The Humanities and Lived Religion: Philosophy, Religious Studies and the Impact Agenda

A One-Day Workshop at the University of Liverpool

Thursday 9th May 2013

This one-day workshop is the first in a series for the Philosophy and Religious Practices research network, funded by the AHRC under their Connected Communities programme, organised by the University of Liverpool, University of Chester, Liverpool Hope University and religious organisations in the North-West.

This initial workshop will discuss possible models and ways of thinking about the impact that research on religion in the Humanities has on religious practitioners, as well as, conversely, the ways in which practitioners impact research in the academy.

The event is free and open to all (the public and academics).

TO REGISTER: email daniel.whistler[at]liv.ac.uk with you name, affiliation, dietary and motility requirements. Lunch is provided.

Central will be the following themes:

• The state of research on religion in the UK and its social impact
• The contribution philosophy of religion can make to contemporary research on religion
• Methods for measuring the impact of research on religion, and of Humanities research on religion in particular
• The relationship between philosophy of religion and other Humanities disciplines, especially religious studies and practical or applied theology
• The concepts of ‘material religion’ and ‘lived religion’, and their relationship to the philosophy of religion
• The possibility of a philosophy of material, lived or everyday religion

For this call for papers, we are looking for a very limited number of speakers on the above themes – in particular, 20-minute papers or 10-minute position papers that respond to philosophy of religion’s traditional failure to engage with religious practice by means of sketching innovative, new ways to model and develop such engagement.

Contact: daniel.whistler[at]liv.ac.uk.

The aim of the network as a whole is to reconnect philosophers of religion with religious practitioners and other researchers on religion, in order to make the work of philosophers of religion more relevant to the contemporary research agenda. It hopes to model ways in which philosophy of religion can interact more fruitfully with theology and the social sciences in the future, so as to promote a holistic conception of research on religion.