Srdjan Sremac | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (original) (raw)
Uploads
Books by Srdjan Sremac
Trauma and Nostalgia Practices in Memory and Identity, 2024
He earned a PhD from McGill University. His research interests include popular culture and theolo... more He earned a PhD from McGill University. His research interests include popular culture and theology, Christian-Muslim relations, and medieval theology and philosophy. M. Paula O'Donohoe holds a BA in social and cultural anthropology and an Erasmus Mundus MA in European studies. She is finalizing her PhD on transgenerational transmission of memories of the Spanish Civil War and Franco Regime across four generations at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Mario Panico is a lecturer and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Amsterdam and member of the Amsterdam School of Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM). His research interests include difficult heritage, memory spaces, nostalgia, and representations of perpetrators at trauma sites and in museums in Europe and South America. Trauma aNd NosTalgia Mariecke van den Berg is endowed professor of feminism and Christianity at Radboud University in Nijmegen and associate professor of religion and gender at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her work is often situated at the crossroads of religious studies and theology. Lucien van Liere is associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University. His research interests are in material and discursive representations of violent conflict as well as in micro-situational analyses of violence. Bram Verhagen is currently pursuing graduate studies at Lund University and the University of Hong Kong. He holds a BSc in political science and a BSc in sociology both from the University of Amsterdam. Verhagen's research explores the intersections between migration, global politics of knowledge, and East-West dichotomies.
He earned a PhD from McGill University. His research interests include popular culture and theolo... more He earned a PhD from McGill University. His research interests include popular culture and theology, Christian-Muslim relations, and medieval theology and philosophy. M. Paula O'Donohoe holds a BA in social and cultural anthropology and an Erasmus Mundus MA in European studies. She is finalizing her PhD on transgenerational transmission of memories of the Spanish Civil War and Franco Regime across four generations at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Mario Panico is a lecturer and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Amsterdam and member of the Amsterdam School of Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM). His research interests include difficult heritage, memory spaces, nostalgia, and representations of perpetrators at trauma sites and in museums in Europe and South America. Trauma aNd NosTalgia Mariecke van den Berg is endowed professor of feminism and Christianity at Radboud University in Nijmegen and associate professor of religion and gender at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her work is often situated at the crossroads of religious studies and theology. Lucien van Liere is associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University. His research interests are in material and discursive representations of violent conflict as well as in micro-situational analyses of violence. Bram Verhagen is currently pursuing graduate studies at Lund University and the University of Hong Kong. He holds a BSc in political science and a BSc in sociology both from the University of Amsterdam. Verhagen's research explores the intersections between migration, global politics of knowledge, and East-West dichotomies.
We invite scholars to contribute to a volume exploring the concept of ‘wild devotion’ in public r... more We invite scholars to contribute to a volume exploring the concept of ‘wild devotion’ in public rituals, particularly in the aftermath of tragic and traumatic events. This phenomenon, often marked by spontaneous gatherings and the placement of material objects (such as flowers, toys, photographs, or candles) at sites of sorrow, is intriguing for its non-religious nature yet profound transcendental undertones. The term 'wild devotion' (Stoffels, 2002) in this context refers to unofficial, still ungoverned and unregulated practices. It suggests a perception of institutionalized religion as being ‘tamed’, regulated , or integrated into powerful spiritual communities (Ganzevoort, 2011). However, the social dynamics and material presence of wild devotion provides a perspective for understanding the practice of ‘implicit lived religion’ in daily life, spanning domestic, and community spaces around places of trauma. Also, it suggests a perspective that addresses devotion in the space between traumatic events and grief on the one hand and political and religious discourses capturing these events and grief on the other. These contextualized viewpoints offer fresh insights into (a) spontaneous commemorative devotion in relation to trauma and grief and (b) the integration or ‘taming’ of this devotion by political, religious, or economic actors.
We encourage explorations of practices grounded in lived religious subjectivities/imaginaries and commitments to disrupt and resist trauma through 'wild devotion,' where multiple ontologies converge in these novel commemorative ritual spaces. When religious practices and material objects, along with the forms of belonging they foster undergo a process of both secularization and resacralization. This duality is why 'wild devotion' consistently serves as a facilitator of transcendence, transcending its own nature.
Pastoral Psychology, 2023
Using a biographical-reconstructive approach, we examine the interplay between the symbolic repre... more Using a biographical-reconstructive approach, we examine the interplay between the symbolic representation of spirit possession and healing forms of ritual purification in the context of the war-related trauma of former Lord's Resistance Army child soldiers in Uganda. We illustrate how these former child soldiers articulate their trauma and resilience and how their communities deal with forms of spirit possession, what the role of religious communities is, and how rituals function as a coping mechanism for war-related trauma. The narrative approach is used to analyze 12 digital reports of different nongovernmental organizations and five digital testimonies of former child soldiers. The results provide relevant knowledge for a successful reintegration of returnees into society.
The Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) invites chapt... more The Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) invites chapter-proposals for a volume on camera-based approaches to lived religion.
