CFP: Religion and Politics in Early America & A Recent H-Diplo Roundtable of Interest

Lauren Turek

This past month, I have come across two pieces of information that may be of interest to the readers of this blog. The first is a call for papers from the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, which is holding a conference next year on Religion and Politics in Early America. The details are as follows:

Call For Papers – Religion and Politics in Early America (Beginnings to 1820)
St. Louis, March 1-4, 2018

Conference Website: https://sites.wustl.edu/religionpolitics2018/

Sponsored by:
The John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics
The Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy
The Society of Early Americanists
St. Louis University
Washington University in St. Louis

Seeking Panel and Paper Proposals
We seek proposals for panels and individual papers for the special topics conference on Religion and Politics in Early America, March 1-4, 2018, in St. Louis, Missouri. Individual papers are welcome, but preference will be given to completed panel submissions.

This conference will explore the intersections between religion and politics in early America from pre-contact through the early republic. All topics related to the way religion shapes politics or politics shapes religion—how the two conflict, collaborate, or otherwise configure each other—will be welcomed. We define the terms “religion” and “politics” broadly, including (for example) studies of secularity and doubt. This conference will have a broad temporal, geographic, and topical expanse. We intend to create a space for interdisciplinary conversation, though this does not mean that all panels will need be composed of multiple disciplines; we welcome both mixed panels and panels composed entirely of scholars from a single discipline.

Panels can take a traditional form (3-4 papers, with or without a respondent), roundtable form (5 or more brief statements with discussion), or other forms.

Panel submissions must have the following:

1. An organizer for contact information

2. Names and titles for each paper in the panel.

3. A brief abstract (no more than 250 words) for the panel.

4. A briefer abstract (no more than 100 words) for each paper.

5. Brief CV’s for each participant (no more than two pages each).

Individual paper submissions must include the following:

1. Name and contact information

2. Title

3. Abstract (no more than 150 words)

4. A brief CV (no more than two pages)

Please send your proposals to [email protected] by Friday, May 26, 2017.

If you have any questions, please email Abram Van Engen at [email protected].

The second recent item of interest is a roundtable review that H-Diplo published earlier this month. Samuel Moyn (Harvard University), Stephen Hopgood (SOAS, University of London), James Loeffler (University of Virginia), and Janice Gross Stein (University of Toronto) reviewed Michael N. Barnett’s book The Star and the Stripes: A History of the Foreign Policies of American Jews, which Princeton University Press published in 2016.

The roundtable, with author response, is very robust and provides an excellent overview of the book, which is on an understudied topic in the field of American foreign relations and religion. To access the review, follow this link: https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/discussions/174974/h-diplo-roundtable-xviii-21-star-and-stripes-history-foreign

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