The International Society for the Study of
Religion, Nature & Culture

The International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (ISSRNC) is pleased to announce its next conference in Malibu, California at Pepperdine University in August 2012. The conference theme will be “Nature and the Popular Imagination.”

Malibu is located on the Pacific Ocean, just minutes from Hollywood, that archetypal place of imagination and dreams, the backyard and playground for practitioners of the cinematic arts. For generations, the interconnections between religion and nature have been expressed, promoted, and contested through the incubator of popular culture, and sometimes even in films produced in Malibu itself or the Santa Monica Mountains above it. As a global, symbolic center, both reflecting and inventing nature/religion representations, Malibu and its environs provide an ideal venue for critical reflection on the religion/nature nexus in the popular imagination.

 

Confirmed keynote speakers include one of the most prolific comedy directors in Hollywood, Tom Shadyac, The Hon. (Dr.) Mark Ridley-Thomas, Supervisor, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, and three professors who are well known for their contributions to the study of religion nature and culture: Adrian Ivakhiv, Candace Slater, and current ISSRNC President, Laura Hobgood-Oster. For more about them see their biographies.

The ISSRNC cordially invites creative proposals including but not limited to papers, panels, film screenings, and forums with “cultural creatives” from this region and beyond, to illuminate the conference theme.

Specific proposals, for example, might explore:

• Apocalypticism (Abrahamic, Mayan, Scientific, etc.).

• Documentary film: nature faking and realism

• Theatrical film and nature spiritualities

• Nature in cartoons and animated films

• Malibu (and/or California) as sacred, imperiled, and desecrated places.

• The spiritualities of celebrities, including as animal and/or environmental activists

As always, while we encourage proposals focused on the conference’s theme, we welcome proposals from all areas (regional and historical) and from all disciplinary perspectives that explore the complex relationships between religious beliefs and practices (however defined and understood), cultural traditions and productions, and the earth’s diverse ecological systems. We encourage proposals that emphasize dialogue and discussion, promote collaborative research, and are unusual in terms of format and structure. Individual paper and session proposals, as are typical with most scholarly associations, are also welcome.

Presenters will be encouraged to submit their work for possible publication in the peer reviewed Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, which is the official journal of the ISSRNC, and has been published quarterly since 2007.

Given the ISSRNC’s commitment to internationality financial assistance will be available for a number of scholars from outside of North America. We anticipate being able to provide travel grants to at least ten international scholars.

Submitting Proposals

 

Proposals for individual paper presentations, sessions, panels, and posters should be submitted directly to Sarah Pike at spike@csuchico.edu and Robin Globus at robin.globus@religionandnature.com. It is not necessary to be an ISSRNC member to submit a proposal. Individual paper proposals should include, in a single, attached word or rich text document, the name and email of the presenter(s), title, a 250-300 word abstract, and a brief, 150 word biography (including highest degree earned and current institutional affiliation, if any). Proposals for entire sessions must include a title and abstract for the session as a whole as well as for each individual paper. Proposers should also provide information about ideal and acceptable lengths for proposed sessions, and whether any technology, such as data projectors, are desired.

 

Most paper presentations will be scheduled at 15-20 minutes and a premium will be placed on discussion in all sessions. Proposals will be evaluated anonymously by the Scientific Committee, but conference directors will be aware of proposers’ identities in order to select for diversity in terms of geographical area and career stage. Student proposals are welcome.

 

Requests for assistance with invitations to assist with visa processes must be included with proposals.

 

Requests for financial aid from scholars outside of North America must also be included with proposals, and provide a clear statement as to whether such aid is essential for attendance, the needed amount, and an explanation of supplemental travel resources that will be available to the proposer. Decisions on travel grants will be made by the ISSRNC Board of Directors based on recommendations from the conference directors and scientific committee.

 

Deadline for Proposals

 

The deadline for proposals is 1 May 2012.

 

Registration & Lodging

The cost for registration is as follows:

 

Members by June 15: $185.00
Members after June 15: $200.00
Non-members by June 15: $250.00
Non-members after June 15: $275.00
Student members rate by June 15: $100.00
Student members rate after June 15: $120.00
Daily rate: $120.00
 

Register Online

 

Inexpensive lodging is available in the dorms at Pepperdine University. While additional lodging will be available at nearby hotels it will be comparatively expensive due to the summer tourist season, so we encourage all who can to stay on campus. Details about registration and lodging will be forthcoming here at the Conference Website and will be sent by email to ISSRNC members and any others who directly express interest in the conference to its directors.

