'Nother Conference

St Chad's College, Durham University, are hosting the 2009 British Sociological Association Sociology of Religion study group conference, "Religion and Knowledge." Maybe I'll be sleeping on my cousin's floor a lot in the coming months?

The call for papers makes these suggestions for themes:

• The sociology of Religious Education
• Clandestine knowledge and religious identity
• The legitimation & de-legitimation of religious knowledge
• Guardianship and control of religious knowledge
• The legacy of the sociology of knowledge
• Epistemological challenges facing the sociology of religion
• Resurgent secularism and the 'New Atheism'
  

Confirmed speakers include Professor Steve Fuller, University of Warwick (the sociology of the intelligent design movement), Professor Elizabeth Cooksey, Ohio State University (the Amish), and Professor David Chalcraft, University of Derby (sociological approaches to Biblical texts). The conference organiser is Dr. Matthew Guest, a Lancaster grad and alternative worship kinda guy - see also his 2006 emerging church article written with Steve Taylor in the International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church. The deadline for abstracts is January 12... Hmm, mulling it over...