Workshops

Social media has an increasing influence in our everyday life, including religious practices: religious communities inform believers about holidays and services via the accounts of the communities and lay people like, comment and share on pictures with religious motives and texts from religious scriptures. The functions of social media enable the reproduction of discursive power in societies and simultaneously permit  a cross-disciplinary investigation of everyday interactions. Nevertheless, the role of social media in religious practices is understudied. Through the exploration of religious engagements of social media, transformations and new understandings of religious practices can be revealed.

The target of this interactive online workshop is to highlight the significance of social media from a cross-disciplinary perspective in the area of humanities and reflect on the study of social media and religion methodologically. The two-day workshop covers theoretical and methodological aspects and will be complemented by discussions of case studies and practical assignments. In addition, experts from Computer Science and Religious Studies will give lectures on their topics and approaches.

We invite applications from master students up to postdocs from different disciplines such as Anthropology, Linguistics, Area, Religious and Media Studies who conduct research or plan to do so in the fields of social media and religion.

Interested applicants shall submit their application consisting of:

• Motivation letter mentioning their interest in the workshop and detailed description of their current or intended research related to social media and religion (500 words)
• Short biography (up to 100 words)

Registration: Please send your application by September 25, 2020 (24:00 CET) to: socialmedia.religion@gmail.com. (You can contact us via this email address for further questions.)

Notifications of acceptance: September 30, 2020

Registration fee: none

Grant: There will be a limited number of Internet grants for participants. Applicants who want to apply for the grant must submit a separate letter mentioning the reason why this grant is needed.

Certificates: Successful applicants will get a GRADE Certificate of Participation.

Call for Application (PDF)
Workshop Poster (PDF)

Organizers:

• Baktygul Tulebaeva (Goethe University Frankfurt)
• Evelyn Reuter (Friedrich Schiller University Jena)
• Hiwa Asadpour (Goethe University Frankfurt)

Lecturers and speakers:

• Anna Neumaier (Georg August University Göttingen, Substitute Professor for Cultural Sociology)
• Wajdi Zaghouani (Hamad Bin Khalifa University/Qatar, Assistant Professor College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Middle Eastern Studies Department)
• Baktygul Tulebaeva (Goethe University Frankfurt)
• Evelyn Reuter (Friedrich Schiller University Jena)
• Hiwa Asadpour (Goethe University Frankfurt)
• Farah Hasan (Humboldt University Berlin)

Program

Day 1: The Role of Social Media in Research

Day 2: Social Media in the Context of Religion