The Patna Collective Rethinking Faith and Secularism Workshop Series/ Workshop II

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The Patna Collective

Call for Papers On Faith: The Transformative Possibilities

8th and 9th Dec, 2012 India International Centre, Delhi
It is an ambiguous theme that we propose. At first glance, it may seem that we are making a case for faith, arguing that it has precise ethical values that enable (positive) transformation. In actuality, we are trying to open up this very idea to critique: how does one define faith, or even delineate 'faith' from 'non-faith'? Why should one look for transformation within the domain of faith? What signifies faith if not 'transformation'? And perhaps, more fundamentally, what is transformation? We believe that it is important to interrogate transformation because it, in turn, leads us to review 'politics', 'power', 'rupture', 'crises', 'event', 'organization', 'ethics', 'transcendence' and 'immanence'. Each of these concepts has been organized and structured in a secular context and there is a possibility that it contains an 'excess' that is not captured in its historical meaning. Could the exploration of meanings from the perspective of faith possibly bring us closer to understanding that excess? Moreover, we believe that faith may be a useful lens to analyze transformation not the least because it helps us unpack faith itself as a category. What is faith? To begin with, how does one respond to the semantic choice between faith and religion to refer to a complex field that may encompass rituals, ethics, aesthetics, pedagogies, forms of life, community, ideology, culture, the quotidian, the spiritual and the material? Are faith and religion two terms with the same referents? If not, then to which practice or discourse might we attribute the cause for divergent meanings: to the 'secular'/'political' treatment of religion, and at the same time defining 'lived practices' in contrast to religion as institution, to traditions that claim to exceed the western concept of religion, or to embodied ethics of form? It might be useful to build on the idea of faith as 'excess' and to then use it as a site to interrogate transformation. Such an exercise will throw up more questions: Is critique necessarily secular or is there a possibility of critique from within faith? What lies at the threshold of secular critique and how might the history of secularism be retraced as the sequence of such thresholds? How can the dichotomy of rational critique and passionate claims be challenged to make a space for embodied reason and critical faith?

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The Patna Collective Rethinking Faith and Secularism Workshop Series/ Workshop II

Regarding faith in the context of transformation (or a transforming faith): what happens to faith as it transforms? How do practices of faith take form and how does the form continue to exist beyond its immediate context? How can emergence of, and modifications, alterations, suspensions and innovations in forms of faith be understood? What would be the elements of a form that develops in specific interactions, negotiations and limitations with (and of) a locality, territory or a concrete space? How do notions of belief, commitment, sentiment and passion, with which faith is often associated, get complicated when faith takes material forms, occupying physical spaces, leaving marks that may remain for centuries? These questions are not exhaustive. There is much else that is worthy of serious rethink and analysis. Thus The Patna Collective proposes a two-day workshop on the theme on December 8th and 9th, 2012. We hope to bring together a group of people to collaboratively develop the theme. It is also our hope that we may be able to work together on a possible publication. Thus, we invite papers, case studies or presentations in other imaginative forms/media, based on completed, ongoing or planned research, which draw upon, elaborate, critique, alternatively formulate or even disagree with the proposed theme. For the purposes of the workshop, we suggest the following subthemes: 1. Forms of Faith a. Specifying Faith: 'faith' and 'religion' b. Exploring the quotidian within faith: what is its significance? c. Forms of faith evolving in negotiations with the local. Materiality/ Immateriality of Faith a. Interrogating the visceral and the popular b. Interactions of faith/religion with political society, market and civil society c. Exploring the materiality of faith in the urban landscape d. Faith, history and memory Transcendence and Immanence a. Event as faith b. Formations of faith in the aftermath of an 'event' c. Faith as embodiment: the immanent critique

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We invite pitches and abstracts by October 15th, 2012 on the following email id: thepatnacollective@gmail.com. We will try to select abstracts that we could work with by October 22nd, 2012. The Patna Collective will provide travel bursaries and accommodation to participants from outside Delhi. We look forward to a great conversation together.