Dear Colleagues, This Special Issue of Religions will focus on trauma and lived religion in time... more Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue of Religions will focus on trauma and lived religion in times of pandemic. In particular, we seek to explore the implications of bringing trauma and religion together, so as to increase our understanding of the meaning of trauma for society, identity, religion, and everyday life in pandemic times; and the ways in which individuals and communities negotiate, transfigure, and transcend traumatic events and radical situations of anxiety, uncertainty, and vulnerability.
The current pandemic has impacted religious practices and responses in various ways. As the pandemic interrupts life and reconfigures the ways we see, know, understand, and engage with the world, lived religious world-making processes involve negotiations of various relationships between body, community, fear of death, anxiety, coping mechanisms, meaning, and the sacred. These processes take place in a realm where earlier taken-for-granted references have been traumatically interrupted and stripped of their previous significations. Lived religious subjectivities can, however, inform post-traumatic coping mechanisms, significantly contribute to the re-envisioning of traumatic responses, and open a regenerative realm of action, coping, and resilience.
The aim of the Special Issue is, therefore, to bring together scholars from different areas, disciplines, and interests to explore the links between lived religion and trauma studies in the context of pandemic times. Using lived religion as an approach to the interdisciplinary study of trauma allows for a wider interpretation of meaning and also provides an opportunity for a better understanding of spirituality, resilience, hope, anxiety, meaning making, religious coping, and rituals. It is this lived experience that itself invites an interdisciplinary approach and more inclusive and nuanced interpretations. Granting recent scholarly developments in attending to the disrupting power of traumatic experiences and its influence on lived religious world making, a profound reflection on the meaning of trauma for society, identity, religion, and everyday life in pandemic times is called for.
We invite contributions to this Special Issue based on empirical research and innovative theoretical constructions. We also hope that this Special Issue will inspire new topics and frameworks in the study of lived religion, trauma, and pandemics as possible sites of new knowledge production. Researchers from the social sciences, humanities, religious studies, and practical/empirical theology are invited to contribute to this volume.
Topics might include, but are by no means limited to, the following:
Public health and religion;
Collective trauma, uncertainty, and resilience;
The esthetics of illness and trauma;
The history of plagues and religion;
Materiality, lived religion, and pandemics;
Pandemics, trauma, and rituals;
The politics of trauma and pandemics;
Conspiracy theories, trauma, and religion;
Theology of illness and trauma;
Finding meaning in uncertain times (religious, spiritual, and secular);
Digital ethnography, trauma, and pandemics;
Lived religion, fear of death, and trauma;
Religious coping and pandemics;
Trauma, communities, and pandemics;
Religion and vaccination.
Dr. Srdjan Sremac
Mrs. Lenneke Post
Guest Editors
In the past few decades, we have witnessed the emergence of the research fields of both trauma an... more In the past few decades, we have witnessed the emergence of the research fields of both trauma and nostalgia. This volume seeks to explore implications of bringing the two together. Granting these scholarly developments in attending to the disrupting power of traumatic experiences, a profound reflection on the meaning of nostalgic longings for collective and individual identity, construction of the past, religion and everyday life is called for. In order to understand the processes through which trauma and nostalgia are constructed, and how they shape individual as well as collective identity, it is necessary to focus on the everyday experiences, interests, and needs of the different actors involved in this process. An interdisciplinary comparison of trauma and nostalgia allows for a wider interpretation of meaning and also provides an opportunity for better understanding of the integration of trauma in nostalgic sentiments and its impact on the construction of identities, intergenerational transmission of the past, practices of memorialization and commemoration, reconciliation, grief, justice, hope, forgiveness, cultural politics of memory construction and spirituality. In this volume we will look specifically at the integration of trauma into nostalgic memories with keen attention of their interaction in public spaces, patriotic symbolism and rituals, popular culture, cinematography, monuments, museums, commemoration sites and memorials. Media and other technologies of mass-culture have been called on to play a new and important role in circulating images and narratives about the traumatic and nostalgic past. In these processes, the linguistic/discursive and the physical/spatial/aesthetic dimensions of cultural, political, and religious narratives are inextricably intertwined. How nostalgia and trauma make both individual and collective memories fallible and subjective? How nostalgic sentiments romanticized traumatic pasts? How traumatic and nostalgic memory function as coping mechanisms in remembering the past? And how these affects, shape and integrate into individual and cultural memory/identity? Areas of interest for this volume include, but are not limited to, the following topics: • Theories of trauma and nostalgia
LIVED RELIGION, CONVERSION AND RECOVERY, 2020
The central theme of this book is the nexus between the self, the social, and the sacred in conve... more The central theme of this book is the nexus between the self, the social, and the sacred in conversion and recovery. The contributions explore the complex interactions that occur between the person, the sacred, and various recovery situations, which can include prisons, substance abuse recovery settings and domestic violence shelters.
With an interdisciplinary approach to the study of conversion, the collection provides an opportunity for a better understanding of lived religion, guilt, shame, hope, forgiveness, narrative identity reconstruction, religious coping, religious conversion and spiritual transformation. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of lived religion, religious conversion, recovery, homelessness, and substance dependence.
