accounting and Alvin H. Einbender Chair in Business Ethics at Yeshiva University. His academic areas of interest include Jewish business ethics, spirituality in business, and corporate accountability. In Leading With Meaning: Using Covenantal Leadership to Build a Better Organization, he provides an exploration of what traditional religion can offer to modern leaders.

A19-427

Religion and Politics Unit and Religion and Sexuality Unit

Theme: Roundtable Discussion on R. Marie Griffith’sMoral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fracture American Politics (Basic Books, 2017)

Anthony Petro, Boston University, Presiding

Monday 11/19/2018, 5:30 PM-7:00 PM

Convention Center-Mile High 1F (Lower Level)

Panelists Wallace D. Best, Kristy Slominski, Lynne Gerber, and Heather White will discuss Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics by R. Marie Griffith. R. Marie Griffith will respond.

In Moral Combat, R. Marie Griffith engages contentious political and religious topics related to sexuality. According to reviewer Kathryn House, Griffith “exposes fault lines in complicated 20th century American debates where sex, Christianity, and politics intersect.”

R. Marie Griffith is John C. Danforth Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington State University. Her work centers on religion, gender, and American politics.

Wallace D. Best is Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University. He specializes in 19th and 20th century African American religious history. His book Langston’s Salvation won the American Academy of Religion’s 2018 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Textual Studies. His upcoming publication is the anthology Elder Lucy Smith: Documents from the Life of a Pentecostal Woman Preacher.

Kristy Slominski is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Classics at the University of Arizona. Her areas of interest include the history of sex education in the US and the intersection of religion, science, and health in US history. Her current book project is titled Teaching Moral Sex: An American Religious History of Sex Education. In this volume, she analyzes the effect of religion on public sex education from the late 19th century onwards.

Lynne Gerber is Visiting Lecturer in the Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Harvard University. Her scholarship focuses on religion, morality, and the body in American Christianities. In her current book-length project, A Church Alive: AIDS and the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco, she examines the way women leaders of the Metropolitan Community Church reacted to AIDS in the first two decades of the epidemic. 

Heather White is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Religious Studies Department and the Gender and Queer Studies Program at the University of Puget Sound. Her research interests include American religions, sexuality, gender, and 20th century social movements. She is the author of Reforming Sodom: Protestants and the Rise of Gay Rights, in which she assesses the history of Protestants’ involvement in the development of LGBT+ rights. She is currently co-editing an anthology with Gillian Frank and Bethany Moreton titled Devotions and Desires: Religion and Sexuality in the Twentieth Century United States.

A19-435

Space, Place, and Religion Unit

Theme: Author Meets Critics: Murry A. Rae’s Architecture and Theology: The Art of Place (Baylor University Press, 2017)

W. David Buschart, Denver Seminary, Presiding

Monday 11/19/2018, 5:30 PM-7:00 PM

Convention Center-506 (Street Level)

Panelists Gretchen Buggeln, William R. McAlpine, and Mark A. Torgerson will discuss Architecture and Theology: The Art of Place by Murray A. Rae. Murry A. Rae will respond.

In Architecture and Theology, Murray A. Rae explores the theological dimensions of architecture. Reviewer Claude N. Stulting, Jr. notes that this book “stimulate[s] our thinking about the ways in which architecture can enrich the theological enterprise.” 

Murray A. Rae is Professor of Theology at the University of Otago, New Zealand. His areas of focus include the corpus of Søren Kierkegaard, theology and architecture, biblical hermeneutics, and Christian doctrine. Rae is the author of Christian Theology: The Basics, in which he provides an introduction to diverse issues in Christian theology. This book has been reviewed by Christopher McMahon.

Gretchen Buggeln is Professor of Art History and Humanities and Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christianity and the Arts at Valparaiso University. Her specialization is American sacred spaces. Her book The Suburban Church: Modernism and Community in Postwar America treats Protestantism in the suburbs during the 1950s and 1960s. This book has been reviewed by Aaron Sizer. 

Buggeln co-edited Religion in Museums: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives with Crispin Paine and S. Brent Plate. In this book, scholars grapple with issues such as repatriation, conservation, and what exactly makes an object a religious artifact. This book has been reviewed by Francis Steward. Buggeln also co-edited Interpreting Religion at Museums and Historic Sites with Barbara Franco. In this volume, scholars address issues raised by the inclusion of religious items and themes in museum presentations. A review is forthcoming from Crispin Paine.

William R. McAlpine is Professor of Practical Theology at Ambrose University. His work deals with the relationship between buildings and theology.

