Annual Research Theme

Trauma and Coping with Trauma in World Religions

- CSoC's Research theme for the 2024-2025 Academic Year
  Trauma is defined as an event that is perceived as physically or psychologically threatening to a person or society, and which is accompanied by the experience of loss of control and helplessness.
  Religions provide a variety of tools for coping with personal and collective traumas, while empirical studies demonstrate that religious faith aids in recovering from traumatic events, both on the personal and on the collective level.
  Traumatic experiences may also change religious views, the responsibilities of religious leaders, the resilience and functioning of religious communities, and even one's religious affiliation. Religious traditions and communities are shaped by traumatic events related to defeat in battle, conquest and exile, natural disasters, and forced religious conversion. Such events (e.g. the destruction of the Temple, the conquest of Baghdad by the Mongols, the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, the Spanish colonization of the Inca, the Shoah, 9/11, the Yom Kippur War) had an impact on the explanation of sacred texts, theology, religious law, liturgy, rituals, religious creativity of all kinds, and the relation to the Other. On occasion, such traumas gave birth or strengthened mystical currents and messianic movements or precipitated religious schisms.
  In the academic year 2024-2025, the Center for Religious Conversion and Interreligious Encounters at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (CSoC) will focus on the coping with trauma among the world religions. We invited proposals on the part of scholars researching any of the world religions or comparative religious studies in any of the following disciplines: anthropology, art and literature, conflict resolution religious studies, cultural studies, history, psychology, and sociology.
  Proposals could have dealt with any of the following topics:
  - * Religious faith or practice and individual coping with personal or collective traumatic experience
  - * Clergy and religious leaders as agents of coping with trauma
  - * The religious community's dealing with personal and/ or collective trauma
  - * Religious conversion as a response to trauma
  - * Disasters and traumas in exegesis, theological literature, liturgy or religious rituals
  - * Religious law for situations of catastrophe and trauma
  - * Forgetting and re-membering trauma in religious contexts
  - * Revenge and reconciliation in religious faiths.
  View the candidates who were accepted and learn about their research topics here:
  https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/csoc/pages/news/Fellows_2024-2025.aspx
  
  For more information on CSoC, see our website, Facebook or YouTube pages.
  Questions and inquiries can be directed to Prof. Daniella Talmon-Heller