Ritualizing Environmental Change, Rethinking Religion

Sunday, October 23rd 2016, 2:30pm

The GTU, in collaboration with the Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study of UC Berkeley, is pleased to announce a three-day long workshop on environmental change and ritualized relationships with the other-than-human world. Jointly funded by REDO, a University of Oslo research network sponsored by the Norwegian Research Council, and co-hosted by UC Berkeley, the workshop explores some of the new ontologies that have been developed in the social sciences over the past two decades, which are revising and revisiting animism, materialism, and religion in new and original ways. As REDO--short for Reassembling Democracy: Ritual as Cultural Resource--has aimed to better understand the capacity and function of ritual within democratic cultures, the October gathering will focus on how these new theoretical approaches deepen our understanding of ritual practices that are shaped by and shape environmental change, and their potential social effectiveness when the social is expanded to include things and beings beyond the human.

The twenty-one participants meet for closed-door sessions between October 21--22nd. On Sunday, October 23rd, members of the public and the broader communities at the GTU and UC Berkeley are invited to a special open concluding session, "Ritualizing Environmental Change, Re-thinking Religion" at the Doug Adams Gallery at the Center for the Arts and Religion (GTU), at 2:30 PM (see attached flyer). The concluding session will focus on the implications of the materialist turn towards the “other-than-human” for the interreligious study of theology, with GTU respondents including Kirsi Stjerna (PLTS / GTU), Rita Sherma (Center for Dharma Studies, GTU), and Robyn Henderson-Espinoza (PSR).

Where: Doug Adams Gallery, 2465 Le Conte Avenue, Berkeley

When: Sunday, October 23, 2016, 2:30 (Public Event); full conference runs October 21-23 

Participants: Marisol de la Cadena (UC Davis) Rune Flikke (University of Oslo) Marion Grau (Norwegian School of Theology) Kjetil Hafstad (University of Oslo) Graham Harvey (Open University, UK) Michael Houseman (École Pratique des Hautes Études, France) Nina Hoel (University of Oslo) Morny Joy (University of Calgary) Yohana Junker (Graduate Theological Union) Jens Kreinath (Wichita State) Marianne Lien (University of Oslo) Andrew Matthews (UC Santa Cruz) Sarah Pike (Chico State) Samuel Robinson (UC Berkeley) Jone Salomonsen (University of Oslo) Jonathan Sheehan (UC Berkeley) Candace Slater (UC Berkeley) Karen Victoria Lykke Syse (University of Oslo) Bron Taylor (University of Florida) Paul-Francois Tremlett (Open University, UK) Devin Zuber (Graduate Theological Union)