Mark A. Torgerson is Associate Professor of Worship Arts at Judson University. His academic interests include church architecture and the connection between visual arts and worship.

                                                              T U E S D A Y,     N O V E M B E R     2 0,     2 0 1 8

A20-123

Comparative Studies in Religion Unit and Philosophy of Religion Unit

Theme: Author Meets Critics: Steven G. Smith’s Scriptures and the Guidance of Language (Cambridge University Press, 2018)

Emilia Bachrach, Oberlin College, Presiding

Tuesday 11/20/2018, 10:30 AM-12:00 PM

Convention Center-501 (Street Level)

Panelists Robert C. Neville, Purushottama Bilimoria, and Kevin Schilbrack will discuss Scriptures and the Guidance of Language: Evaluating a Religious Authority in Communicative Action by Steven G. Smith. Steven G. Smith will respond.

In Scriptures and the Guidance of Language, Steven G. Smith engages scripture through language studies and philosophy of religion. This book is available for review here.

Steven G. Smith is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies and Jennie Carlisle Golding Chair in Philosophy at Millsaps College. His work focuses on philosophy of religion, philosophical anthropology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. His book Full History: On the Meaningfulness of Shared Action delves into a wide variety of issues concerning philosophical renderings of history. Smith also wrote Centering and Extending: An Essay on Metaphysical Sense, in which he analyzes principles of formation in metaphysics.

Robert C. Neville is Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Theology at Boston University. His scholarly interests include metaphysics, philosophical cosmology, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of education, and aesthetics. He is the author of The Good Is One, Its Manifestations Many: Confucian Essays on Metaphysics, Morals, Rituals, Institutions, and Genders. In this book, he places Confucianism in a global context as a living philosophical tradition. Neville also wrote Defining Religion: Essays in Philosophy of Religion, in which he considers numerous perspectives in philosophy of religion. Both of these books have been reviewed by Stephen Dawson. Additionally, Stephen Dawson interviewed Neville.

Purushottama Bilimoria is Distinguished Teaching and Research Fellow at the Graduate Theological Union at the University of California, Berkeley. His research areas are contemporary and classical Indian philosophy, post-colonial studies, comparative philosophy and ethics, psychology of emotions, Indic cross-cultural studies, Hindu and Indian ethics, and Indian and Hindu diaspora studies. Bilimoria is the author of History of Indian Philosophy (Routledge History of World Philosophies)Indian Ethics Volume II: Gender Justice and EcologyEmotions in Indian Thought-SystemsIndian Diaspora: Hindus and Sikhs in Australia, andGlobalization, Transnationalism, Gender and Ecological Engagement.

Kevin Schilbrack is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University. His scholarship uses embodied cognition and social ontology to understand religion. He is currently writing a book about new developments in philosophy of religion.

A20-133

Theology and Continental Philosophy Unit

Theme: Anand Taneja’s Jinnealogy: Time, Islam, and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi (Stanford University Press, 2016)

Richard McGregor, Vanderbilt University, Presiding

Tuesday 11/20/2018, 10:30 AM-12:00 PM

Convention Center-503 (Street Level)

Panelists Kathleen Foody, Anna M. Gade, A. Azfar Moin, and SherAli Tareen will discuss Jinnealogy: Time, Islam, and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi by Anand Taneja. Anand Taneja will respond.

In Jinnealogy, Anand Taneja examines the phenomenon of requesting spiritual aid from Islamic jinns at the Firoz Shah Kotla ruin in Delhi. A review by Jaclyn Michael is forthcoming.

Anand Taneja is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Islamic Traditions of South Asia at Vanderbilt University. His work centers on pre-colonial Islamic ethics and political theologies, ecology, popular theology, and the self and the Other in South Asia.

Kathleen Foody is Associate Professor of International Studies at the College of Charleston. Her research interests include Muslim definitions of religion, Islamic politics, and secularity.

Anna M. Gade is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research concentrates on global, historical, and religious responses to environmental change, as well as history, knowledge, and practices of Southeast Asia. Her upcoming book is titled Muslim Environmentalisms: Religious and Social Foundations.

A. Azfar Moin is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His areas of specialization are Sufism and sainthood in Islam, sacred kingship, and the history of early modern Iran, Central Asia, and South Asia. His current project investigates ritual violence and kingship in the late medieval and early modern world.

SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His scholarship focuses on Muslim intellectual thought in modern South Asia, with an emphasis on intra-Muslim debates and polemics about law, ethics, and theology. His current book project, titled Contesting Muhammad in Modernity: Tradition, Reform, Innovation, treats polemics among major Muslim scholars (ulama) in modern South Asia about law, theology, and politics.