“Religion and the Trans…” Grad student conference, Department of Religious Studies, Northwestern University

*Department of Religious Studies, Northwestern University*

*Religion and the Trans…*

*Graduate Student Conference*

*October 12-14, 2012*

The Northwestern University Department of Religious Studies is pleased to invite you to a graduate student conference on: *“Religion and the Trans…” in Evanston, IL on October 12–14, 2012. *

Our conference will focus on the emergent understanding of boundaries in the interdisciplinary study of religion – whether they are political, cultural, or intellectual – as permeable and transformative. Keynote speakers, panelists, and attendees will engage in conversations about the crossing of geographic and conceptual borders, and on “the trans” as a productive space for the study of lived religions.

Keynote addresses from three exemplary theorists of religion and the trans will frame our conversation over the course of the weekend:

– Thomas Tweed (Religious Studies, University of Texas at Austin)
– Thomas Csordas (Anthropology, University of California, San Diego)
– Elizabeth Shakman Hurd (Political Science, Northwestern University)

Twenty-four graduate student presenters will join our keynote speakers, representing a variety of disciplines and speaking on topics as wide-ranging as globalizing Catholicism, translating Islamic cosmology in China, transmitting religious values in Hindu summer camps, and the transnational intertwining of Persian mysticism and Black activism.

Please join us for this graduate student conference at Northwestern University, October 12 – 14, for an exploration of the study of religion and the transnational, transcultural, transformative, and transcendent.