“East-West Encounters and Religious Change in
Modernizing East Asia”

July 27-28, 2019

Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

East Asia has varieties of religious institutions and communities, folk religions and new religions, and atheism and other secularisms. The research on religion in East Asia needs historical, sociological, political, and other perspectives. While all topics on religion are welcome at the conference, we especially invite papers that address one or more of the following research questions:

  • How did religions and their practitioners in the Global East encounter and respond to Christianity backed by western modernity and hegemonic power in recent centuries?
  • How were the concepts of the boundary between religion and secularity, administrative control of religions in authoritative regimes and the policy of religious pluralism formed in the Global East?
  • What kind of similarity and difference in traditional and new religions are there in the Global East?
  • How has secularization proceeded in the Global East and manifested in the growth of religious “nones” and in the new forms of “believing without belonging” and “belonging without believing”?

Beyond addressing these questions, we seek a range of papers that draw on different geographical contexts and religious traditions. We particularly encourage proposals of organized sessions with 3-4 papers addressing the same religion or topic. For individual papers we will arrange them in the session of similar topics.

DEADLINES: 

  • Presentation proposals are due by January 31, 2019.  Please submit your paper’s title, abstract (200 to 500 words), author’s information by clicking here: Submit Paper Presentation Proposal for EASSSR 2019 Conference. For submission-related questions, please email: Lily C Szeto, lszeto@purdue.edu.
  • Notification of acceptance of presentation proposals will be sent out by February 28, 2019.
  • Meeting Registration will be open between March 1 and 31, 2019.

For information of the locality, please visit https://www.easssr2019.org or email saku@let.hokudai.ac.jp.