CFP: International Symposium – Technologies of Law and Religion

Technologies of Law and Religion:
Representation, Objects and Agency

We invite proposals for papers at an international symposium over three days, including two days of papers, in a plenary roundtable format, and a one day tour of Prato and Florence where Italian specialists in art, architecture, technology and planning will illustrate the symposium’s themes in situ. All participants (to a maximum of 24) will actively participate in all roundtable discussions.

THEME Technologies have always played an important, but neglected, role in constituting social orders and setting the boundaries for human action. Law and religion are two persistent systems that use, organise and regulate these socio-technical operations. The increased importance of religion in social, legal and political affairs demands new approaches to interdisciplinary scholarship. This symposium looks at the juridical, spiritual and material aspects of human life by analysing social and technological interactions in law and religion.

While the form of technology may have changed from symbolic regimes to ICT, from icons to apps, the interactions between humans and technics illustrate many persistent forms and social mechanisms, from architecture to ritual and performative enunciation. These technologies and mechanisms will be explored intensively over 3 days by participants from law, sociology, philosophy, semiotics, political sciences, architecture and other disciplines.

Papers and discussions may address urban planning, ICT, court architecture, regulation of food or other vital human needs, the settings and techniques of religious deliberation and dispute resolution, or other interfaces between social order and technologies. Discussion will be informed by theory and research, and will work towards ethical and practical needs and consequences.

Send a title and abstract of 200-250 words by 14 March 2016 to both the organisers:
Dr Nadirsyah Hosen PhD at nadirsyah.hosen@monash.edu and Dr Richard Mohr at rmohr@srpp.com.au

Places are strictly limited by the venue and format. Papers will be selected (by 21 March 2016) for their original contribution to the theme of the symposium and their capacity to relate to each other.

This event will be organised by the Faculty of Law, Monash University, Australia in collaboration with the following institutions/universities: