SinnSensibilities

Conference Announcement: Spirituality(ies) and the Public Sphere

January 5-8, 2008

University of Colorado, Boulder

Center for Media, Religion and Culture;  www.mediareligion.org

What: A interdisciplinary conference for the exploration of spiritual expression outside of the formal institutions of religion and implications for social change and civic engagement.

Description: Non-institutional spiritual practices and discourses from the so-called New Age to those expressions that occur in the mundane market-based activities of daily life, are often dismissed by the academy as of social importance. Yet the language, practices and imagery of spiritualities can be found to be directly engaged with ideas about the collective including social transformation, community development, environmentalism, social justice, fair trade, equal opportunity, and respect for cultural difference. If spirituality  can lead to public life and public action, then how does the practice of spiritualities in this public sphere look and sound and how do they come to take shape, hold power, and expand? This conference seeks to bring together multiple disciplines to address the expression, practice and implications of formations, structures, and expressions called “spirituality” as they engage with the idea of the collective “good.”

Papers/Panels: We invite papers and panel proposals that look at the form of spiritualities and the manner of  their engagement with public life and broader cultural conversations about global and local society. Such papers might address the following topics (but are not limited to these):

• Economic reform
• Environmentalism/sustainability
• Relationships to religion; definitions of spirituality and religion
• Fair Trade and conscious or natural capitalism,
• Tourism/eco travel/spiritual tourism
• Social anomie/collective consciousness
• The New Age; Alternative lifestyles
• Social justice; socially responsible markets
• Community activism/development
• Media; mediated representation; ideology and power
• Cultural identity
• Ethics

Abstracts and panel proposals due: May 1, 2007 to: Dr. Monica Emerich, Monica.emerich@colorado.edu.