Religion & Futurity: Elsewhere, Elsewhere, and Beyond

Tuesday, November 9, 2021
A Virtual Research Conference for Undergraduate and Graduate Students

The Religious Studies Graduate Organization in the Department of Religious Studies at UNC  Charlotte is proud to announce its 5th annual graduate student conference on Friday, April 29,  2022 virtually. The theme for this year’s conference is Religion & Futurity: Elsewhere,  Elsewhen, and Beyond. Within this theme, we begin to ask: 

How has the field of Religious Studies changed, shifted, and been reconceptualized? What is  “religion,” and how have scholars, artists, and communities shifted their thinkings and  representations about religion and religious activities, behaviors, identities, spaces, and  temporalities? And as such, what are alternative and possibly disruptive ways of thinking about,  through, and between interdisciplinary themes related to religion? We invite exciting, engaging,  and creative multidisciplinary works from graduate and undergraduate students that explore  themes, such as: 

Queerness and its spaces and temporalities in relation to, within, and outside of religion  Religion as performance and performance as religion  

Local, global, transnational, and/or neoliberal religious spaces, communities, and  geographies  

Religion and/within digital spaces 

Race and religion 

Movement politics, demonstrations, activism as religion 

Trans, gender, and sexuality identity politics in religious worlds  

Religion, psychedelics, and imagined otherwise  

Ethnography and religion  

Drag religion, art and religion, dance and religion 

...and more!  

This virtual graduate conference aims to bring together students-scholars-artists who explore the  interstices of religion through textual, visual, and creative modes.  

Please email all abstracts (about 250 words) to religiousstudies@uncc.edu by Monday, January  31, 2022. Those who would like to present non-textual work must also submit an abstract (about  250 words) describing the submission and how it relates to religion broadly. Submitters will be  notified of approval or denial for participation via email by Monday, February 14, 2022 along  with rules for non-textual participants. A zoom link will be sent out a week before the conference  date. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please email David Flaherty at  dflaher1@uncc.edu.