Practical Matters Journal
Call for Submissions: Ethnography & Theology
Practical Matters is now accepting submissions for its third issue: Ethnography and Theology. Published by the Emory University Graduate Division of Religion with support from Lilly Endowment, Inc., Practical Matters asks and provokes a vast array of questions about the study of religious practices and the field of practical theology in a variety of religious traditions and from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and methodological approaches.
What can anthropologists, scholars of religious studies, and theologians say to one another about the doing and creating of ethnography? A growing scholarly movement seeks to combine ethnographic inquiry with the study of religion and the construction of theology. This movement has profound implications for the fields of anthropology, religious studies, and theology. It also impacts interpretations of traditions and settings in which the study of theology and theological discourse is explicit, as in Christian traditions, and those in which such constructive work is more implicit.
The third issue of Practical Matters aims to advance and deepen these strands of inquiry by inviting submissions from anthropologists, scholars of religion, theologians, religious practitioners, teachers, and artists from a wide range of religious traditions and contexts. Submissions may explore questions such as:
• What is at stake in the relationship between data and method in the study of religious or ritual practices?
• Can the questions and discourses of theology and religious studies enrich the doing and creating of ethnography across disciplinary boundaries?
• What are the contributions of ethnographic fieldwork to the study of religion, ritual, and theology?
• What are the ways practical and systematic theologians could use and engage ethnographic data?
• Do new approaches such as visual ethnography and web-based multimedia possess the potential to deepen and elevate our approach to such questions?
Practical Matters is an academic journal with a diverse audience. We are looking for submissions in three categories:
1) scholarly work on the theme of Ethnography and Theology for peer review;
2) featured content on Ethnography and Theology such as practitioner reflections, essays, pedagogical reflections, or field notes concerning religious practices, rituals, or other issues of concern for anthropologists, religious studies scholars, theologians, teachers, and practitioners; and
3) reviews of recent books, films, conferences, and other work on broader topics in the fields of religious studies, ethnography, and anthropology. Journal staff assign reviewers specific works; unsolicited reviews are not accepted.
We encourage the submission of multimedia scholarship both for peer review and featured content, including film, video, soundscape, new media, photography, art, and performance, among other possible media.
The submissions deadline is September 15, 2009.
Contact: practicalmatters.emory@gmail.com, www.practicalmattersjournal.org