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Call for Papers: Australian Journal of Law & Religion

The Australian Journal of Law and Religion is requesting submissions for its February 2023 Symposium on Theology and Jurisprudence:

  • Paper Proposal: Paper proposals (up to 200 words) and a brief biography must be submitted no later than November 1, 2022. 
  • Paper Submission: Papers should be completed or at a work-in-progress stage suitable for distribution to other participants by February 1, 2023 and should not be published or currently under consideration elsewhere. Presenters will have twenty minutes to present their paper with time for comments and questions. 
  • Accepted Papers: Authors of accepted papers will have the opportunity to present them at the Symposium. Presented papers may also be considered for publication in a special edition of the Australian Journal of Law and Religion. 
  • Location: ALS will host the Symposium. Further details and a schedule will be provided.
  • Contact: Please email paper proposals and any questions to Dr. Constance Lee at c.y.lee@cqu.edu. 
Australian Journal of Law and Religion Symposium FlyerDownload
Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A Writeup on This Month’s Conference in Rome

Here’s a writeup (with photos!) on our conference this month in Rome, co-hosted with LUMSA University, on liberalism, religious exemptions, and hate speech regulations. We’ll post papers from the conference in due course. Meanwhile, thanks to the participants: keynoters Cesare Mirabile and Chantal Delsol, and Professors Stephanie Barclay (Notre Dame); Paolo Cavana (LUMSA); Gayane Davidyan (Lomonosov); Richard Ekins (Oxford); Monica Lugato (LUMSA); Adelaide Madera (Messina); Javier Martínez-Torrón (Complutense); Marco Olivetti (LUMSA); Andrea Pin (Padua); Jeffrey Pojanowski (Notre Dame); Angelo Rinella (LUMSA); Steven Smith (San Diego); and Kevin Walsh (Catholic University of America).

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

Next Month in Rome: “Liberalism’s Limits”

Next month in Rome, we’ll celebrate 10 years of cooperation with our colleagues at Universita LUMSA with the latest in our conference series on comparative law and religion: “Liberalism’s Limits: Religious Exemption and Hate Speech.” (Hard to believe we’ve been doing this for 10 years)! The conference description is below and details are here: If you’re in Rome, please stop by and say hello!

Liberal democracies historically have prized autonomy and freedom as fundamental political commitments. In doing so, they also have emphasized the individual’s freedom of religion and freedom of speech as sitting at the core of their political systems. Yet in religious exemption — the right of individuals to receive an accommodation from complying with generally applicable law on the basis of religious scruple — and in what some in these polities call “hate speech” – speech conveying deeply insulting, vilifying, discriminatory views against a target group – liberal regimes face serious challenges to their own core principles. This conference will examine the problems posed by these issues for the continuing viability of liberalism in Western democracies.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Movsesian at BYU Next Month

I’m looking forward to participating and catching up with friends next month at the 2022 Religious Freedom Annual Review, sponsored by the international Center for law and religion studies at BYU law. I’ll be speaking about the future of religious exemptions after Fulton. Details are available here: https://religiousfreedom.byu.edu/presenters. CLR friends, stop by and say hello!

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Call for Papers: “The Challenges of Law, Religion and State in Health Care and Mental Health”

The Journal of Law, Religion and State invites contributions for its upcoming online workshop, “The Challenges of Law, Religion and State in Health Care and Mental Health.” The workshop will take place on July 26 & 27, 2022, and will focus on examining the different interactions between health-related state law and policy and the regulation of medical treatment and care by religious laws and norms.

Researchers are invited to submit abstracts on topics including, but not limited to, (1) organ transplant; (2) abortion; (3) IVF and other reproductive procedures; (4) end-of-life care; (5) the use of drugs; (6) capacity to consent to treatment; (7) patient rights; and (8) deontology. 

Additionally, the Journal of Law, Religion and State encourages contributions that focus more specifically on mental health. These submissions can deal with questions such as: (1) Can religious clerics provide mental health care? (2) What is the appropriate regulation of such care? (3) Can professionals offer religiously-guided and/or religiously-adapted mental health care? and (4) What is the normative status of mental health definitions and professionally accepted norms and standards of care, which may be disrupted by some religious patients or staff? 

