Religion Call for Papers | @relcfp

Call for Abstracts: Special Issue of the Journal of Communication and Religion, “Religious Discourse in Legislative Spaces”

Contact:

• Andrea Terry, andrea.terry@csus.edu and Lionnell (Badu) Smith, lsmith1914@sfsu.edu

Guest Editors:

• Andrea Terry, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, CSU Sacramento
• Lionnell (Badu) Smith, Assistant Professor, San Francisco State University

Rationale:

We are in a moment where religious discourses are being used to justify all manner of legislation, from gender affirming care to abortion, education, immigration, and even international issues such as the ongoing genocide in Gaza. While scholars of communication and religion have examined how conservative, Christian discourses have been used in presidential rhetoric, we believe it is useful to explore how religious discourses are addressed from myriad perspectives in legislative spaces. For example, we might consider how progressive Christian rhetorics are used to support gender-affirming care, how Jewish voices speak out in opposition of funding for Israel’s military, how the Pope has supported queer rights, or how Muslim texts are referenced in debates over Middle Eastern policy in the United States. These examples, while by no means exhaustive, demonstrate that there is a vibrant and active diversity of religious discourses in U.S. legislation at the national, state, and local levels.  

In this special issue of the Journal of Communication and Religion, we seek to explore the different ways religious discourses are leveraged in spaces where policies and laws are made and debated. We define religious discourses in the broadest sense and welcome essays from scholars interested in grappling with the ways that legislative and religious discourses intersect This could include congressional hearings, committee meetings, state legislative bodies, school boards, city councils, and other analogous spaces. 

This special issue thus poses the following question: how are religious discourses being used to advance or challenge legislation at the local, state, and national level? Papers addressing this question could look at issues such as:

• separation of church and state
• freedom of speech, 
• the authority of religious rhetoric in legislative spaces, 
• the role of civil religion in authorizing religious discourse, 
• how historically minoritized religious discourses are being used in policy debate, rhetorical strategies,
• rhetorical histories of religious rhetoric in policy-making and debate. 

Studies from all methodological approaches are welcome. Article formatting and citation should conform to the most current MLA, Chicago, or APA standards, depending on which is most appropriate for the type of article submitted. Article length should not exceed 7,500 words (including notes, figures, and citations). 

Timeline: 

• Abstracts due: Friday, July 5th, 2024 
• Decisions finalized & authors contacted: Friday, July 19, 2024
• Essays due for initial review: Friday, August 30, 2024

Submission Guidelines:

• Abstracts should be no more than 500 words in length
• Abstracts must be submitted as an attached word document and include the author’s name, affiliation, and submission title 
• Abstracts should be submitted to andrea.terry@csus.edu no later than Friday, July 5th with the subject “JCR Special Issue Submission.”

Questions

Questions can be directed to Andrea Terry (andrea.terry@csus.edu) or Lionnell (Badu) Smith (lsmith1914@sfsu.edu).

Image Attribution

Photo by Iñaki del Olmo on Unsplash