Upcoming conference

After a long hiatus from posting I am back...

2008 looks set to be an interesting year for exploring religion and the media, with 3 international conference coming up.

July 10-12, 2008 the "New Media and Religious Transformations in Africa" conference will be hosted in Abuja, Nigeria. The main goal of this conference is to cast a critical look at Africa's rapidly evolving religious media scene. It is particularly interested in the challenges of balancing freedom of expression and freedom of religion and belief in Africa’s fast-growing media sector. The conference is spearheaded by several international scholars including Rosalind Hackett from University of Tennessee & president of the International Association for the History of Religions, whom I have known for almost a decade as scholar doing interesting and important work on religion in Africa. Check out their Call for Papers. If my travel plans for the summer weren't so tight I think this would be a great conference to check out.

August 11-14, 2008 the Sixth International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture on "Dialogues in Diversity" will be hosted in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I have been to several of these previous conferences in Scotland, Sweden & the USA which aim to be international and interdisciplinary event engaging about critical questions of the interactions between religion and the media. The Call for Papers deadline is March 31st. I will defintely be at this one.

And in November 9-12, 2008 the Second International Conference on Religion and Media will be held in Iran. I do not know much about this conference but good friends Lynn S Clark & Stewart Hoover attended the first one as guest speakers and found it a facinating experience.

So get out your passport and consider joining one of these international gatherings!