Call for Papers
The Religion in Society Research Network invites proposals for the Seventeenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society, to be held 24–25 June 2027, hosted by the University of Grenoble-Alpes, Grenoble, France.
The Seventeenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society brings together researchers, educators, practitioners, writers, religious leaders, and community stakeholders concerned with religion, spirituality, belief, ritual, ethics, and secularism as social, cultural, political, and mediated phenomena. The annual conference serves as a key meeting point for interdisciplinary inquiry into how religious and spiritual practices, institutions, identities, and imaginaries are being reshaped across diverse local and global contexts.
Special Focus and Conference Themes
The special focus of the 2027 conference, Contemporary Re-enchantments: Spiritual Mixing, Cultural Hybridity, and Religious Change in a Globalized World, explores the transformation of the global religious landscape. In many regions, this landscape is characterized, on the one hand, by a certain decline in religious institutions, and, on the other, by a renewal of individual, sometimes alternative, practices marked by neo-spirituality, new rituals born from hybrid beliefs, contemporary syncretisms, transcultural borrowings, digital practices, and community gatherings. Faced with these emerging hybridizations, some traditional forms remain while others are updated: they evolve and adapt to this new landscape. The study of these mutations invites us to consider their expressions, discourses, representations, and languages, as well as their cultural circulations and translations. The question then becomes how new religious imaginaries are being shaped today, mobilizing interdisciplinary tools from cultural studies, literature, visual arts, history, sociology, anthropology, and communication for their understanding.
Conference themes:
- Continuities, Revitalizations, and Adaptations of Religious Traditions: Liturgical renewal, doctrinal reconfigurations, strategies for adapting to social expectations and contemporary contexts, and tensions between continuity and innovation.
- Hybridizations and Religious Syncretism: Circulation of beliefs, permeability of practices, and reinvented esotericisms.
- Discourses, Narratives, and Mediations of Re-enchantment: Spiritual narratives in media, television series, literature, film, music, and video games.
- Digital Practices and Connected Spiritualities: Religion and the influence of social media, the staging and spectacularization of beliefs, new digital rituals, spiritual influencers, AI, and divinatory practices.
- Eco-spiritualities, Ecological Re-enchantment, and New Experiential Relationships: Fusions of ecology and religion, contemporary animisms, and the revitalization of indigenous cosmogonies in a globalized world.
- Translation, Transmission, and Transformation of Syncretic Practices: Ritual, symbolic, and linguistic translations of belief; cultural adaptation; and local reinterpretations of practices and cults.
Alongside the special focus, the conference welcomes proposals that address broader questions of religion, spirituality, secularity, belief, ritual, identity, ethics, mediation, and community in contemporary societies.
Knowledge Experience
The conference is organized as a hybrid knowledge experience, integrating in-person and online participation within a unified scholarly environment. Each presentation is supported by a Presentation Page, available to registered delegates as a key feature of participation. These pages allow presenters to share abstracts, media, and reflections, while giving delegates, especially those participating online, a central space to access content and engage in discussion before, during, and after the event.
In-person sessions in Grenoble are interwoven with live online presentations and asynchronous contributions within a single integrated program. Regardless of participation mode, all delegates have access to the full schedule, session media, and a growing digital archive. Across formats, the emphasis is on reciprocal, human-scale exchange—conversation, reflection, and collaborative inquiry rather than one-way presentation.
Publication Pathways
Presenters at the conference may choose to develop their work for publication in The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society and related book imprints of the Religion in Society Research Network.
Who Should Attend
We invite interdisciplinary proposals from the humanities, social sciences, arts, and related fields. We welcome proposal submissions for papers, workshops, colloquia, posters, and practice-based presentations. The conference offers an interdisciplinary forum for examining the continuities and transformations of religion and spirituality in a globalized world.
Sincerely,
Marion Le Corre-Carrasco, Conference Chair, Professor, University of Grenoble-Alpes, Grenoble, France
Dr. Luis G. Roger-Castillo, Research Network Chair, University of Jaén, Spain
Dr. Phillip Kalantzis-Cope, Chief Social Scientist, Common Ground Research Networks, United States of America