Contemporary Religion in Historical Perspective

FRIDAY 10 JANUARY

Registration and Coffee

Welcome – Marion Bowman, Open University

SESSION 1

A STRAND - Christianity and Contemporary Spirituality

B STRAND - Traditional Worldviews: Continuity and Change 1

Peter Versteeg, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Beyond Ignatius: A Case of New Christian Spirituality

Anne O'Connor – University of Ulster
Baptism, Burial and Beyond: Irish Dead Child Traditions Revisited

Stephen Hunt - University of the West of England
Christian Evangelical Attitudes to the New Age Movement: Stigmatisation and Boundary Maintenance

Janet Sumner - Bath Spa University College
'Marvels of Chastity' : The Virgin's Crown in England

Kim Knibbe - Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
The Infinite Possibilities of the Paranormal and the Question of Ethics: The Case of ‘Spiritual Societies' in the South of Limburg, The Netherlands

Patricia Lysaght – University College Dublin
The Beggars Prayer in Ireland

SESSION 2

A STRAND - Studying Religion and Community
in Diaspora

B STRAND - Traditional Worldviews:
Continuity and Change 2

Nick Sutton – Open University
Hinduism and Religious Studies: Do We Know What We Are Talking About?

Faith Wigzell – University College London
Gender and Morality in Russian Traditional Near-death Experiences

Martin Wood – University of Bristol
Food, Religion and the UK Gujarati Hindu Diaspora

Irina Sedakova – Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
Naming the baby as expression of Religious/ Spiritual Identity in Slavonic folk traditions

Graham Harvey, King Alfred's, Winchester
Guests and Hosts: Studying Maori Diaspora in London

Bettina Weichert - School of Slavonic Studies, University College London
Detoxing the Nation. Icon Worship - a sobering experience?

SESSION 3

A STRAND - Glastonbury and Sacred Space

B STRAND - Religion and Community

Mustafa Draper, University of Birmingham
From Celts to Ka'ba: Sufism in Glastonbury

Claire Mitchell – University College Dublin
Four Dimensions of Lived Religion in Northern Ireland

Hannah Drown
Sacred Spaces: Alternative Religion and Healing in Glastonbury, England

Anne Rowbottom – Manchester Metropolitan University
Re-enchanting the World: Real Royalists and Vernacular Civil Religion in the UK

Marion Bowman – Open University
Spiritually Shopping Around in Glastonbury

Teri Brewer – University of Glamorgan
May Day: Custom and Contestation

KEYNOTE LECTURE 1

Margaret Mackay, School of Scottish Studies
Religious Expression in its Cultural Context: Illustrations from Hungarian and Scottish Calvinism

SATURDAY 11 JANUARY

SESSION 1

A STRAND - Locating Paganism 1

B STRAND - Religion and Identity in Diaspora

Jenny Blain – Sheffield Hallam University
Heathenry, Shamanism and the Seeress: Disputing the Past, Informing the Present

Elaine Housby – Open University
The Expression of Concepts of Financial Probity Among Muslim Communities in Britain and France

Tom Hope and Ieuan Jones – University of York
Locating British Paganism as Late Modern European Culture

Jenni Sophia Fuchs – University of Leicester
Culture and Religion in Expatriate Congregations – The German Speaking Congregation in Edinburgh

KEYNOTE LECTURE 2

Torunn Selberg, University of Bergen
Taking Superstitions Seriously: From Folk Belief to New Age

SESSION 2

A STRAND - Locating Paganism 2

B STRAND - Clergy and Laity

Michael Strmiska – Miyazaki International College, Japan
Neo-Pagan Afterlife Beliefs and the Question of Neo-Ancestors

Peter Mc Grail – University of Birmingham
The ‘A Team': Renegotiated Catholicism Within a Group of First Communion Catechists

Jenny Butler – University College Cork
Neo-Pagan Ritual Practice in Ireland as Cultural Process

Geoffrey Walker
Clergy Attitudes to Folk Religion: New Light on an Uneasy Alliance

Katarina Lewis - Sweden
"Borrowed Robes": An Ethnological Study of the Changes in the Church of Sweden Around the Millennium Shift 2000/2001

PLENARY: Locating Religion in European Ethnology