Dear Colleagues,

The Theology & Religious Ethics Workshop invites paper proposals for winter and spring of 2017.

We invite conference papers, dissertation chapters, papers prepared for publications, and other works-in-progress,concerning topics in theology and religious ethics. Students from all degree programs are encouraged to participate.

Theme for this year: Religion and Violence

While the Workshop welcomes submissions on any theme, we particularly encourage this year’s presenters to consider questions of religion and violence, such as the following:

What constitutes a violent act? What must violence symbolize if it is to be considered religious violence? What kinds of moral questions arise when we inflict violence on ourselves, on our own bodies? Can acts of violence be interpreted as acts of love? Is there a redemptive value in violent death as some religious traditions argue? How are we to make sense of the way in which violence in contemporary times goes ‘viral’? What does it mean to bear witness to violence from the comfort and safety of our own homes? Does violence ever bring people together—can it be a form of intimacy—or must it always tear and separate? How is divine violence depicted in literature, scripture, and the arts? 

Six Presentation Formats

The Theology and Religious Ethics Workshop offers six different styles or formats for our biweekly meetings: Conference-Style Format, Debate, Panel Discussion, Second Opinion, “Tell Us Your Story”, and “Tell Us Why it Matters.” We hope that by offering these different formats students will engage and experiment with different forms of intellectual inquiry. We encourage presenters to try a new format to diversify the conversation!

If you are interested in presenting, please write to us with the following information:

• A tentative title for your presentation
• Your program and departmental affiliation
• The format you are choosing
• Your preferred term (winter or spring)
• A brief abstract of your project (200-300 words)

The Theology and Religious Ethics Workshop will meet Wednesdays, 4:30-5:50, in Swift 208. Please join us!