Religion Graduate Student Conference 2022, Shaping the Anthropos: Cosmologies, Mythologies and Logics of Subjecthood

April 7th, 2023

8.30am-8.00pm (Event time is displayed in EDT and Zoom links will be sent out upon registering on the website)

We are excited to welcome you to this year's Religion Department Graduate Student Conference Shaping the Anthropos: Cosmologies, Mythologies and Logics of Subjecthood. The conference will be held in-person at Barnard Hall in James Room and Seminar Hall 409b in-person and on zoom on Friday, April 7th, 2023.

In this conference, we are interested in exploring the Human, as a contingent terminology and taxonomic category, which has shaped and been shaped in the imbrications of cultural imaginaries deployed under the signs of the cosmos, mythos, and religio-logics. The department of religion's graduate student conference interrogates and extrapolates the various ways in which Human subjecthood has been interpellated through the self and the Other--in its various forms: political, gendered, animal, unhuman, artificial, etc.

We begin with a keynote session by Dr. Mayanthi Fernando (UCSantaCruz), followed by graduate student presentations organized into three sessions, each with two concurrent panels: Session 1 panels on Animacy and resistance, Contested terrains of the Self, followed by Session 2 panels on Precarities and valours of Death, Decolonizing biopolitical narratives, followed by Session 3 panels on Dialectics of the Body, and Technicity and Posthuman Imaginaries. We have a seminar session after lunch break with Professor Saurabh Dube (El Colegio De México), and a closing plenary session with Dr. Tiffany Hale (Columbia) and Dr. Yannik Thiem (Columbia).

All zoom registration links, panel details, and paper titles can be found on our website!

Our one-day conference is organized and sponsored by Columbia University Department of Religion and co-sponsored by: Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life, Arts and Science Graduate Council, Barnard Religion Department, Barnard Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures Department, Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, South Asia Institute, Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender, and Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies.

Keynote Session | 9 AM -10 AM

Mayanthi L. Fernando (James Room & Zoom A)*

Session 1 [concurrent] panels | 10 AM - 12 PM

Animacy and Resistance (James Room & Zoom A)* 
Contested Terrains of the Self (Room 409b & Zoom B)*

Seminar Session | 1 PM - 2 PM

Saurabh Dube (James Room & Zoom A)*

Session 2 [concurrent] panels| 2 PM- 4 PM

Precarities & Valors of Death (James Room & Zoom A)*
Decolonizing Biopolitical Narratives (Room 409b & Zoom B)*

Session 3 [concurrent] panels| 4 PM- 6 PM

Dialectics of the Body (James Room & Zoom A)* 
Technicality and Posthuman Imaginaries (Room 409b & Zoom B)*

Closing Plenary Session | 6:30 PM- 8 PM

Tiffany Hale & Yannik Thiem (James Room & Zoom A)* 

​​​​​​​Please visit columbiareligion.weebly.com for zoom links and more details