Abstracts submissions (between 250-500 words) are due before April 30, 2022, and should be sent to Amos Israel (aisrael@mail.sapir.ac.il). Acceptance decisions will be relayed to authors no later than May 5, 2022.  

Authors whose proposals are accepted must provide a rough first draft of their paper (8000-10,000 words) no later than July 5, 2022. 

Papers presented at the workshop will be peer-reviewed, and a selection of those accepted will be published in a special theme-issue of the Journal of Law, Religion and State (planned for December 2022).  

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Thanks to the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

Just a note to thank the organizers of last week’s conference on religious liberty at the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal for hosting me. The event brought together a diverse group of scholars with truly differing points of view–something for which the organizers deserve a lot of praise. I presented a paper on the 50th anniversary this year of Wisconsin v. Yoder and received some very helpful comments. I look forward to seeing my essay in print in a forthcoming symposium edition of the Law Journal, and to reading the other participants’ papers!

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Upcoming Symposium on Religious Liberty at Loyola University Chicago

A programming note: I’m looking forward to participating in this upcoming symposium on religious liberty in Chicago later this spring. The editors of the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal have put together a great program and I’m honored to be among the contributors. Details below:

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal SymposiumDownload
2022 Symposium – Religious Liberty
2022 Symposium – Religious Liberty
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Webinar: “Churches: An Existence of their Own or Creatures of the Sovereign?”

Tomorrow, the James Wilson Institute and First Liberty Institute’s Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy will host a webinar analyzing the practical applications of moral reasoning in our legal system.

The event will be moderated by Hadley Arkes, Founder and Director of the James Wilson Institute and Edward N. Ney Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at Amherst College. The event will feature Adam MacLeod, Professor of Law at Faulkner University, Thomas Goode Jones School of Law and Research Fellow at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy and Robert Miller, Professor of Law at the University of Iowa, Affiliated Scholar of the James Wilson Institute, and a Fellow and Program Affiliated Scholar at the Classical Liberal Institute at New York University Law School.

The webinar will take place on October 14, 2021, from 2:00-4:00 pm EST. To register visit this link.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Webinar Next Week: Cultural Property in Law and Diplomacy

Next week, along with the Fletcher Initiative on Religion, Law, and Diplomacy at Tufts, the Centre for Religion and Culture at Oxford, and the Armenian Studies Program at Fresno State, the Center will co-sponsor a webinar on cultural property in law and diplomacy. The event will bring together a cross-disciplinary group of scholar-practitioners to discuss the challenges of and opportunities for preserving the rights of access to places of worship for religious groups in cases of contested spaces and in diverse conditions of active and non-active conflict. Speakers will include Narine Ghazaryan (Nottingham), Evanghelos Kyriakides (Kent), Peter Petkoff (Oxford), and Michalyn Steele (BYU). Center Co-Director Mark Movsesian will moderate, along with Sergio La Porta (Cal State-Fresno) and Elizabeth Prodromou (Tufts).

The webinar will take place on Thursday, October 14 at 12 pm EST. Posts from the participants will appear subsequently here on the Forum. Hope you can join us! For further information and a link to join the event, please see below:

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Call for Papers: “Governments’ Legal Responses and Judicial Reactions during a Global Pandemic: Litigating Religious Freedom in the Time of COVID-19”

The Journal of Church and State has announced a call for papers on the following topic:
“Governments’ Legal Responses and Judicial Reactions during a Global Pandemic: Litigating Religious Freedom in the Time of COVID-19.”

Scholars are invited to submit paper proposals that articulate, examine, and analyze judicial reactions to governments’ responses to the pandemic in different jurisdictions. Papers are expected to use state restrictive measures, international and domestic case law and church documents to support arguments.

Proposals must be submitted by November 20th, 2021. For more information and to submit a proposal, visit this link.