in cooperation with
Department of Sociology University of Zadar
and
Croatian Sociological Association

CALL FOR PAPERS

12th ISORECEA conference & ESA RN34 mid-term conference

The interplay between historical, cultural and political factors and events has contributed to processes where both religion and non-religion are features of contemporary societies. At the same time, religion and non-religion are integral to theories of secularisation and religious change. Faced with different empirical data around the world, secularisation theses have been debated for decades, while theoretical debates about religious change have occupied sociologists of religion. They have sought to better and more accurately understand and explain religious changes in different parts of the globe. Their points of view differ and include: privatization thesis, de-privatization thesis, religious economies thesis, religious bricolage, multiple secularities thesis. One angle, non-religion as religious counterpart, has been neglected in sociological research.  Indeed, until the end of the 20th century, it was only Campbell (1971) who gave a comprehensive insight into the sociology of non-religion, while many scholars wrote and published within the strand of the sociology of religion.

Non-religion has started to occupy the attention of sociologists since the beginning of this century, especially in the UK and USA. Its prominence has been influenced by its different appearances in the Western world: the rise of declared non-religious people, the appearance of a so-called New Atheism movement (inspired by books by R. Dawkins, S. Harris, D. Dennett, and C. Hitchens), numerous organizations and associations of non-religious people and their enhanced activities as an alternative to religious conservativism, the growing influence of religion in the public sphere and fundamentalist expressions of religion connected to terrorism. Researchers mostly based their work on theories of subcultural identities, identity politics and new social movements; yet, some authors also drew on the theory of religious economies. In spite of these strands, non-religion remains theoretically underdeveloped and under-researched. Interestingly, this refers particularly to former communist countries where atheism was enforced as part of the official ideology; more research would have been expected on non-religiosity and atheism there. Independently of the exact geopolitical context, non-religion and in particular the interplay between religion and non-religion in different dimensions seem to be a key for understanding contemporary religious changes.

This international conference would like to encourage scholars from various parts of the world to share their theoretical, empirical and methodological considerations on religion and non-religion and take part in discussion on different related topics, like:

• Social theory of religion and non-religion
• Comparative empirical data on religion and non-religion
• Methodological challenges of research on religion and non-religion
• Historical development of religion and non-religion
• Non/religious minority and majority
• Human rights, religion and non-religion
• Religion, non-religion and State
• Religion, non-religion and social inclusion/exclusion
• Religion and non-religion in the intersectional perspective (involving gender, age, socio-economic aspects, etc.)
• Religion and non-religion in everyday life
• Religious and non-religious activism

Please submit a 200-300 words abstract of your presentation by e-mail to: isorecea2016(at)idi.hr by November 15, 2015.

If you are interested in a specific topic related to the study of religion and/or non-religion, we encourage you to organize a session/panel. In this case, please submit a 300-400 words proposal with full session details (names and affiliation of contributors, titles of their presentations) by November 15, 2015 to the same email address.

Key dates

Submission of paper and session/panel proposals - November 15, 2015.
Notification of acceptance and opening of the registration – December 15, 2015.
The final date of the registration for the conference – January 31, 2016.

Final program – February 20, 2016.

Membership fees

Please note that in order to present a paper you need to be a member of ISORECEA for the years 2016-2017

or a member of ESA in the year 2016.

The conference fees are as follows (in EURO):

For members of ISORECEA

* This is according to the Table of Economies used by the International Sociological Association:
http://www.isa-sociology.org/table_c.htm

For members of ESA

* Band 1 and Band 2 are defined by ESA at: http://www.europeansociology.org/member/

** This is according to the Table of Economies used by the International Sociological Association:
http://www.isa-sociology.org/table_c.htm

*** As defined by ESA at: http://www.europeansociology.org/membership.html

For those who are not members of ISORECEA or ESA*

* Only those who do not present a paper can participate in the conference as non-members.

** This is according to the Table of Economies used by the International Sociological Association: http://www.isa-sociology.org/table_c.htm

Those accepted for the conference will be asked to pay their fees through the PayPal system at the ISORECEA website. For the information on how to become a member of ISORECEA or ESA, or renew the membership, please visit these organisations’ websites: http://isorecea.net/ or http://www.europeansociology.org/. The information about accommodation and the conference venue will be given in the second half of December 2015. In case of any earlier questions, please send an email to: isorecea2016(at)idi.hr

Miklós Tomka Award

The ISORECEA Board has established the Miklós Tomka Award to honour Miklós Tomka, the internationally acknowledged and widely esteemed scholar of religion specializing in the Central and Eastern European region, who died unexpectedly in 2010.

The Award is granted based on a competitive basis for the best conference paper submitted to the award committee. The paper should refer to the conference theme. The competition is open to early career scholars, with a special focus on PhD students. The Award comprises:

- The publication of the paper in the ISORECEA on-line journal Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe;

- Exemption from the conference fee;

- Covering accommodation costs at the conference.

Early career scholars interested in entering the competition are invited to submit their full papers to the email address isorecea2016(at)idi.hr by January 10, 2016. The winner will be announced by January 31, 2016, which is the final date for registration for being on the program of the conference.

Papers submitted for the Award should be between 5,000 and 7,000 words long and should strictly follow the rules applying to papers submitted to the ISORECEA journal Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe. For details see: http://www.rascee.net/index.php/rascee/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

We are looking forward to receiving your papers!