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NewsFirst International Workshop on the Cognitive Study of Religious TextsPlace: Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Groningen Date: 3-4 March 2010 Draft papers... (participants only) Mind, Society, and Tradition in AucklandDuring the 2008 International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, to be held on 6-11 July 2008 in Auckland, New Zealand, the programme unit organises two sessions. The first session will be focusing on altruism, morality, and cooperation in Biblical Literature and Biblical Religions from the perspective of the cognitive science of religion and/or social scientific theory. We are inviting proposals for the second session, dealing with social-scientific and/or cognitive approaches in the study of biblical texts and traditions. First EXREL project conferenceThe Centre will host the first conference of the European NEST project Explaining Religion between 1-3 February, 2008. Two other conferences will take place in 2009 and 2010. Mind, Society, and Tradition(New program unit for the SBL International Meetings) Chairs: István Czachesz & Risto Uro This program unit aims to initiate a dialogue and cross-disciplinary theory forming in biblical studies between social-scientific methods and the so-called cognitive science of religion. The cognitive science of religion is a new multidisciplinary field that has emerged in the 1990s. It is interested in cross-culturally recurrent patterns in religious thought, experience, and practice, explaining these regularities in terms of the architecture of the human mind. This field has opened up new ways of understanding religiosity as well as the emergence and development of religious movements, sometimes challenging established theories in classical anthropology and comparative religion. These developments have potential relevance to biblical studies.
The program unit welcomes papers using either traditional social-scientific or new cognitive approaches, or their combination. Of particular interest are studies focusing on interaction between mind and society, cognition and culture, as well as on the transmission of religious knowledge. Relevant theories and areas include memory studies, social identity theory, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, ritual theories, models of counterintuitiveness, theory of mind, social cognition, emotion, and religious experience. Visit the SBL Call for Papers page to propose a paper for the 2008 Meeting in Vienna, New Zealand. The Archive for Religion and Cognition is online!Please visit the ARC website and submit your papers, pre-prints and other materials that are related to the Cognitive Science of Religion. Explaining ReligionThe EC Project Explaining Religion explores the universal religious repertoire.
Participating institutions include the University of Oxford, Queen's University (Belfast), University of Aarhus, University of Groningen, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris), University of Salzburg, University of Zurich, New Bulgarian University, and Brunel University.
The Centre will host three conferences of the programme between 2008 and 2010. For more information, please visit the EXREL project website.
International Workshop on Religion and CognitionPlace: University of Groningen (The Netherlands) Date: 6th-7th April 2006 |