Conference Directors

The Conference Directors are Chris Doran (cdoran@pepperdine.edu), from Pepperdine University, and ISSRNC board member Sarah Pike (spike@csuchico.edu), from California State University, Chico. Professor Doran will head up the local organizing committee and Professor Pike the Program Committee, including the Scientific Committee, which will evaluate proposals. Please direct inquiries to the appropriate conference director.

Special Events

A number of special events and excursions are in the works, including a scholar-led tour of The Getty Villa in Malibu, discussions with prominent filmmakers and actors, hiking trips in the Santa Monica Mountains, and opportunities to enjoy the beautiful and famous Malibu coast. Some of these may be offered before or after the official conference period. Information about these events will be provided here as it becomes available.

Conference Sponsors

The International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture is a scholarly organization, established in 2006, which is devoted to understanding the complex relationships. It has hosted conferences previous in Florida (USA), Mexico, The Netherlands, Australia, and Italy. The August 2012 will be the first conference in six years in the United States.

The ISSRNC is especially grateful to Rick Marrs, the Dean of Seaver College at Pepperdine University, whose visionary leadership and generosity has made it possible to hold the ISSRNC’s 2012 International Conference in the iconic and beautiful seaside space known worldwide as Malibu.

This conference was jointly sponsored by the Ethnological Museum of the Vatican Museums, headed by prof. Nicola Mapelli, and the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. It examined the complex intersections of religion, nature and art. Sessions focused on broad cultural and geographic areas: “Asian Religions, Nature and Art,” “Renaissance Art, Religion and Nature,” “Indigenous Religions, Nature and Art,” “Spirituality-based Environmental Activism, Nature and Art”. Some general areas of presentation included: art symbolizing religious aspects of nature, nature itself as religious art, nature-themed religious art, art that expresses religious-based resistance to environmental destruction.

 

The conference also included unique opportunities to view art in the Vatican Museums, and of course, to enjoy Rome, Italy's surrounding environment, with its own ancient treasures and historical legacies.

 

As part of the conference itself, at the Vatican Museums, we visited the exhibit “Rituals of Life: the culture and spirituality of aboriginal Australians” with the curator, Professor Nicola Mapelli (conference co-director along with Laura Hobgood-Oster), and co-curator, Professor Katherine Aigner, and on the concluding night we toured the Vatican Museums, without the usual crowds. The two-day conference provided wonderful opportunities for interdisciplinary learning. Speakers included Professors Bron Taylor, Kocku von Stuckrad, Laura Hobgood-Oster, Rick Stepp, Arnold Nesselrath, Nicolla Mapelli, and Katherine Aigner.

For more information about this wonderful event, see the Final Program.

Initial Report by Sylvie Shaw, The University of Queensland

(Winter Solstice, 21 December 2010).

 

The conference opened on a warm sunny afternoon at the most beautiful King’s Park on the edge of Perth city. We were welcomed to country by Dr Richard Whalley, a Nyoongar man, and Director of Aboriginal Productions and Promotions, and were introduced to the city by the Mayor of Fremantle, Dr Brad Pettitt, previously Dean of Sustainability at Murdoch University.

 

As we sat encircled within a natural amphitheatre and surrounded by glorious eucalypts and magpie birds feeding their young, Dr Freya Mathews from Latrobe University addressed conference delegates about, in part, the need for a diversity of new stories to counter the current overriding approach of scientific discourse. The theme of the paper was: Over the edge: extinctions and the limit of ethics. Freya proposed that a ‘universal story which can be seen to subtend all religions and all ethics, and is in fact the very ground of meaning, is coming into view…It is none other than the life-story of the earth.

 

The keynote speaker the next morning was Professor Clive Hamilton from the Australian National University. His focus was ‘The metaphysical ethics of geoengineering.’ Clive provided a glimpse into the future as inventors and venturists in our time contemplate the expansion of technologies to solve the planet’s problems -- once relegated to the imagination of science fiction. Using a range of philosophical ideas and practical applications to counter the rising tide of environmental devastation, Clive journeyed between pessimism and hope and asked ‘whether climate change and geoengineering represent not just a dangerous stage in the evolution of human society but a change in the nature of the Earth itself, so that the destiny of the Earth and if its human inhabitants form a unity.

