Since the 1980s, neoliberalism has expanded enormously as ideology and practice, continuously transforming institutions, discourses, and people across borders. As free market processes accelerated, neoliberals sang the praises of liberalized trade and markets, austerity measures, and the reduction of social welfare. Yet, rising income disparities and worldwide uprisings against neoliberal practices, from the Middle East to Europe and the States, all pose a profound empirical challenge to the invincibility and effectiveness of neoliberalism. The political awakening and emergent discourses of dissent in the Arab Spring effectively demonstrate the intersections between repressive governance and economic discontent in the neoliberal Middle East, for instance.

Neoliberalism thus penetrates the social and the political in unique ways as various actors redefine public spaces, galvanize new subjectivities, and grassroots mobilization against inequity. As well, neoliberalism encompasses the transformation of power relations as it fosters new forms of governmentality and public management, both challenging and buttressing Weberian bureaucratic structures. These new and shifting forms of neoliberal governmentality have also affected the place and practice of religion, challenging ethnographers to question both the relevance and the contours of separate realms such as “economy” and “religion” across private and public domains.

Religious forms, practices and obligations may end up tolerating, promoting or resisting specific strategies of neoliberalism (Rudnycky 2010; Mauer 2005; Shehabuddin 2008; and others).  In turn, religious bodies have used neoliberal processes of governance to gain more power and/or legitimacy in the public realm. This panel seeks to interrogate how the religious and the neoliberal intersect in specific moments beyond the conventional binary of the secular and the religious (Mahmood 2012, White 2012, Tugal 2011). How does this intersection underwrite new forms of sociality, activism, and political meaning? Our panel is open to submissions from researchers focusing on varied religious groups, beliefs and practices, but we especially encourage submissions from those studying Islam. Our goal is to delineate and investigate the ways in which religious/ethical discourses and practices of self-formation intersect with neoliberal sensibilities, creating fresh publics, forms of resistance and/or compliance along ethnic, gendered, and classed divisions. We seek papers that explore

the discursive, performative, and material practices that thrive in the overlap between these meta-discourses and shifting subject positions in tangible geographies.

Looking for article abstracts on, for example, the following topics:

1) New forms of governmentality, regarding individual and public religious practice

2) Varied meanings and practices of piety within the context of economic globalization

3) Emergent public spaces and publics

4) Social welfare, philanthropy, and civil society

4) Marginalization, disadvantage, and political dissent

5) Religious (and secular) activism

6) Gender, sexuality, and ethnicity as markers or agents of change in the overlapping sphere of religion and political-economy

7) Ethical dilemmas of responding to neoliberal reforms and practices

250-word submissions with contact information and a brief bio to be sent to both: Damla Isik (disik@regis.edu) and Öykü Potuoglu-Cook (oykupotuoglucook2008@u.northwestern.edu)  by 30 March 2012 the latest.  Those who are included in the panel must become AAA members (or renew their memberships) and register for the conference prior to 15 April 2012 which is the deadline for panel submissions.

SPECIAL THEME: REFLECTIONS ON THE ARAB SPRING

For over twenty years Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations has been one of the leading peer-reviewed academic journals providing a forum for the academic exploration and discussion of the religious tradition of Islam, and relations between Islam and other religions. The journal seeks to provide a very timely turn-around time on articles submitted.  The editorial team is currently considering articles for publication in its special thematic issue titled “Reflections on the Arab Spring” to appear in October 2012. The journal is edited by members of the Department of Theology and Religion of Birmingham University (Birmingham, United Kingdom) and the Centre for Islam and the Modern World of Monash University (Melbourne, Australia).

The journal is soliciting submissions based on a call for articles offering reflections on the Arab spring, and particularly on:

• Islamic social movements and political reform:
• Muslim society pluralism and minority communities
• Islam and democracy
• Islamist politics

Articles should be sent to editor Professor Greg Barton (greg.barton@monash.edu), associate editor Dr Irfan Ahmad (irfan.ahmad@monash.edu) with copy to editorial assistant Virginie Andre (virginie.andre@monash.edu), in the form of e-mail attachments in simple Word format. For purposes of anonymity through the refereeing stages, the title alone should appear at the beginning, and references elsewhere that might lead to easy identification of the author should be omitted. All articles should be prefaced by an abstract of 150-200 words. The author’s postal and e-mail addresses, together with brief biographical details of about 50 words, should appear on a separate page. All pages should be numbered. Articles should be approximately 10,000 words in length (articles shorter than 9,000 words and longer than 12,000 words will not be considered), including references, appendices, tables and figures. Footnotes to the text should be avoided wherever possible.

Articles which the editors judge to have merit will be sent anonymously to two referees, and authors may be asked for changes and adjustments in the light of the referees’ reports.

Further instructions for authors regarding style guidelines, referencing and templates are available at: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?issn=0959-6410&linktype=44.

Papers should be submitted by 24 April 2012.

This international colloquium, organised by the CEDEJ at the French Institute of Egypt (Cairo) on november 7,8,9 2012, aims to discuss the urban dimension of the great changes in the Arab world, from the origins of the 2011 revolutionary episodes to the present experiences of democratisation, along with phases of political transition and socio-economic crisis in which states are still entangled. Deadline for submission: May 15, 2012.