Past Events

Practical Matters Launch Party April 28

When: April 28, 2009

The staff of Practical Matters, the Emory Graduate Division of Religion's new online journal, cordially invite you to join us for the champagne kickoff of this digital publishing endeavor at our

Journal Launch Party

on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 from 6-8 pm

in the Ethics Center Commons, Room 102,
Candler School of Theology, Emory University.

Consultation on Youth | Practical Matters Issue #2

When: October 12-14, 2008

In preparation for the journal???s upcoming issue on the theme of Youth, Practical Matters invites a diverse group of thirty scholars, practitioners and graduate students from varied backgrounds to gather at Emory and engage with one another in innovative conversation about religion and the lives of youth.

Our conversations will focus on the themes of "Intensity & Sustainability" both in the lives of youth and in the religious traditions and practices with which youth interact.

The consultation will be held from October 12-14, 2008, at Emory University, in conjunction with the Candler School of Theology's Fall Conference. Conference registration, food, and housing for out-of-town participants will be provided.

For more information about the consultation and how you can apply to participate, email Youth Issue Editors Almeda Wright (awrigh5@emory.edu) and Joshua Thomas (joshua.thomas@emory.edu) or visit http://web.mac.com/practical.matters/Practical_Matters/Consultations.html.

Deadline: September 1.

A separate Call for Submissions for the journal issue will be circulated later this fall and posted on the Practical Matters web site.

Dancing with Shakti: Film Screening & Discussion

When: Thursday, September 11, 2008

Dancing with Shakti A film by Anita Kumar

A film screening and discussion with Anita Kumar, Arthi Devarajan, Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger, and Harshita Mruthinti

Thursday, September 11, 2008, 4-6:30 pm
White Hall 206, Emory University
Screening begins at 4:00 pm
Dinner from Bhojanic follows the discussion

Sponsored by the Initiative in Religious Practices and Practical Theology and Practical Matters: A Transdisciplinary Multimedia Journal of Religious Practices and Practical Theology

Dancing with Shakti (2008, 59 minutes) emerged from the filmmaker???s childhood experience of confronting in a quite visceral manner her own sense of difference, of what it meant to grow up Other in a white-majority state. The film is thus an exploration of autobiography as a genre in visual texts, an experiment in personal voice and critical reflexivity within the documentary.

Dancing with Shakti is also a cultural biography of Viji Prakash, who migrated from Mumbai to L.A. in 1976, and soon established Shakti, a bharatanatyam (South Indian classical dance) school and company. The film reveals Viji???s remarkable success in the production and circulation of the dance form within as well as outside the South Asian diasporic community. The film???s depiction of the ethnic diversity of Viji???s students contests essential notions of race and nationhood, rewriting them as a performative field. By highlighting difference, performativity, and cultural hybridity throughout the piece, Kumar demonstrates that the notion of community is itself heterogeneous and always in flux.

Anita Kumar is a PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of Southern California. Her research explores violence against women in the South Asian community in the U.S. She is currently a Research Associate at Amnesty International USA.

Consultation on Ethnography & Theology

When: March 4-6, 2009, Emory Conference Center, Atlanta

In preparation for the journal???s upcoming issue on the theme of ETHNOGRAPHY & THEOLOGY, Practical Matters: A Transdisciplinary Multimedia Journal of Religious Practices and Practical Theology announces its Consultation on Ethnography and Theology, to take place March 4-6, 2009 at the Emory Conference Center Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia.

To apply to participate in the consultation, contact Ethnography & Theology consultation coordinators Luke Whitmore and Lerone Martin at ethnotheo2009@gmail.com.

We invite scholars, practitioners, scholar-practitioners, artists, graduate students, and other parties who would like to engage in a serious, generative dialogue on the relationship between the theoretical and methodological worlds of Ethnography and Theology.

We plan to take up (but in no way be limited by) the following questions and themes:

1)What emerges when, through the practice of ethnography and analysis of the resultant data, lived experiences, practices, and cultural systems become part of the project of doing theology? In what contexts is such a synthesis useful?

2)What happens when questions and angles of investigation normally found in theological discourses become part of the practice of ethnography and analysis of the resultant data? How are questions of ontology, existence and normativity to be engaged in the anthropology of religion? In what contexts is such a synthesis useful?

3) What might be productive ways of furthering this disciplinary synthesis? We mean to ask this question as broadly as possible in order to include everything from analytic concerns to new media to new areas/sites/contexts of study.

Note: We are also keen to be in conversation with people who feel that their work, practice, or art is embraced by the project of the consultation even if that work does not specifically engage the terms Ethnography and Theology.

The consultation is limited to 30 total participants.

If you would like to participate---

Contact Ethnography & Theology consultation coordinators Luke Whitmore and Lerone Martin at ethnotheo2009@gmail.com with the following information:

??? Name ??? Contact information ??? Institutional affiliation ??? Primary role (scholar, practitioner, graduate student, etc.) ??? A brief paragraph about your work and its intersections with the worlds of Ethnography and Theology, indicating aspects that you would plan to share at the consultation. Please relate this work to one or more of the questions and themes above and/or pose other generative questions and themes that you would consider fruitful possibilities for our common conversations at the consultation.

Priority deadline for consideration is January 15, 2009.

Selection will begin immediately afterward and continue until all spaces are full.

Logistics Registration (including meals) will be provided for all local & out of town participants. Those from beyond the metro Atlanta area will be housed free of charge at the Emory Conference Center Hotel. Some assistance with transportation costs may be available.