The Art of Interfaith: A Festschrift in Honor of Lucinda Mosher on Interreligious Engagement and the Arts

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A Special Call for Papers: Journal of Interreligious Studies, a publication of Hebrew College, Boston University School of Theology, and Hartford International University for Religion and Peace.

Co-Editors of Festschrift: Hussein Rashid, Or Rose, and Axel M. Oaks Takacs

CFP

Dr. Lucinda Mosher is a Faculty Associate at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace. She is well known for her expertise and experience in interfaith/interreligious studies, multifaith chaplaincy, comparative theology, and Muslim-Christian relations. Additionally, she is an accomplished musician and her workshops and lectures in the US and abroad often combine her expertise in interreligious understanding with her training in theology and the arts. She is an organist and the musical director at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Green Cove Springs, FL.

To honor Dr. Mosher, the journal is seeking articles on the theme of interreligious/interfaith engagement and the arts, including interreligious, intercultural, and comparative theology and the arts. Arts is defined broadly to include sonic, visual, and performance arts: painting, calligraphy, iconography, sculpture, literature, architecture, cinema, music, theater, and more. 

Title and abstract submissions of 200-300 words are due by 15 June 2022

 Send inquiries to Or Rose (orose@hebrewcollege.edu), Axel Takacs (axel@irstudies.org), and/or Hussein Rashid (hr@husseinrashid.com)

This special issue seeks articles of 3000-8000 words with a submission deadline of 30 November 2022. This special issue seeks to explore how religious communities express their faith and belief through the arts. Additionally, papers that consider religion and the arts in formation and expression of social identities and political movements, including those unconnected with formal religious institutions, are welcome. More specifically, we seek articles that attend to the ways in which the arts have factored into interreligious and interfaith relations historically and contemporarily.

 Historically, the arts have been the primary media through which perceptions of the religious other have been constructed, for better or worse. In addition, the intercultural and interreligious transmission and translation of, inter alia, the arts, artistic methods, tropes, genres, symbols, and styles have historically shaped religious art, literature, architecture, and more. Religious traditions have responded to theological
questions around the spiritual dimensions of art and beauty often in implicit or explicit conversation with other adjacent religious communities. Religious others were often characters in didactic poems, romances, novellas, love lyrics, folk tales, and more, thus embedding interreligious engagement within storytelling. What can contemporary interreligious/interfaith studies learn from these historical interactions? How do these historical interactions shape theories and methods in interreligious/interfaith studies?

Contemporarily, the arts are involved in interfaith and interreligious dialogue, pedagogy, and mutual learning. The exploration and engagement of the arts and literatures of other religious communities and traditions facilitate the undoing of exclusionary and harmful biases and stereotypes. What can the field of interreligious/interfaith studies learn from these practices and how might the discipline more directly engage the arts both critically and constructively?

The issue will also accept articles from the disciplines of interreligious, intercultural, and comparative theology that have the arts as a subject of discussion. Imagination, aesthetics, poetics, and the arts are ripe for theological exploration; doing so interreligiously and interculturally provide additional insights.

If you have any inquiries, please contact one or all of the editors: Or Rose (orose@hebrewcollege.edu), Axel Takacs (axel@irstudies.org), and Hussein Rashid (hr@husseinrashid.com). Send titles and abstracts to all three by June 15, 2022.

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Please visit this page if you wish to submit a special issue topic.