The American West is an imagined place that is often idealized as new, dynamic, a tabula rasa ripe with possibility. Or, it is the destination of the down and out, the economic migrant and immigrant, the last chance. Or, it is the ancient home of native peoples as well as Spanish haciendas and missions. Finally, perhaps it is also where people depart from, a point of disembarkation to other regions, other lands, carrying with them some ineffable sense of being “Western.” Early histories of the West focused on pioneers and settlement as well on displacement while more contemporary analyses of the West address issues of cultural contact, environmental concerns, transnational flows, and economic growth.
Drawing on this ideational context of mobility, we solicit paper and panel proposals on the myriad intersections of religion with migration into and out of the American West. How have religious homes been made in the West? How have westerners brought their religions with them when they leave the region? How have racial, ethnic, gender, and religious identities been co-constituted in this space of continual migratory cultural flows?
We are interested in all patterns of religion and migration, and also are particularly interested in papers contributing to a co-sponsored session with the Native Traditions in the Americas, on indigenous pilgrimages, forced migrations, and commemorative rides in the Western United States.
Please note that the format for the session will feature pre-circulated papers as is the long custom of this group.
AAR's online portal for submitting papers for the 2016 annual conference is now open. Click here for the Religion in the American West Group's CFP on the AAR website. The deadline for submissions is March 1.
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India is equally a land of other faiths: the world’s second largest population of Muslims, nearly 130 million in number, is to be found in India, and there are also some 25 million Christians. Indian Islam has enjoyed a relationship that is at once syncretistic and agonistic with Hinduism, and the fruits of this encounter have been many, extending from the more obvious vocal and classical music of India, Mughlai cuisine, and Indo-Mughal architecture, to the lived practices common to adherents of both these great faiths. In antiquity, Buddhism flourished in India, and it is in Bodh Gaya that the Buddha gained enlightenment; his great contemporary, Mahavira, is the founder of Jainism, also uniquely Indian. Today Jains are among India’s most distinguished trading and business communities; and the legacy of Jain art and culture is just as profound. Sikhism, another Indian faith, is often imagined as the Protestantism of Hinduism: today there are nearly 15 million Sikhs in India, and perhaps as many as 2 million outside India, whose practices and precepts may well change the nature of the faith in India. India also has the largest community of Zoroastrians, also known as Parsees, and though in recent years the once-thriving and very old Jewish community of Cochin has all but disappeared, the small Jewish community of Bombay still makes its presence felt in the public realm. I liked your blog, Take the time to visit the me and say that the change in design and meniu?
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