Comparative Theology

2025 Call for Papers

Bennett Comerford, Harvard University (MA)

bec500@mail.harvard.edu

Alaina Keller, Georgetown University (DC)

ak1978@georgetown.edu

The Comparative Theology Section invites papers that explore the 2025 College Theology Society conference theme of “The Locus of the Theological Vocation.” This section is particularly interested in proposals on the following questions and topics:

• Address the context of comparative theology. How does the location of comparative theology affect its process, its methods, and its conclusions? How does the context of comparative theology, as the meeting point of other religions, cultures, and languages, affect the theologian’s understanding of comparative theology?
• Where is comparative theology being done in non-academic settings?  What changes to comparative theology emerge in these spaces, and what are the merits or drawbacks of such changes?  Do these changes affect the interreligious dialogue that develops from comparative theology?  What can theologians in academic settings and in the Church learn from the theology being done in these spaces?
• In what ways might new theological loci enable new participants or elevate obscure voices in the practice of comparative theology?  What aspects of these new contexts enable these voices to be heard, and how can those voices be integrated into comparative theology done in academic settings and the Church?
• How has the practice of comparative theology adjusted to increasingly precarious contexts, including not only the academic setting but locations of political, religious, or ecological instability?
• How might comparative theology guide considerations of theological vocations beyond Christianity?
• Although the increased movement of peoples worldwide yields more interreligious encounters, what does a diminished presence of comparative theology in higher education mean for the future of these encounters?  What is the Church’s role in that future? What theological responses, grounded in comparative theology, would help to facilitate these encounters?

We are excited to invite modes of conference presentations besides the typical 20-minute paper-reading, such as one or a combination of the following:

• Sending out articles, texts, or other sources ahead of time for discussion in the session
• Recording a video presentation to be viewed by participants ahead of time (connected to other source texts, discussion, etc.)
• Connecting with local artists, activists, interreligious or interfaith groups, parishes, churches, non-Christian places of worship and their communities, colleges, schools, etc., for a collaborative proposal.
• Engaging and collaborating with Native American activists, scholars, communities and more
• Or any other alternative mode of conference presentations you may suggest

Proposals outside of the conference theme but still related to comparative or interreligious theology, theology of religions, or interreligious dialogue are welcome.

Proposals should be 250-500 words in length and include one’s current institutional affiliation and position. Proposals should be emailed to both conveners by December 15, 2024. Scholars will be notified of the status of their proposals by mid-January.