American Academy of Religion 2014 Annual Meeting - I

Coast Starlight

November 2014

San Diego, CA

Day One: Friday

The Pacific Surfliner Amtrak train arrived in San Diego at 1:00 a.m. on Friday, having boarded the Coast Starlight in Emeryville at 6:10 a.m. on Thursday.  Due to confused arrangements for lodging, I had no place to stay.  Took cab to home of my niece Ally and crashed on inflatable mattress in their living room.  The good news is that I got to spend a little time with her, her spouse Lisa, and their darling little Rockwell, aged 19 months, on Friday morning.  I taught him a new word.  He was identifying animals in one of his picture books.  He liked to go “hoo, hoo” when he saw owl.  He could say something approximating “sheep,” but didn’t have sheep’s sound.  I said “baaa, baaa” in a really croaky sheep voice, and he cracked up.  Now he has another word in his vocabulary: “baaa.”  Meaning I blew off the early Friday sessions I’d planned to attend.

Ally dropped me off at a hotel where I was staying for one night, thanks to my friend Megory Anderson of the Sacred Dying Foundation.  Checked in and made my way to the colossal San Diego Convention Center, where I picked up my nametag and bag.  (Purple this year, and sturdily made.)

Feeling a bit lost in the vastness of this convention center, I headed for familiar territory and found myself at the Forum on Religion and Ecology, Yale University, annual luncheon.  I decided to stay for a while because the luncheon was headed by John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker; John Grim and I had participated in The Biodiversity Project[1] Spirituality Working Group[2] at a small retreat near Madison, Wisconsin, in 1999.  The first person I encountered whom I knew was Bron Taylor, headed for this luncheon.  I was fortunate to have a little time for one-on-one with Bron, when we shared optimism about the emphasis on climate change at this AAR, and considered more recent changes in radical environmental activism with the death of such notables as my friend Sequoia in 2008.  I chatted with some of the organizers for a while because we were early, and learned that one of them, a man from Vermont, has a son who is a grower in California.  You never know.

Soon we were joined by Graham Harvey, Doug Ezzy, and others.  As I listened to every person in the room -- I would guess more than 100 -- introduce her or himself and say something about where they were working (universities, graduate students, NGOs, et al.), I was pleased to hear all the references to ecology, nature, climate change, and the like.  Of course, some went on and on explaining what they were doing, and that had to be checked so there was time for everyone else to speak.  I said I was from Covenant of the Goddess and Cherry Hill Seminary, indicating that CHS was the first and only Pagan seminary and that it operated in cyberspace (green, ya know), and that I lived in a county in a metropolitan area that, thanks to some far-seeing wealthy environmental activists and not to me, is zoned 70 percent open space.

I wasn’t able to stick around for very long because I left for a tête-à-tête with a Pagan pal from Colorado before the conference got too crazy.

Here are examples of a few of Friday’s sessions that intrigued me but that I couldn’t attend.

★     Religion and Media Workshop, “The History and Materiality of Religious Circulations,” a day-long seminar “designed to foster collaborative conversation at the cutting edge of the study of religion, media, and culture…[exploring] the history and materiality of religious circulations.”

★     Dharma Academy of North America (DANAM), “Polytheology: The Vision of Plural Divinities,” featuring, among others, papers on “Conceptualizing Divinity: One, None, or Many”; “Conceptualizing the Divine: How Hindu Deities Are Presented in High School World Religions Courses in Canada”; “Devotions of Attachment and Detachment & the Myriad Divinities of Jainism”; ”When Hanuman Became a Jain: The Miraculous Story of Babosa”; “Deities, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas: Nontheism in a Theocratic Universe.” 

For so many reasons these kinds of discussions interest me.  My fascination with Hinduism relates to my interest in having Pagans define who we are, as different religious paths and as a movement, which to my mind is similar to the diversity of people who fall under the general term “Hindu.”  Also because I have been devoted to Kali Ma for all of my Pagan life.  Further, because concepts of polytheism and monotheism (as in “we all come from the one” or “after all, we all worship the one god” – well, no, we don’t).

★    International Society for Science and Religion:  “Emergence and Complexity in Science and Religion.”… “current research on the religious and philosophical significance of scientific work on questions of emergence and complexity in cosmic and biological evolution.”  As one of those kinds of Pagans who holds scientific inquiry in high regard, mainly because scientific facts are more easily defended, can be replicated, are less likely to be colored by our personal filters, I’m constantly pondering the concordance of scientific fact with religious proclamations.

