Conference | States of Devotion: Religion, Neoliberalism, and the Politics of the Body in the Americas

This conference aims to promote and strengthen interdisciplinary dialogue about the changing role and place of religious discourses and practices in the wake of the transformations wrought by neoliberal globalization upon communities, societies and polities across the Hemisphere. This event is part of a multi-year project on 'Religion and Politics in the Americas' funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. Starting from the understanding that conceptions and models of “pluralism” or “secularism” vary across national contexts and regional geographies, we want to focus our attention on the ways in which the retraction of the state and the unrestrained acceleration of economic forces and market logics—neoliberal globalization—have transformed the experience of religiosity as well as the role and influence of religion across the Americas. As religious life has become increasingly channeled through the complex mechanisms of a neoliberal marketplace, the market has increasingly taken on roles and functions previously occupied by the state across broad social arenas. These transformations have not only affected discrete areas of social and economic policy, such as health care, education and security, but have also given rise to new private-public interfaces such as faith-based initiatives and discourses of volunteerism that have supplanted the discourses of rights. This shift has also required the production of new kinds of subjects, emblematized by the shift from citizen to consumer. We are particularly interested in the ways in which religious diversity has been variously enabled, foreclosed, harnessed and even commodified by the neoliberal state. In this context, we also wish to explore how public debates over gender and sexuality serve as flashpoints illuminating the wider workings of the state's ongoing negotiation with religion and religious difference. Sexuality and sexual life more broadly connect individuals to the state as citizens, to the market as consumer-laborers, and to the supposedly traditional values represented by religion. But how this happens, and with what policy implications on a range of issues, will not be the same in every national context.

Confirmed speakers include: Ana Amuchástegui (Universidad Autonoma de Mexico), Roberto Blancarte (Colegio de Mexico), Tanya Erzen (Ohio State University), Liliana Felipe (Las Patronas), Emerson Giumbelli (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), Janet Jakobsen (Barnard College), Peter Kulchyski (University of Manitoba), Leda Martins (Federal University of Minas Gerais), Elizabeth McAlister (Wesleyan University), Bethany Moreton (University of Georgia), Kemy Oyarzún (University of Chile), Ann Pellegrini (NYU), Jesusa Rodriguez (Las Patronas), Pablo Seman (IDES/Colegio de Mexico), Kathleen Roberts Skerrett (Grinnell College), Winnifred Fallers Sullivan (University at Buffalo Law School, SUNY), Diana Taylor (NYU), Kimberly Theidon (Harvard University), and Sinclair Thomas (NYU).