Saturday, June 6, 2009

Topics of the conference papers

Over 30 papers have been accepted for the October 2009 Maynooth conference on "Alternative spiritualities, the New Age and new religious movements". We are now inviting abstracts for poster presentations – please see this post for details.

Those presenting papers come from seven countries on three continents and from fields as diverse as anthropology, computer science, psychology, Irish studies, sociology, religious studies, religious professions and independent research.

The topics of the papers accepted cover among other things

  • Globalisation, modernity and new religions in Ireland
  • Questioning the "new religious movements" category
  • New forms of religious affiliation
  • New religious movements, media and cyberspace
  • History of alternative religions in Ireland
  • World religions in Ireland
  • Celtic identities and religiosities
  • The feminist divine
  • Holistic spiritualities
  • Christian new religious movements
  • Rethinking new religious movements, Catholicism and Islam
  • Psychology and religion
  • Conceptualising and measuring religious beliefs

Registration information for the conference will be available shortly for the benefit of those presenting; a timetable will be available nearer to the conference itself.