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Boston College’s fifth biennial Conference on the History of Religion later this month will examine how religious institutions, beliefs and practices challenge conceptions of the past, while also recognizing that religion is only one of a number of forces affecting human history.
Sponsored by the History Department, “The Problem of Religion: Faith and Agency in History” takes place March 28 and 29 at several venues on campus. A keynote address by Harvard Divinity School Dean David Hempton will highlight the event, which brings together graduate students and established scholars from BC and around the US for discussions on methodology and themes in the work of historians of religion.
Panels to be held during the conference include “Democratization and Lay Agency in Early American Religion,” “Faith, Slavery and Emancipation in the 19th century US South,” “History, Nationalism, and Community in Modern Judaism,” “Church, State, and Nation in 20th Century Eastern Europe” and “Faith on the American Frontier.”
Gráinne McEvoy, a teaching fellow in the History Department who is co-organizing the conference, said this year’s theme is an attempt to build on the success of the 2012 edition, for which the goal was to focus on scholars who consider religion to be as valuable and legitimate a category of analysis in history as race, class and gender.
“We wanted this year's theme, on faith and agency in history, to tease out one of the tensions at the heart of this argument that religion can be a fourth lens: figuring out when religion has been a determining force in human history and when it has not. We're also hoping that the conference will open up a conversation about the role of scholars of religion in what some believe to be a secular age.
“Some of our sessions plan to address this question, especially our opening lunchtime panel on teaching led by two graduates of the History Department's PhD program, Andrew Finstuen and John Beiter, both of whom have been frequent attendees at the conference over the past decade.”
McEvoy credited Clough Professor of History James O’Toole – who will serve as moderator and commentator for a panel on American religion and activism in the 1960s – for enabling graduate students to take leadership roles in the event.
“Over the years, we've developed an effective pattern of passing on our organizing strategy from more senior members of the committee to the next group of upcoming grad students who then take the lead thereafter. We hope this continues for many years to come.”
For more details on the conference, see http://bit.ly/1bP9DKT.