Teaching Democracy: Political Extremism, Global Lessons for Local Educators

March 19-20, 2012
Sir Roland Wilson Building
Australian National University
Canberra

The workshop will explore the ideas of political action, radicalism, extremism, terrorism and revolution in the context of current geo-political global situations. Drawing from a variety of disciplines, this workshop will include presentations which will explain the political situations around the world, and the way in which these reverberate in Australia. This workshop will further interrogate the concepts of democracy and multiculturalism and ask whether societies such as ours, with its commitment to both, can avoid the development of destructive political action.
The two day workshop will include discussion by the participants to develop strategies for engaging young people in positive political engagement in the classroom and in the community.
Workshop themes:

• Political extremism around the world
• The Arab spring
• The London riots
• The European right
• Young people and political engagement
• Political engagement in a Democracy
• Multiculturalism
• Indigenous political engagement in Australia

Religious belief has had a profound influence on Scottish history. Both within and outside of Scotland, believers from the time of St. Columba to John Knox to the modern world have aided in the development of what might be considered ‘Scottish Religion’. As we recently marked the 450th anniversary of the Scottish Reformation, it seems appropriate, then, to consider the changing face of religion in Scotland.

With this in mind, The Centre for Scottish Studies at the University of Guelph invites proposals for the third volume in the Guelph Series in Scottish Studies. This fully peer-reviewed volume will consider Scottish Religion, broadly defined. Proposals are welcome from both established and emerging scholars in a variety of academic disciplines and time periods. The editors welcome proposals on a range of subjects to do with Scottish religion, including, but not limited to: The institutional church, popular piety, the diaspora, religious violence, religious networks, gender, sport, identity, class, and minority religions.

Chapter proposals of 500 – 1000 words, along with a short CV, should be submitted by e-mail to dmacleod(at)uoguelph.ca by March 15, 2012. Authors will be notified of accepted proposals by April 15, 2012. Final papers of 5000-7000 words must be completed by August 31, 2012, after which they will be sent to referees. A fall 2013 publication date is planned.

Daniel MacLeod and Stuart Macdonald
University of Guelph
Centre for Scottish Studies
Geulph, ON N1G 2W1
Phone(519) 824-4120 ext. 53209
Fax (519) 766-9516
Email: dmacleod(at)uoguelph.ca
Visit the website at http://www.uoguelph.ca/scottish

The Institute on World War II and the Human Experience and the Department of Religion of Florida State University seek paper proposals for a two-day conference (November 30-December 1, 2012) in Tallahassee, Florida focusing on Religion and World War II. Conference organizers G. Kurt Piehler and John Corrigan seek papers that touch on the institutional, theological, and human impact of religion in World War II.  They are interested in the global dimension of this conflict and encourage scholars whose work focuses on Africa, Asia, Latin America, Middle East, and the Soviet Union, as well as Europe and North America. Among topics of interest are:

• The ways that combatants and civilians drew upon religious ideals and institutions to sustain them in an age of total war, and especially how soldiers, sailors, and aviators behaved religiously in the course of their service.
• The roles religious organizations and values played in fostering ethical conduct during the war, providing humanitarian relief, and protecting non-combatants and conscientious objectors, as well as analyses of various kinds of religious justifications for violence, including genocide.

Among the questions the organizers seek to address:

1. Did religious leaders and institutions foster a climate that encouraged rather than retarded the drift to total war?
2. Are there really no atheists in foxholes?
3. What was the legacy of the war for religious institutions and ideals, especially in the defeated Axis Powers?
4. How did religious institutions discredited by their support of the Axis Powers seek to regain their legitimacy?
5. What kinds of compromises did persons negotiate with their religious beliefs in wartime?
6. In what way was pre-existent religious rhetoric deployed to characterize enemies as evil?
7. How did the war diminish and exacerbate the perception of religious differences?

Contributions from a variety of disciplinary perspectives are invited. The conference organizers hope to provide travel funding to graduate students and junior scholars to encourage their participation. Plans call for the publication of an anthology drawn from the conference proceedings edited by John Corrigan and G. Kurt Piehler.

