Religiosity, Secularity and Pluralism in the Global East

Dear Colleagues,

This is a call for papers for the Inaugural Conference of the East Asian Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, and we will select some papers addressing some of the issues to publish in the journal Religions.

East Asia is felt throughout the world. Whilst the region’s economic and political power has been a reason for both global integration and resistance in recent decades, its presence within the rest of the world has been forged over centuries of migration and the establishment and strengthening of diasporic communities. Such communities have helped to shape the societies and cultures of their host countries, of their home countries, and, through such interplay, of the diasporas themselves. To unify these constituent parts (host country, home country, diasporic community), and to represent both the expansion of East Asian influence around the world, and its reflexive relationship with the places in which it has taken root, Yang Fenggang’s concept of the “Global East” has been most helpful. The Global East encompasses not just the countries of East Asia—China, Korea and Japan—but these countries’ diasporic communities, and the transnational linkages that serve to connect and shape both country and community as well. Additionally, East Asia is also host to diasporic communities of its own, which adds another layer of connectivity and influence to the framing of the Global East.

The effects of the Global East are felt in many walks of life, but one of the most transformative has to be religion. The religious landscapes of China, Korea, and Japan (including but not limited to state-sponsored atheism, shamanism, Shintoism, resurgent Buddhism/Christianity) are replicated and challenged in their diasporic communities, which, over time, have been shaped by the religious traditions of Southeast Asia, Europe, North America, and beyond. For the diasporic communities located within East Asia, the reverse is also true. These linkages between home country and diasporic community, and between community and host country have led to the circulation and sharing of religion and religious idea(l)s, and to the sharpening or dilution of (anti-)religious sensibilities. Greater religious diversity is an invariable outcome of such processes, yet the extent to which such diversity leads to religious co-operation, competition or conflict within and between individuals, families, communities, organisations and territories still deserves much more research attention. Accordingly, there is a need for more focussed consideration of the topics of religiosity, secularity and pluralism in the Global East.

We are particularly interested in papers address one or more of the fellowing research questions:

• How do the constituent parts of the Global East influence the strengthening, weakening or changing of religion and religiosity at different social scales (from the individual to the community and nation)?
• How does secularity intersect with religiosity within the Global East, and how does each inflect the other?
• How does the religious diversity associated with the Global East lead to greater (or lesser) inter-religious and religious-secular co-operation, competition or conflict?
• How does an understanding of the Global East develop or challenge existing theoretical and empirical understandings of religiosity, secularity and pluralism?

Prof. Dr. Fenggang Yang
Prof. Dr. Francis Jae-ryong Song
Prof. Dr. SAKURAI Yoshihide
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 papers will be 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. 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.

• Religiosity
• Secularity
• Pluralism
• Global East
• East Asia
• China
• Hong Kong
• Japan
• Korea
• Singapore
• Taiwan
• Vietnam