Undisciplining Religion and Science: Science, Religion and Nature

Dear Colleagues,

Decolonial thinker Sylvia Wynter has argued that the current disciplinary structure of the Western university system is inherently colonial, reflecting colonial interests and ideologies. It’s not merely the presence of these ideologies within individual disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, biology, botany, history, and even the field of religious studies; the whole idea of the split between the humanities and the sciences was formulated by Europeans within a progressive evolutionary framework that always placed Western European humans as the most advanced (in evolution, in culture, in art, in language, in religion, etc.). What we think of as “religion” and what we think of as “science,” for example, were formulated by European intellectuals during the period of European colonization and not only reflected their experiences, but also privileged them as superior and more civilized than the experiences of other peoples. Moreover, even the basic disciplinary distinction between the human and natural sciences reflects the Western (and monotheistic) idea that humans are somehow separate from the rest of the natural world, and thus privileges Western ways of thinking, and distorts or simply excludes other perspectives. This distinction between humans and nature (and the subsequent split between religion/humanities and the sciences) was used to define and legitimize Western religious and scientific practices over and against those of other peoples, consolidating Western norms and practices as “modern,” while defining non-Western practices, behaviors, and ideas as primitive, pre-modern, superstitious, or as “magical thinking.”

Ultimately, the hierarchical distinctions between human beings hinged upon what was understood as nature and what was understood as “above nature” (in particular that ideal human), connecting distinctions between humans to the distinction between human and nature, and to the disciplinary structure of the Western university. Rethinking the distinction between the humanities and the sciences, particularly our understanding of the categories of religion and science, is therefore fundamental to the task of rethinking knowledge production within the Western Academy. If the knowledge production that separated out “the human” from “nature,” and from each other, has brought us things like global climate change, mass extinction, gross economic inequity, gross environmental injustices, and institutionalized racism, sexism, ableism, and heterosexism, then it is time to re-think these modern, Western disciplines in ways that return humans to the rest of the natural world. (Ko)

This issue calls for essays that critically examine the knowledge promoted by modern Western universities in order to address the violence inherent in modern Western thought, in ways that undiscipline our thinking.  Using decolonial, queer, indigenous studies, new materialisms, and other critical theories, we seek essays for this issue that offer critical perspectives on Western disciplinary structures, especially religion and science, and describe ways to undiscipline our thinking and co-construct new discourses and truth regimes that focus more on connectivity, entanglement, and multiplicity, rather than reduction, separation, and single universal truths. 

Some questions that essays might address include:

• How and why is the current structure of modern Western disciplines problematic, specifically in the ways that it distinguishes “science” from “religion” or “the humanities” from the “natural sciences” (this can be historical or contemporary, and include decolonial critiques, critical race theory, queer studies, Indigenous, Latinx, or any other critical theories)
  • How has the moral imagination been eliminated from the current university and what role ought the moral imagination to play in education and knowledge production?
• What might it mean to decolonize or undiscipline religion, science, and technology? Can we decolonize knowledge, or is this another metaphor?
  • What would more just and ecologically sound disciplines look like?
• How do we work from within current university contexts to create spaces where decolonization/undisciplining can happen? How can we provide “hospice” for current university disciplines and serve as midwives for a new university still to come?
  • What are some specific “scyborg” (La Paperson) practices—academic, pedagogical, personal, political—that can open up sites for undisciplining or decolonizing the university and the disciplines of religion, science and technology (e.g., reading texts against each other, contextualizations, creating of physical spaces for undisciplined work)?
• What movements outside the university (activists, artists, literature, etc.) might help us decolonize or undiscipline the university?

Authors interested in contributing to this Special Issue should submit an abstract of about 300 words by October 15, 2023.  Decisions will be made by November 1, 2023. The editors would like to hold a Zoom symposium on March 1, 2024, for which short papers will be due by February 15, 2024 (of 2000-2500 words).  After that, authors will develop their shorter papers into 5,000-6,000 word essays that will be due on June 1, 2024.  All papers should fit within the broad aims and scopes of the journal Religions: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/about. In addition, the final essays should follow the Author Guidelines for Religions found here: https://www.mdpi.com/authors/references.

References

Aph, K. Racism as Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide to Getting Out; Lantern Books: Brooklyn, NY, USA, 2019.

Margaret, K. Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts, 2nd ed.; University of Toronto Press: Toronto, ON, Canada, 2021.

Walter, M. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options; Duke University Press: Durham, NC, USA, 2011.

La, P. A Third University is Possible; University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN, USA, 2017.

Tomoko, M. The Invention of World Religions: Or How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism; University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, USA, 2005. 

Lisa, S.; Bauman, W. Religion, Science and Technology in North America. For “Bloomsbury Religion in North America”; Bloomsbury Academic: London, UK, 2022.

Eve, T.; Yang, K.W. Decolonization is not a Metaphor. Decolonization Indig. Educ. Soc. 2012, 1, 1–40.

Sylvia, W. On Being Human as Praxis; Duke University Press: Durham, NC, USA, 2015.

Dr. Whitney Bauman
Dr. Lisa Stenmark
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• religion
• science
• and technology
• critical theories
• new materialisms
• de/postcolonial studies
• narrative thought
• Hannah Arendt