Those seeking to participate in the conference should submit a 750 word abstract along with a short 3-5 page c.v. via Microsoft word attachment or PDF File to G. Kurt Piehler at kpiehler(at)fsu.edu by March 15, 2012. For further information about the conference, please contact John Corrigan at jcorrigan(at)fsu.edu or G. Kurt Piehler at kpiehler(at)fsu.edu.

G. Kurt Piehler
Director
Institute on World War II and the Human Experience
Department of History
Florida State University
401 Bellamy Hall
113 Collegiate Loop
Tallahassee, FL 32306-2200
Telephone: (850) 644-9541

Email: kpiehler(at)fsu.edu
Visit the website at http://ww2.fsu

International Symposium, Madrasah Tradition and Madrasahs in the Process of Modernization, Turkey, to be held 5 – 7 October 2012, MUÞ / TURKEY
DATES AND DEADLINES
Deadline for Abstracts : 15 March 2012
Announcement of Accepted Abstracts : 16 April 2012
Deadline for Submission of Papers : 13 July 2012
Announcement of Accepted Papers : 27 July 2012
Symposium Date : 05 – 07 October 2012
ORGANIZER
Muþ Alparslan University Faculty of Theology
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS
1. Although symposium language is Turkish, presentations may be in Kurdish, Arabic or English.
2. Abstracts must be approximately 500 words and CVs must be sent to the secretariat of the symposium.
3. Accepted papers will be published in the proceedings of the symposium.

Santral No 0436 213 00 13

Fax 0436 212 0853
ADRESS:
Ýþ Adresi Muþ Alparslan Üniversitesi Eðitim Fakültesi Ýstasyon Cad. 49100 MUÞ

Email: mk.coskun@alparslan.edu.tr
Visit the website at http://kamilhoca.googlepages.com/

In Fall 2010, the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, with the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation, launched an initiative aimed at developing a Jewish “philosophical theology” that will seek to advance the study of the ideas of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Talmud and Midrash in the academic setting. This initiative is part of a broader “Analytic Theology” project of the Templeton Foundation, which will also support Christian centers for philosophical theology at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Innsbruck, Austria. The Jewish component of the project envisions the development of a uniquely Jewish discipline that will use philosophical tools and methods for examining classical Jewish sources. The project is open to Jewish and non-Jewish scholars interested in the philosophical elucidation of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Talmud and Midrash.

In the context of this project, the department of Philosophy, Political Theory and Religion (PPR) at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem invites submissions for an interdisciplinary conference on “Philosophical Investigation of the Hebrew Scriptures, Talmud and Midrash,” to be held in Jerusalem on July 22-26, 2012.

The submission deadline is March 4, 2012.
Submissions should be addressed to Meirav Jones, meiravj@shalem.org.il
For More information including a more elaborate call for papers with further details about the greater project and this conference, see our website http://www.bibleandphilosophy.org/conferences.

Applications are invited for participation in the Global Education Online Training Course.  Following the launching of the Global Education Guidelines – on-line version (re-edition 2010) available from North-South Centre (NSC) website and hard copy available upon request – the NSC Global Education programme offered its first Global Education on-line training course in 2009. Since three courses are offered annually, in Spring, Summer and Autumn.

This introductory online training course on global education (GE), with a particular focus on human rights (HR), targets practitioners in the field of education and development, teachers, social and youth workers, as well as policy-makers, civil servants and local and regional authorities. It provides an overview on why intercultural education is relevant and needed, what it means in theory and practice and how it can be improved in relation to the context of a globalised world, the local needs, its contents and methodology.

The course takes place from 12 March to 15 April, 2012 and the deadline for applications is 2 March.

This four-week long online learning course involves 10 hours of learning per week, which includes reading, discussion and response to interactive exercises. It is based on approximately 150 pages of educational material that include a diversity of interactive individual and group exercises with coached assignments, a glossary and a virtual library as well as a discussion forum. Such exercises aim at developing competences in the fields of team-building, mapping of GE/HR situation in participants’ countries, GE/HR strategies and GE/HR activity development.

