Posted on by Christina Vlahos

New Journal – Call for Papers – Brill Perspectives in Law and Religion

Brill Publishers, in cooperation with the Centre for Law and Religion at Cardiff University, has announced the publication of a new journal, Brill Research Perspectives in Law and Religion.  Brill has also issued a call for papers. The publisher’s description follows:

Legal issues concerning religion increasingly make the news headlines these days. As a result, the intersection of law and religion is today an established but growing field 36835of scholarship worldwide. Just as the burgeoning field whose name it shares, Brill Research Perspectives in Law and Religion seeks better to understand how the phenomena of law and religion interact and to stimulate practical debate on the diverse range of issues involved. The place of religion in society, religious pluralism, the fear of religious extremism, and the terms and limits of religious freedom generate a host of important questions on the interface of law and religion. In response, law and religion scholars themselves recognise the need for interdisciplinary approaches to this developing field. Secular laws on religion, at the international and national levels, as well as their historical, political, philosophical, sociological, and comparative analysis, all form part of the canon of law and religion. Alongside these are the religious laws and other regulatory entities of religious traditions and organisations, all shaped by their distinct theological postures.

Brill Research Perspectives in Law and Religion encourages the publication of studies of the highest quality, for scholarly analysis and for public debate, associated with the regulation of religion in society and the regulation of the internal life of religious traditions. Its primary readership includes academics, researchers, practitioners, policy makers, educators, and graduate and undergraduate students.

Each issue consists of one uniquely focused article of 50-100 pages. To facilitate the efforts of researchers and educators alike, each journal issue will also be available as a book in both print and electronic format.

Brill Research Perspectives in Law and Religion is published in close cooperation with the Cardiff University Centre for Law and Religion.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

“Law and Religious Minorities in Medieval Societies” (Echevarria et al, eds.)

In June, Brepols Publishers will release “Law and Religious Minorities in Medieval Societies: Between Theory and Praxis,” edited by Ana Echevarria (UNED, Madrid) Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala (University of Cordoba), and John V. Tolan (Universit de Nantes). The publisher’s description follows: 

Muslim law developed a clear legal cadre for dhimmīs, inferior but protected non-Muslim communities (in particular Jews and Christians) and Roman Canon law brepols-publishers-logodecreed a similar status for Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe.  Yet the theoretical hierarchies between faithful and infidel were constantly brought into question in the daily interactions between men and women of different faiths in streets, markets, bath-houses, law courts, etc.  The twelve essays in this volume explore these tensions and attempts to resolve them.  These contributions show law was used to attempt to erect boundaries between communities in order to regulate or restrict interaction between faithful and non-faithful—at at the same time how these boundaries were repeatedly transgressed and negotiated.  These essays explore the possibilities and the limits of the use of legal sources for the social historian.
Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Banack, “God’s Province”

In June, the McGill-Queens University Press will release “God’s Province: Evangelical Christianity, Political Thought, and Conservatism in Alberta,” by Clark Banack (York University).  The publisher’s description follows:

Compared to the United States, it is assumed that religion has not been a significant factor in Canada’s political development. In God’s Province, Clark9780773547148 Banack challenges this assumption, showing that, in Alberta, religious motivation has played a vital role in shaping its political trajectory.

For Henry Wise Wood, president of the United Farmers of Alberta from 1916 until 1931, William “Bible Bill” Aberhart, founder of the Alberta Social Credit Party and premier from 1935 until 1943, Aberhart’s protégé Ernest Manning, Alberta’s longest serving premier (1943-1968), and Manning’s son Preston, founder of the Alberta-based federal Reform Party of Canada, religion was central to their thinking about human agency, the purpose of politics, the role of the state, the nature of the economy, and the proper duties of citizens. Drawing on substantial archival research and in-depth interviews, God’s Province highlights the strong link that exists between the religiously inspired political thought and action of these formative leaders, the US evangelical Protestant tradition from which they drew, and the emergence of an individualistic, populist, and anti-statist sentiment in Alberta that is largely unfamiliar to the rest of Canada.

Covering nearly a century of Alberta’s history, Banack offers an illuminating reconsideration of the political thought of these leaders, the goals of the movements they led, and the roots of Alberta’s distinctiveness within Canada. A fusion of religious history, intellectual history, and political thought, God’s Province exposes the ways in which individual politicians have shaped one province’s political culture.