Multiple Announcements

I have several announcements to share, so will briefly mention several items here.


Oxford University is holding a small grant competition for projects addressing cognitive science and religion. Awards are in three categories: Junior Scholar Grants, One - Year Grants, and Two - Year Grants. Awards can be applied to supplies, research assistance, etc. They expect to award 800,000 pounds total.

Duke University's Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health still has room in its summer workshop series. Workshops will address things ranging from resources on spirituality and health, to obtaining funding for research, to working with the media. If you are interested in religion and health, it is worth a visit to see if the workshops are right for you.

Duke also is hosting the first annual meeting of the Society for Spirituality, Theology and Health. This will be June 25-27, 2008, at Duke.

Richard Koenigsberg announces a symposium on evil April 4, 2008, at Fordham University. If you are in the area, it sounds like a fascinating symposium.

But You Can't Do That! Lecture on Service

I was honored this year with the Excellence in Service award from my university. As part of this, I deliver a lecture about my service, the focus of which will be my webpage and the work I've done online. The title of my talk will be "But You Can't Do That! Public Adventures in the Psychology of Religion." The title comes from a comment I heard while attending the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion meeting in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina years ago. A man on the street noticed my SSSR name badge and declared, "You can't do that!" Thus began one of many conversations I have had with people about studying religion using scientific methods, and this will be the starting point for my talk.

So, consider yourself invited to hear more about this and other stories. The talk will be held Tuesday, March 25th, at 4:00 pm in the College of Information Technology building, rm. 3301, at Georgia Southern University.

Discomfort and Love

Professor and Brazilian Psychoanalyst Dr. Jorge Amaro has written Discomfort and Love, an essay examining spirituality and psychoanalysis. I think that you will find it thought-provoking, even if you do not come at the psychology of religion from a psychoanalytic perspective.

Thank you, Dr. Amaro!

Religiosity Scales Project

Marsha Cutting and her colleagues at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary have begun work on a project to develop a measure of religiosity that is broader than previous scales of religiosity. Take a few minutes to complete the survey, and then pass the word along to your students and anyone else who might be interested in the Religiositiy Scales Project.

SSSR Abstracts

Abstracts are due by March 15 for this year's annual meeting in Louisville Oct 17-19. The Call for Papers is available at www.sssrweb.org

To submit an abstract, please go to www.sssrweb.org and use the new online submission form. This form puts the information automatically into a database and spreadsheet, which gives program chair Jim Wellman a head start.

Remember, the two different links go to the same form. However, if you use the "members" link and log-in, your database information will fill in automatically. If you cannot log-in, please contact SSSR at sssr@iupui.edu .

Loyalty to State; Loyalty to Religion

A story from Inside Higher Ed describes a math instructor whose employment was terminated because she did not endorse a loyalty oath. The article begins:

"Many people think of loyalty oaths as relics of the McCarthy era, long ago outlawed or abandoned. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has banned only certain kinds of loyalty oaths, permitting others. Last week, a mathematics instructor at California State University East Bay lost her job for refusing to sign one.

"Marianne Kearney-Brown, who is also a graduate student at East Bay, tried to add a word to the state’s Oath of Allegiance so that it would conform with her Quaker beliefs. The university offered her the chance to add a statement with her views, but insisted that she sign the oath, unaltered, and said that it had no choice but to fire her when she refused. "

Oaths and statements of belief are not unheard of in academe, but they seem most often to help in self-selecting. For example, a friend of mine is a Catholic, and sought employment at a Protestant University. After consulting with his priest, he felt comfortable in working at the institution because he saw his beliefs to be consistent with the institution's statement of faith. Nowadays, this is the way the scenario typically plays out.

The Kearney-Brown case is a bit different, of course. A state institution demanding a loyalty oath of an employee, who wishes to make clear that she is not willing to support violence because of her religious beliefs. It strikes me as heavy-handed and unevenly applied, given that she altered other oaths in government employment in the past, with no consequence. At the same time, I do not understand why she thought it inadequate that she add a statement of her views. Perhaps there are legal or other consequences of which I am unaware.

At any rate, it is an interesting story in higher ed. And in the senseless bureaucracy that US Education has become, the real irony is revealed in the San Francisco Chronicle's coverage of the story:

"I was kind of stunned," said Kearney-Brown, who is pursuing her master's degree in math to earn the credentials to do exactly the job she is being fired from.

Religion Pre-Conference at SPSP

Wade Rowatt, Robert Emmons, Julie Exline and Jo-Ann Tsang are proposing a psychology of religion pre-conference at the 2009 meeting of the The Society for Personality and Social Psychology in Tampa, Florida. Contact Wade soon in order to be part of this proposal.

SERMEISS March 2008

If you are interested in Islam and Middle-Eastern Studies, and you are near Columbia, South Carolina, be sure to attend the SERMEISS meeting March 28-30. A friend and colleague of mine coordinates the group, and he does a fine job making the meetings stimulating. If I am able to attend, I am most interested in hearing "Islamic Education and Religious Extremism in Central Asia," by Gulmiza Seitalieva (Emory University).

European Association of Social Anthropologists

The EASA Conference 2008 focuses on topics that may be of interest to psychologists of religion. The anthropologists are examining spirit possession, and begin the conference announcement by citing William James. They want "to explore the processes through
which this human experience becomes religious or dissociative
(disorder), as negotiated between cultural frames and individual
insight.... We are interested, among others, in the role of cognition
and imagination in creating an experience of dissociation and in the
role of emotions as somatic markers for 'recognizing' possession."

The call for papers continues through March 31, 2008. Details are available at www.easa2008.eu.

UCSIA Summer School

Universitair Centrum Sint Ignatius Antwerpen announces its special summer school on religion, culture and society. The focus of this year's summer school will be political multiculturalism. It will be in Antwerp August 31 - September 7. Applications must be received by April 20. Current PhD students and postdocs are especially encouraged to apply.

SSSR in Louisville

The fall meeting of The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion will be in Louisville, Kentucky. Abstracts are due in two weeks; details are available at sssrweb.org, under "News". The proposal process is online this year, so be sure to look at the link so that you can register most easily.

Georgia Psychological Society

If you are in the US Southeast, consider attending the Georgia Psychological Society meeting in Macon. It is an ideal conference for students, who can experience a small conference in an affordable, approachable setting. The deadline for papers is just a few days away, but even if you aren't able to submit a paper or poster, the conference is a good way to meet psychologists in the area and introduce students to the conference experience. For details click here

Hello to Some New Blogs

I have been quiet recently, working on old-fashioned (paper) projects and taking care of some personal things, so I have fallen behind in posting updates here. I hope to remedy that this weekend, while many in the world of psychology and religion are enjoying the undoubtedly stimulating APA Division 36 Mid-Year Conference.

First among those is to note some additions to my sidebar. Scroll down the list on the right to find interesting blogs and websites related to the psychology of religion.

In a few cases, people have sent me announcements that are now outdated. I apologize if I wasn't able to help you publicize your event in a timely way.