Call For Papers
Papers: Mennonites and Anthropology:
Faith, Ethnography, and Cultural Entanglements
An Academic and Community Education Conference
Hosted by the Centre for Transnational Mennonite Studies at The University of Winnipeg
October 25-26, 2019.
Anthropology has garnered relatively little attention in the study of Mennonite communities when compared with the vibrant scholarship in history, theology, literary criticism, and sociology. And yet anthropology has much to offer for research into the ways Mennonites have practiced Christianity. Then, too, over the years, Mennonites have engaged with anthropology in a number of different ways. Mennonites and anthropology share a complex series of entanglements, and this conference seeks to investigate all aspects of these relationships.
The conference theme builds upon the remarkable recent flourishing of scholarship in the anthropology of Christianity. Recent ethnographic studies have provided new insights into the lived experience of diverse Christianities. Anthropology offers a valuable stimulus to reconsider the ways in which Christianity is imagined, embodied, and enacted. Drawing on this burgeoning field, the anthropology of Mennonite Christianity promises new ways to examine what it means to be Mennonite.
Paper proposals are invited on all aspects of the relationship between Mennonites and anthropology, including but not limited to:
- Ethnographic studies of particular Mennonite communities and organizations
- The applicability of insights in the anthropology of Christianity for understanding Mennonite experience
- Critical appraisals of anthropological research on or about the Mennonites
- Analyses —including (auto)biographical studies—of Mennonite anthropologists and their research projects
- Mennonite theological critiques of, or appreciation for, anthropological insights
- The practice of teaching anthropology at Mennonite colleges and universities
- Encounters between anthropologists and Mennonite scholars, development workers, and mission personnel around the world
Paper Submission: Paper proposals should include a title, an abstract (250 words maximum) and a brief personal biography of 150 words for submission by October 1, 2018. Please send all proposals in word document, accompanied by a short CV, to one the two conference convenors, Philip Fountain (philip.fountain@vuw.ac.nz) or Royden Loewen r.loewen@uwinnipeg.ca). Limited funding is available to assist with presenting papers at the conference.
Download Call for Papers (69kb PDF)
For More Information call 786.9391 or email r.loewen@uwinnipeg.ca