GENERAL CALL FOR PAPERS
Symposia is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal for scholars in the humanities and social sciences who identify religion as an important consideration in their research. We invite submissions of original research papers on any topic that critically engages the study of religion.
SPECIAL TOPIC CALL FOR PAPERS: MEDIATION
Following the success of “Media Fever!,” the 2013 Graduate Student Conference at the University of Toronto’s Department for the Study of Religion, this year’s issue of Symposia invites papers on the theme of religion and mediation.
Religions are mediated through people such as shamans, pastors, neighbours, and devotees; through material objects such as amulets, scripture, paintings, and architecture; and through ideas such as theology, popular culture and superstition. Each of these mediators changes, adds layers, and affects our perception and understanding of religions. This issue of Symposia is interested in the material that filters the religious through itself and the interplay between the mediator and the mediated: the in-betweens. We welcome articles that address the mediation of religion broadly conceived, in contexts of anthropology, area studies, classical studies, cultural studies, diaspora and transnational studies, gender and diversity studies, geography, history, philology, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology, as well as those that extend the subject across historical and geographical
boundaries.
SUGGESTED TOPICS
The following sub-fields allow for a flexible interpretation of this volume’s theme, as well as encourage submissions reflecting a broad spectrum of interests and disciplines:
• Critical reflections on the turn to mediation and different notions of mediation
• Analyses of the absorption and transformation of practices through new media
• The social processes that shape religious mediation
• Conflict and struggles over practices of mediation
• The role of intermediary objects, figures, and institutions that stand between an audience and deities, the divine, or religious ideas
• The uses of concepts, ideas, and language that mediate “religion,” “religions,” and the “religious”
• How medial bodies raise the question of religious experience
• Hybridity, in-betweenness, liminality and religion
• How media technologies are incorporated and reconfigured by religious practice
• Mediation beyond the turn to material culture
Articles written in clear, grammatical, and fluent English or French will be considered. Articles should not exceed 25 pages in length. The deadline for submissions is Friday, March 21, 2014.
Articles should be submitted by email to symposiajournal@gmail.com.
CALL FOR BOOK REVIEWS
The editorial team also extends a call for reviews of any academic publication relevant to the study of religion and released within the 2012 to 2013 calendar years. Due to high demand in the past, this year’s volume will publish a limited number of reviews. Reviewers should act quickly to secure one of these slots.
Reviewers are asked to submit the title of the book to be reviewed no later than Friday, February 7, 2014. Every effort will be made to secure a review copy of the text. Please note, however, the review copies cannot be guaranteed and may take up to 12 weeks to arrive. Please indicate if you do not require a review copy. Completed reviews should not exceed 750 words in length and are to be submitted no later than Friday, May 2, 2014.
Requests for review copies and completed reviews should be submitted by email to symposiajournal@gmail.com.
Past issues of the journal can be viewed at http://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/symposia/index.