★    Psychology, Culture, and Religion Group: “Panel Discussion of Lucy Bregman’s The Ecology of Spirituality: Practice and Virtues in a Post-Religious Age.”  I have no idea who Lucy Bregman is, and I suspect she’s coming from an Abrahamic perspective; nonetheless, the topic of ecology and spirituality in an age of secularity interests me.  Now that I’ve looked her up, I can see that I’d be interested in her perspectives on death and dying and on mysticism.  I’m a bit familiar with one speaker, Kelly Bulkley, have heard him speak at a local independent bookstore, and because he does dream research and is also a homie (GTU in Berkeley), and Dr. Bregman was there to respond.

★    Women’s Caucus Brown Bag Luncheon: Ecofeminism and Earth Healing, which included, among others, “What Is Ecofeminism? Memorable Ideas in an Ongoing Conversation (1972-present)”; “Indian Women and Jainism: Toward an Ecofeminist Perspective”; and “Spiritual and Transformative Connections: Women’s Stories of Ecofeminist Activism and Artistic Expression.”  I’ve been working on a 90-minute presentation on “Mother Nature Speaks” for a webinar on ecofeminism for the Emergent Studies Institute.

★    Religion and Ecology Workshop:  “Religious Environmentalism and Environmental Activism.”  This was an afternoon-long workshop, at an extra charge, examining the fusion of religion and politics and politics in religious environmentalism,” considering people of “established faiths and of eclectic spirituality … engaged in environmental activism for explicitly religious or spiritual reasons.”  Well, this is many of us Pagans, isn’t it?  The workshop claimed to look at case studies, such as “civil disobedience by religious leaders over Keystone XL, interfaith reforestation efforts in Southern Africa, indigenous resistance to fracking,” progressive movements for democracy, racial and gender equality, workers’ rights, et al.  Obviously this session was one where I could have learned and shared.

Alas, I was wiped and didn’t feel really settled because I’d be changing my lodging on Saturday, so Megory and I arranged to rendezvous at our room and find a place to get a light meal.  As I was trekking my way back to our hotel, I encountered a man waving to me across the plaza.  It turned out to be Steve Wehmeyer, who’d only just arrived.  Proceeding from a big hug, we started an animated conversation.  I told him I was on my way to meet with Megory, so he walked me back to the hotel and we sat in the lobby for quite a while having a great talk.  He said some things to me that caused me to reflect upon my identity and place in the world of Pagandom.  I’m grateful for that.

Chas Clifton had told me earlier in the day that the likely gathering spot for us Pagan scholars – presuming to apply this term to myself merely because of the nature of the gathering – would be in the New Religious Movements (NRM) suite.  We referred to it as “The Pomegranate party” because so many connected with The Pom were likely to attend.  I told Steve when and where and off he went to enjoy the party, while Megory and I sought a restaurant and retired early.  Well, not too early, since this was also an opportunity for Megory and I to visit, which we did.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

---

[1]  In the intervening 15 years, it seems that The Biodiversity Project in Madison has changed its name to Bluestem Communications.

[2]  Something I wrote when I returned:  http://www.machanightmare.com/bcarchive/broomstick1.htm

Paganism and the Academy: A Brief Overview of Pagans at the AAR

The American Academy of Religion (AAR) celebrated 100 years at its Annual Meeting in Montreal in November. For four days scholars and theologians gathered to present papers, serve on panels and attend plenary addresses, films, concerts, walking tours, and concerts.

People who study Pagans and Paganism, as well as some who practice one or another form of Paganism, comprised a portion of the presenters and attendees. For about 12 years a Contemporary Pagan Studies group has been establishing its presence and credibility, organized by Chas Clifton, Michael York, Wendy Griffin, Kat McEachern and others. Thanks to them, Contemporary Pagan Studies is now an official Group within the AAR. (Areas of study begin as Consultancies. When they have attracted greater interest, they progress to become a Group. Fully established areas are called Sections.)