 

Ideas overflowed throughout the conference with keynotes and papers that addressed not only the interconnection of religion, nature and culture, but framed this field, in large part, within an interdisciplinary framework. This was aptly demonstrated by two keynote presentations, one by Dr Mary Zeiss Stange from Skidmore College (in the US) who addressed the very edgy topic, ‘Hunting the edges: the intersection between hunter-conservationism and green environmentalism.’ She argued that ‘the idea of the hunter is more relevant than ever’ in view of the combination of serious issues affecting both humanity and the planet including climate change and childhood obesity. She further observed that hunters are becoming increasingly involved in environmental education and activism.

 

The second keynote paper of the late afternoon session was presented by Professor Jan Boersema, from the University of Amsterdam on: ‘Easter Island: If no collapse, what else? Cultural adaptations while living on the edge.’ He shed new light on the deafforestation of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and questioned the earlier theorizing of the decline of the population there. Perhaps there is a message, he suggested, from this isolated Pacific island for ‘the present day debate on sustainability, quality and the role of religion.

 

Each day opened and closed with such thought-provoking keynotes, beautifully delivered, developed and debated. On the conference’s third day we were blessed with two powerful presentations. The morning began with Prof. David Tacey from La Trobe University revealing the intricate philosophical, psychological and spiritual layers in a presentation titled, ‘At the edge of a new animism: Australian spirituality, ecopsychology and the animation of the world.’ He outlined the influences in his own thinking about the nature are the ecopsychology of Carl Jung and James Hillman, and the animistic cosmology of Aboriginal Australian cultures. He described the process for reenchanting the world though a return of sacredness and the recognition of ‘the survival value of animism as a way of nurturing the human soul and protecting the soul of the world.

 

Following a jam-packed day of discussion, conversation and great food for thought, the day closed with an inspirational performance of a new opera composed by Professor Anne Boyd from Sydney University/the Conservatorium of Sydney. A masterful addition to our conference, the performance was the premier of the opera Kabbarli at Ooldea (where Kabbarli refers to ‘Dreamtime, wise-woman or grandmother’). Delegates were treated to an emotionally strong and evocative rendition of the central aria of the opera. The opera is based on the life of Daisy Bates, an enigmatic and ‘contested’ character in Australia’s history. Anne told the story of the opera’s musical composition, while libretto author, Emeritus Professor Bob Reece from Murdoch University, told the story of Daisy Bates’ eccentric life in the Western Australian desert supporting Aboriginal people whom she imagined were a dying race. Isolated at the historic waterhole of Ooldea, Bates’ home was a tent where she lived for 16 years between 1919 and 1935.

 

The addition of this ground-breaking event was not only inspired, it demonstrated the creativity and ingenuity of conference director Yamini Narayanan. Yamini’s work was the heart of the conference. Her organisation and care enabled a harmonious melding of delegates’ ideas, discussions and workshops, at once congenial and relaxed, but also at the cutting edge of scholarly and transdisciplinary discourse. She orchestrated a stimulating range of thought, theory, practical endeavour and social connections which resonated among all participants.

 

The leafy luscious grounds of the University of Western Australia, and its location on the edge of the Swan River, provided the backdrop for the conference and the place also played a role in building an enharmonied social-ecological cohesion among the conference delegates.

 

Thank you to all who participated, and especially to the president of ISSRNC, Kocku van Stuckrad for his excellent leadership and to conference director, Yamini Narayanan who brought everything together with magic.

The FINAL CONFERENCE PROGRAM is still available, as is the original Conference Call for Papers.

The Society's Third International Conference with the theme "Religion, Nature, and Progress" was held at the University of Amsterdam 23-26 July 2009.

 

More than 100 scholars from over two dozen countries and from various disciplines participated in sessions such as: Responding to Climate Change: Religion and Southern Perspectives on 'Light' Development; Nature, Ecosystems and Ethics; Sacred Sites and Sense of Place; Farm Gardens / Forests / Water and Spiritual Progress; Notions of Progress in the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution; Christianity / Islam / Eastern Traditions / Indigenous Traditions and Progress; Intercultural Contacts, Animism, Pantheism and Paganism; and Philosophical, Political, Methodological & Historical Considerations. The final Program Book (complete with introduction, program, abstracts, and list of presenters) remains available. Podcasts from a few sessions will be posted here in August.

 

Featured speakers included Odeh Rashid Al-Jayyousi (World Conservation Union IUCN, Amman); Jonathan Benthall (University College London); Jan Boersema (Free University, Amsterdam); Colin Campbell (University of York); Bron Taylor (University of Florida); Donald Worster (University of Kansas); David Haberman (Indiana University); William Newman (Indiana University); John Barry (Queen's University, Belfast); Eric M. Katz (New Jersey's Science and Technology University); Nina Witoszek (University of Oslo); and many others.