Everyday lived religion
as a challenge to theoretical hegemonies in the study of religion
Location: MF Norwegian School of Theology (Menighetsfakultetet), Oslo
Monday November 11 / Tuesday November 12 / Wednesday November 13
9 - 10.30 Liv Ingeborg Lied:
Bible as notepad. From textual criticism to lived religion.
11 - 11.15: Response:
11.15 - 12 Discussion / 9 - 10.30 Jim Spickard:
Ritual from a Navajo Point of View: Lived Religious Experience in Catholic Worker House Masses
11 – 11.15: Response: Karin Sporre
11.15 - 12: Discussion
12 - 13 Lunch / 12 - 13 Lunch / 12 - 13 Lunch
13: Welcome
13.15 - 14.45 Pål Repstad:
The aestheticization of everyday and organized religion
15.00 – 15.15: Response: Jan-Olav Henriksen
15.15 – 16.00 Discussion / 13 - 14.30 Jim Spickard:
The Sociology of Religion's Christian Roots: Is a 'Lived Religion' Approach Enough?
15.00 - 15.15: Response:
15-16 Discussion / 13 – 14.30 Trine Anker and Geir Afdal:
In a hybrid voice: Latour on religion
15 – 15.15: Response: Ingunn Moser
14.15 - 15 Discussion
15.45 - 16.00: Course evaluation
16.30-18 PhD group session / 16.30-18 PhD group session
19 Dinner / 17 RVS Board meeting
Speakers
Jim Spickard
Jim Spickard is professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of Redlands, California, USA. His current research focuses on three topics: the role of religion in the contemporary world; the nature of contemporary social change; and the factors that lead people to engage in work for social betterment. He is the author or editor of several books, including "Thinking Through Statistics" (2005), "Personal Knowledge and Beyond" (2002), "World History by the World’s Historians" (1998), and "Religion Crossing Boundaries" (2010). He has published over 60 journal articles and book chapters on various topics in the sociology of religion, social theory (non-Western as well as Western), human rights, social activism, social science research methods, and the social foundations of ethics.
Pål Repstad
Pål Repstad is professor at the Department of Religion, Philosophy and History at the University of Agder. He has published widely in the fields of sociology of religion, sociology of welfare, research methods and research ethics. His current research concerns religious change in the south of Norway the last 40 years, Norwegian theological change in the 20th century, modern sociologists on religion, religion as aestheticizing practice and religious change in the Nordic countries. He is an editor at the Nordic Journal of Religion and Society and honorary doctor at the University of Uppsala.
Liv Ingeborg Lied
Liv Ingeborg Lied is professor of religious studies at MF Norwegian School of Theology. She has published extensively on Jewish pseudepigrapha, religion and current media and didactics. Her current research centers on 2. Baruch and other Jewish pseudepigrapha and their reception, medieval Jewish manuscripts and their transmission, religious studies and didactics and religion in popular culture. She is a board member of various Nordic and international research networks and chairs the SBL Pseudepigrapha section.
Trine Anker
Trine Anker is associate professor in Religious Studies at MF Norwegian School of Theology. She has been doing ethnographic work, writing on
issues such as culture, religion and values and the enactment of respect. In a newly published article she discusses the concept of context as network in a Latourian sense.
Geir Afdal
Geir Afdal is Professor of Religious Education at MF Norwegian School of Theology. He has been working on issues of education, values and religion - for instance tolerance; theory, practice and research; and learning, knowledge and religion. He is leading the research project Learning and Knowledge Trajectories in Congregations (LETRA), which uses socio-cultural and socio-material theories in the analyses of processes of learning and knowledging. A recent publication is "Religion som bevegelse. Læring, mediating og kunnskap" (Universitetsforlaget 2013).
Participation
The course is for doctoral students who are members of The Research School Religion Values Society (RVS). Other PhD students and researchers may also participate. PhD students at RVS institutions participate for free (Norwegian School of Theology (MF), Oslo (Host of Secretariat), University of Agder (UIA), Kristiansand, School of Mission and Theology (MHS), Stavanger, Volda University College, Diakonhjemmet University College, Oslo, Umeå University and University of Oslo (Faculty of Theology. ) PhD students at other institution may participate for a course fee.
Course requirement
The course gives 3 ECT points. Requirements are a) participation at the lectures and activities at the course and b) approved essay (details will be given prior to the course). There is a reading list on appr 400 pages related to the lectures. The course will have session where the PhD students discuss the topics of the lectures in relation to their own dissertations.
Application and information
Application for participation at the course can be done by mail to:
If you have questions about the course, please contact:
Reading list
General:
McGuire, Meredith (2008): Lived religion: Faith and practice in everyday life. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Pål Repstad:
Hervieu-Leger, Daniele (2006): “In search of certainties: The Paradoxes of Religiosity in Societies of High Modernity”, The Hedgehog Review 8/1-2: 59-68.
Repstad, Pål (2013): “Fra ordet alene til sanselig populærkultur?” in Pål Repstad and Irene Trysnes (ed.): Fra forsakelse til feelgood, Cappelen Damm Akademisk, Oslo: 11-40
Repstad, Pål and Irene Trysnes (2013): “Estetikk på flere strenger. Postludium”. In Pål Repstad and Irene Trysnes (ed.): Fra forsakelse til feelgood, Cappelen Damm Akademisk, Oslo: 297-307.
Repstad, Pål (2013): ”Religiøst liv er knyttet til det materielle, det sanselige og det stedlige”. In Pål repstad and Elise Seip Tønnessen (red.): Hellige hus, Cappelen Damm Akademisk, Oslo: 9-28.
As you see, these three chapters are in Norwegian. Participants who do not read Scandinavian could read as an alternative this article, to be published by Ashgate next year in an anthology about religion and sociological theory:
Løvland, Anne and Pål Repstad: "Religion in the West - More Sensual, Less Cognitive and Dogmatic. Studying the aestheticisation of religion" (16 pp).
Liv Ingeborg Lied:
Pictures of the material are available on RVS’s Fronter-page: https://fronter.com/mf/main.phtml
Jim Spickard I:
Spickard, James V. (1998): "Ethnocentrism, Social Theory, and Non-Western Sociologies of Religion: Towards a Confucian Alternative." International Sociology 13/2: 173-194.
From Religion on the Edge, edited by C. Bender, W. Cadge, P. Levitt, & D. Smilde (Oxford 2013): «Introduction» and chapters by Vásquez, and Smilde. I also recommend the chapters by Pagis, Cadge, & Lichterman.
Jim Spickard II:
Spickard, James V. (2005): “Ritual, Symbol, and Experience: Understanding Catholic Worker House Masses.” Sociology of Religion, 66/4: 337-358.
Spickard, James V. (2012): “Centered in Time: A Sociological Phenomenology of Religious Rituals.” Pp 154-167 in Understanding Religious Ritual, edited by John P. Hoffman. Routledge.
Leland Wyman: "Navajo Ceremonial System", from the Handbook of Indians of North America, volume X
Gary Witherspoon: "Beautifying the World through Art" (a passage from "Language and Art in the Navajo Universe". Posted at http://parentseyes.arizona.edu/southcorner/nav_beaut.html
Please browse:
The archives of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker newsletter, "The Catholic Agitator" http://lacatholicworker.org/category/agitator-archives
The articles at the Catholic Worker website (http://www.catholicworker.org/). There's history, the writings of Dorothy Day & Peter Maurin, and a bunch of other stuff, all of which will help orient us to the topic.
Trine Anker and Geir Afdal:
Bruno Latour (2010): On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods, Durham: Duke UP