Hello colleagues:
My colleague Chip Kooi and I are seeking several scholars who study the intersection of religion and war for an exploratory panel at the November 2018 conference of the American Academy of Religion. If this panel is successful, participants will not only present their papers, but AAR may also agree to create a Religion and War Unit which would provide those of us who study this area a permanent forum for our research.
Our call for papers is as follows:
One of Woodrow Wilson’s catchphrases to sell the First World War to the American public was “The War to End All Wars”. Ever since Wilson employed this turn of phrase, the modern world has considered war and violence to be redemptive-in other words, many in the public sphere have argued that the strategic employment of war will in the end create peace. Other similar platitudes have been used in the intervening time period, including the idea that “we had to destroy the village to save it.” Such ideas, however, are not just secular. Various religious texts employ ideas of sacred violence and warfare as a way of cleansing the earth in order to create peace. As such, the Exploratory Panel on Religion and War would invite papers that explore the topic of how religious discourses perpetrate or disrupt the concept of how the ritualized violence of war might create peace. All methodological and temporal approaches in the theological disciplines are welcome in the exploration of this topic.
If you are interested in participation in this panel, please email me an abstract complete with your name, affiliation and role, paper title, and a description of up to 1000 words to [email protected], by February 24, 2018.
Thank you for your time.
Best Regards,
Joshua Ward Jeffery
