The University of Colorado's Department of Religious Studies graduate student journal announces a Call for Papers for our upcoming second edition of NEXT: Emerging Voices of Religious Studies Scholarship. The deadline for each submission is February 4 th, 2008. Papers are to be no more than 20 pages long, double spaced (not including bibliography). Please send submissions to sosrjournal@gmail.com in Microsoft Word format and include reliable contact information and institutional affiliation. The theme of this edition of the journal will be centered on presuppositions within the field that warrant scholarly attention, as well as the impact these presuppositions have had on the field to date.
An increasing number of scholars within the field of Religious Studies assert that, like many other institutions, academia has inherited a wide variety of cultural presuppositions. These presuppositions serve to color the lens through which scholarship is viewed. Thus the academy emerges as a category of human discourse in which a myriad of cultural bias are hidden and sustained. Because academic work is necessarily an assumption-based enterprise, we argue that it is a valid goal for future academic scholarship to examine the biases that have structured and influenced the shape of the field to date. It is our aim to facilitate discussion of the purposes, meanings, and implications of academic work in the field of religion. Through engagement with questions of methodology and theory, we anticipate the emergence of a new generation of Religious Studies scholars. The NEXT journal is therefore purposely creating a format in which students of the Religious Studies discipline can converse via published written work on topics which will shape the future of the discipline.
The NEXT journal holds as self-evident the fact that graduate students who matriculate from a discipline are the next generation of scholars who will be shaping their field. By design, this Call for Papers facilitates students’ ability to communicate, disseminate ideas, critiques and direction that will shape the future for the academic study of religious traditions.
The following list of areas and topics is included as a means to encourage reflection. Analysis of theory and methodology is used to better articulate certain topics of religious phenomenon within a global context. We expect that the papers within this journal will further discussion concerning academic theory on religion as it pertains to area studies.
Hinduism |
Women in Religion |
Buddhism |
New Religious Movements |
Christianity |
Indigenous Religious Traditions |
Judaism |
Religion and globalization |
Islam |
Race and religion |
Religions of China and Japan |
Religion and Popular Culture |
Religions in America |
Ritual Studies |
History of Religions |
Religious Secularism |
Sociology of Religion |
Other |