Just a few weeks left before the March 1st application deadline for a 2012 NEH Summer Institute for K-12 teachers:

Religious Worlds of New York: Teaching the Everyday Life of American Religious Diversity

This innovative program will help public, private, and parochial school teachers teach more effectively about the rich religious diversity of the United States.  It is sponsored by the Interfaith Center of New York and Union Theological Seminary, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The three week institute will meet from July 16 to August 3, 2012.  It will bring together 30 teachers from throughout the country, to work with leading scholars in religious studies, meet with a wide range of New York religious leaders, visit a number of local houses of worship, and conduct field research with local religious communities.

The institute will introduce NEH summer scholars to six religious traditions that are part of the fabric of American life, help them distinguish between academic and devotional approaches to the study of religion, and offer them pedagogic tools to teach their students about contemporary “lived religion,” in addition to the conventional “world religions” curriculum.  It will thus help transform K-12 religious studies pedagogy, by empowering teachers to teach about the everyday lives of Americans from diverse religious traditions.

Applications from teachers are due by March 1, 2012.  For more information see http://www.religiousworldsnyc.org, or contact institute director Dr. Henry Goldschmidt at info@religiousworldsnyc.org or 212-870-3514.

Explore the religious worlds of New York, and the religious diversity of the United States!

Preventing Incitement and Promoting Peace:
Obstacles and Opportunities for Religious Peacemaking in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Start Date: February 28, 2012 – 12:30pm
End Date: February 28, 2012 – 2:30pm

USIP, Washington DC. RSVP Required.

Israeli-Palestinian talks are at a standstill and Fatah-Hamas reconciliation moves raise new questions about the direction of the conflict and the continuation of Western aid. Meanwhile, religiously-motivated attacks in Israel and the Palestinian Territories are on the rise. Given the current low expectations for Israeli-Palestinian political negotiations, what is the role of religious leaders in preventing incitement and promoting peace? What has been achieved, and what are the current challenges to interfaith cooperation?

To address these questions, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is pleased to host a distinguished delegation from the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land (CRIHL): the consultative body that comprises the most senior official Israeli and Palestinian religious leaders. CRIHL was established as the implementing body of the historic declaration signed in Alexandria, Egypt in 2002 in which Israeli and Palestinian religious leaders pledged to work together to end the violence and promote peace. Since the signing of the Alexandria Declaration, USIP has provided strong support to ongoing efforts to implement the document’s goals.

This event will feature the following speakers:

•Rabbi Shlomo Amar,  Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel
•Canon Trond Bakkevig, Convener, CRIHL
•Sheikh Yousef Ed’ees, Chief Judge of the Sharia Courts, Palestinian Authority
•Dr. Mahmoud Habash, Minister of Religious Affairs, Palestinian Authority
•Rabbi Yona Metzger, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel
•His Beatitude Fouad Twal, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem
•Bishop Dr. Munib Younan, Head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land
•Dr. Richard Solomon, Introductory Remarks, President, USIP
•Dr. David Smock, Moderator, Senior Vice President of the Religion and Peacemaking Center, USIP

This symposium is co-convened by Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace and the UN Alliance of Civilizations ‘Education about Religions and Beliefs’ Project.

For a large proportion of the people in the world, spirituality is an important part of being human and often thought to be an essential element of a flourishing life. Today’s world is facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities, and so there is a pressing need to educate in order to develop a deeper awareness of the spiritual dimensions of our lives.

In this context, we are interested specifically in exploring the part that religious education can play in cultivating human virtues and spirituality. Under various names, such as ‘education about religion’, ‘faith education,’ ‘religious studies,’ and ‘religious education,’ the teaching of religious beliefs has already been integrated into the national curricula of many countries. However, the focus of religious education is generally to impart knowledge about religions, and perhaps gesture towards some inter-religious understanding. This way of approaching religious education tends to regard religion as an academic subject, and because such education is at arms-length, the spiritual and experiential aspects of religion are not made directly available to students.
The Symposium will aim to go beyond the current knowledge-centred approaches to religious education and offers a space to discuss and debate the following questions:

• In what ways can education of/from religions better contribute to young people’s spirituality and to the flourishing of their lives?
• How can these contributions of religions be better integrated in schooling?