​​​​​Trauma and Coping with Trauma in Wor​ld Religi​​​​​o​​​​​​​​​ns

Call for Outstanding Research Candidates for th​​e 2024-25 Aca​demic 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 and means 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.

On the other hand, traumatic experiences may 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, traumas gave birth or strengthened mystical currents and messianic movements or precipitated religious schisms.

In the academic year 2024-2025, the Center for the Study of Religious Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (CSoC) will focus on the coping with trauma among the world religions. We invite proposals from scholars researching any of the world religions or engaging in comparative religious studies in any of the following disciplines: anthropology, art, literature, conflict resolution religious studies, cultural studies, history, psychology, and sociology.

Proposals may deal 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

• * Religious communities and religious individuals facing 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
  

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• CfA 2024-5 Religious Trauma - Doctoral Candidates - English.pdf
  

• קול קורא תשפה - טראומה דתית - דוקטורט - עברית.pdf
  
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• CfA 2024-5 Religious Trauma - PostDocs - English.pdf
  

• קול קורא תשפה - טראומה דתית - בתר-דוק - עברית.pdf​