We invite papers which explicate the aspects of (ir)rationality, on a societal, social, communal, and personal scale. Our working hypothesis is that the lapses of secular reason contributed, if not lead to, the COVID-19 pandemics.
With the toll of deaths nearing 100,000 in early April 2020 and industrial countries such as the United Stated leading the numbers, what does it tell us about the status of knowledge, consciousness and its relationships with the power networks? Given the astounding denials of both trivial-ontic-empirical and scientific facts of epidemics, the relationship between the reason — in action, politics, press, local decision-making — and the subjective dimension of religiosity stand out in this new light, calling for the phenomenological reporting and reflection which must precede the care and the cure. While religious experience has been shown to have emancipatory value and enhance resilience and decrease stress, we'd like to clarify if this assessment still stands in this new situation.
We invite submissions of papers of about 3,000 words, which would correspond to 20 minutes of reading
Deadline for submission is Aug. 15, 2020, with notifications of acceptance by Sept. 1
We will circulate the papers between participants for preliminary reading. The workshop will be organized in parallel sections, with 10 minute question and answer period after each paper. Best papers will be recommended for publication in a special topical issue of Open Theology.
Along with this supplemental initiative, we continue accepting papers submitted by email for the Congress Religious Experience and the Crisis of the Secular Reason, with the new deadline of May 30, 2021. Both workshop and the publication of selected papers in is offered free of charge, as our contribution to healing the outcomes of pandemic.