This year’s offerings in the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group and Indigenous Religious Traditions Group (combined) began on Saturday afternoon with a session on the theme of “Common Ground/Differences: Pagan and Indigenous Studies in Religion.” Suzanne Owen of Leeds Trinity spoke on “Indigenous Religious Expression? Mi’kmaq Tradition and British Druidry,” followed by “Houses for the Holy? A Reconstructionist Debate among Modern Norse Pagans,” by Michael F. Strmiska of Orange County Community College in Middletown, NY, then “The Goddess and the Virgin: Examining the Role of Statue Devotion in Western Europe,” by Amy Whitehead of The Open University in the UK. Ms. Whitehead compared the devotional practices of the Virgin of Alcala in Spain with those of a contemporary goddess temple in England. One scheduled presenter did not appear. Jace Weaver of the University of Georgia then responded to the three papers.

“Idolatry” was the theme of the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group session on Sunday morning. Graham Harvey of The Open University spoke on “Materiality and Spirituality Aren’t Opposites (Necessarily): Paganism and Objects,” followed by Bron Taylor of the University of Florida on “Terrapolitan Earth Religion or Ecototalitarianism? Assessing the Peril and Promise of Nature Religion in Environmental Governance,” and “Idolatry, Ecology, and the Sacred as Tangible” by Michael York of the Academy for Cultural and Educational Studies, London.

The third and final session of the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group addressed the theme “The Book and the Practice: The Relationship between Literature and Contemporary Paganism.” Four papers were read. Chas S. Clifton of Colorado State University, Pueblo, called his talk “Before Stranger: Twentieth Century Paganism as a Literary Response to Texts.” Christine Kraemer of Cherry Hill Seminary spoke on “Contemporary Paganism, Utopian Reading Communities, and Sacred Nonmonogamy: The Religions Impact of Heinlein and Starhawk’s Fiction,” followed by “Journeys Upstream and Encounters Across Time: Reading the Pagan and Indigenous through Cinema,” by Adrian Ivakhiv of the University of Vermont, and “Open Source Religions Versus Citationality: The Function of Literature in Contemporary Pagan Praxis,” by Megan Goodwin of the University of North Carolina. While all presenters put forth good data and analyses, I found Dr. Kraemer’s paper to be exceptionally informative, insightful and polished.

In addition, Pagan scholars contributed papers to other related Sections, most notably the Ritual Studies Group (“The Denial of Ritual”) and New Religious Movements, but also in the Death, Dying, and Beyond Consultation (“American Funerary Practices Since the 1960s”), Comparative Studies in Religion Section (“Trees, Goddesses, and Conflict in Myth and Theology”), Bioethics and Religion Group and Religion and Ecology Group (combined) (“Frankenfood, Bridges, and Hazards: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Social Justice and Sustainability in a Global Context”), Religion, Media, and Culture Group and Ritual Studies Group (“Exploring Ritual in Contemporary Media and Culture,” with one paper entitled “Performing Religion in Virtual Worlds: A Contested Field”), and Religion and Ecology Group (“Exploring Ecological Discourse in Global Contexts: Tensions and Tropes Rooted in Local Soils,” including papers on “Elephant Tails and a Mother’s Good Deeds: Local Expressions of Mother Earth Inspire Engaged Buddhism in Southeast Asia,” “Religion, Ecology, and Globalization (Colonialism, Imperialism, Population, Pronatalism, Political Holism, and Food),” and “Grow Bees Grow: Of the Sacred and of Human Affinity with Bees”).

A dean, a department chair, a Board member, and several faculty members from Cherry Hill Seminary attended sessions on many topics, from those on distance learning, a field in which Cherry Hill Seminary is in the vanguard, to those on Religion and Politics; Ethics; Science, Technology, and Religion; Music and Religion (“Oxum and Yansan: Candomblé Trickster Archetypal Models for Female Drummers,” “Scriptures, Soundtracks, and the Acrobatic Self: Reception and Use of the Music of U2 in the Contemporary Process of Identity Formation”); Religion, Medicines, and Healing; Queer Theory and LGBT Studies in Religion; and many others.

I attended on behalf of Cherry Hill Seminary and as an interfaith representative of the Covenant of the Goddess. I’ve managed to make it to most of the past 12 annual meetings and I really enjoy the stimulation, not to mention the opportunity to become acquainted with the best of Pagan scholars. (I took notes at some of the presentations I attended and plan to share my impressions in more detail in subsequent posts.)

Note: This piece previously published at examiner.com.