FSU Symposium in Religion: Proposals Now Due 12/7

Kelly Baker

Just a small note to say this is a fabulous conference for graduate students to test out their work. I enjoyed participating and going, and this is great way to prepare for larger national conferences (and the audience is very supportive). The FSU graduate students organize a mean conference with time for discussion and getting to know one's peers in the field(s). The added bonus is both of the speakers, which includes the illustrious Katie Lofton, one of our contributors. Plus, the title for this year is awesome

DEADLINE EXTENSION to Dec. 7, 2009

The Florida State University Department of Religion’s 9th Annual Graduate Student Symposium has partnered with the Society for Women’s Advancement in Philosophy’s 6th Annual Conference to present an interdisciplinary graduate student symposium to be held February 19-21, 2010. Graduate students are invited to submit an abstract (300-800 words) with a list of key terms and a CV to Brooke Sherrard by Monday, December 7th, 2009.

Sects and Sexuality: Issues of Division and Diversity

In addition, we would like to formally announce our Key Note Speaker, BERNADETTE BROOTEN, Kraft-Hiatt Professor of Christian Studies at Brandeis University and recipient of both a MacArthur Fellowship and a Ford Foundation grant on sexual ethics and religious traditions. Her works include _Women Leaders in The Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional Evidence and Background Issues_ (Scholars Press, 1982) and _Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism_ (University of Chicago Press, 1996).

The symposium will also feature comments by KATHRYN LOFTON, an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies at Yale University. Her first book, _Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon_, is forthcoming from the University of California Press. She is currently working on her second monograph, _The Modernity in Mr. Shaw: Modernisms and Fundamentalisms in American Culture_, which examines the formation of sexual identity through the life of one Presbyterian fundamentalist, John Balcom Shaw (1860-1935).

We encourage submissions from graduate students in all levels and fields with interdisciplinary interest in the study of Religion and Philosophy. We also welcome a variety of methods and approaches, particularly in regards to (1) Religion, Ethics, and Philosophy; (2) American Religious History; (3) Religions of Western Antiquity; (4) History and Ethnography of Religions (specializing in Asian, African, Mediterranean, and Western European Religions); and (5) Philosophy dealing with Race, Class, Sexuality, and Gender.