Sex trafficking is a crime that not only impacts victims physically or psychologically but also s... more Sex trafficking is a crime that not only impacts victims physically or psychologically but also spiritually. This article surveys the Polish Catholic context for sex trafficking alongside Christian responses to it with background interviews from those in anti-trafficking work. Analysis from a lived religion perspective is offered on how three Polish female survivors of sex trafficking talk about God in testimony. Their religious and cultural context also is considered when analyzing their narratives. Taken together the survivors and their supporters words reveal the vital themes of love and forgiveness. First forgiveness brings about love, which then stimulates the possibility of a new narrative identity construction. The freedom that a new narrative ushers in is transformative.
Analyses what people actually do, think, and feel in their everyday societal contexts to develop ... more Analyses what people actually do, think, and feel in their everyday societal contexts to develop a more nuanced insight into the relationship between religion and trauma
Adopts the general framework of everyday lived religion as the ethnographic and hermeneutical background for understanding the performative dimensions of ‘religion-in-action’
Critically correlates the experience of trauma with lived religious realities, symbols, texts, religious stories, contemplative practices and transcendental material/aesthetic meaning-making
The purpose of this article is to understand how people with substance dependence problems employ... more The purpose of this article is to understand how people with substance dependence problems employ testimonies of spiritual transformation to develop, cope and sustain a sense of personal identity and create meaning from conflicting (traumatic) life experiences. The quest to undo the struggling with substance dependence is seen as a spiritual attempt to reconfigure the person’s ‘spoiled identity’. Drawing on 31 autobiographies of people who recovered from substance dependence problems I analyzed their conversion testimonies in two European contexts (Serbia and the Netherlands, including a sample of immigrants). It draws on the observation that substance dependence often (though certainly not always) develops in response to life crises or trauma and identity confusion, while spiritual transformation, including religious conversion, can foster recovery. The study focuses specifically of the role of testimony in reconstructing a viable narrative of the self, accounting for trauma, substance dependence experience, and conversion and embedding in different social, cultural, and spiritual contexts. Finally, suggestions for the helping professions and care providers of substance dependence service will be offered.
The Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion invites chapter-essay proposals for an edite... more The Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion invites chapter-essay proposals for an edited volume Lived Religion and Participatory Democracy: Beyond Identity Politics. In the past decade or so, an observation that 'religion has returned into politics has become commonplace. The emphasis has normally been on the influence of religiously informed moralities, political ideas and parties, as well as religious identity politics, on contemporary politics around the world. There are, however, other angles from which the relation of religion and politics can be studied, and some of those angles have been underexplored. For example, very few careful studies have been done of either actual or potential ways in which lived religion contributes to, mixes with, or obstructs participatory democracy. This volume will bring together original essays which will explore – either theoretical or empirical or both – exactly this: the intersection between the above-mentioned research themes, the lived religion and participatory democracy. The focus on 'lived religion' means an ethnographic and hermeneutical framework for understanding the performative dimensions of religion as it functions in people's ordinary lives. The theme of participatory democracy, on the other hand, stands for political theories and arrangements which make a broad inclusion into the democratic process a top priority and include the commitment and/or policies that enable or even ensure broad participation, often not only in the political but also economic and social-communal decision-making. Areas of interest include, but are not strictly limited to, the following topics: • Different aspects of participatory democracy and the ways they intersect with the study of lived religion, that is: o Lived religion and direct democracy o Lived religion and economic democracy o Lived religion and environmental democracy o Lived religion and political activism • Lived religion form the perspectives of epistemology of democracy (e.g. Dewey, Foucault, Medina) and various political theories of participatory democracy (B. Kaufmann, T. Schiller, J. Fishkin)
Embodiment, Emplotment and Displacement (Eds. Srdjan Sremac, Peter-‐Ben Smit and Eddy van der Bo... more Embodiment, Emplotment and Displacement (Eds. Srdjan Sremac, Peter-‐Ben Smit and Eddy van der Borght, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Palgrave Studies in Lived Religion and Societal Challenges (Palgrave Macmillan) The Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion invites chapters for the volume Lived Religion and Migration. Although the subject of migration and/or displacement is particularly relevant in the current societal and political scholarly debate (attending especially to the distinction between refugees and economic migrants), it has also been of longstanding interest to scholars in the field of religion. This volume aims to take a lived religion perspective to migration, looking both at migrants' experiences and at groups in receiving societies. It will look at how religious identities and practices interact with performative bodily actions, spatial belonging, materiality, and language of the migrants and of the communities in which they arrive. Contested understandings of the body, space, and voice may enable or limit migrants to negotiate, affirm, cope, and maintain their religious and/or spiritual beliefs in relation to their displacement to a new (often secular) social environment and to sometimes multiple locations. They may also define how refugees and/or other migrants are perceived. Religious patterns of action and meaning are part and parcel of many migrants' response to voluntary and involuntary transitions but also of people voluntarily offering support or speaking out for the protection of society against the influx of migrants. How are these imagined communities construed and promulgated and what is the role of lived religion in these dynamics? The volume proposes to analyze the motions of displacement in relation to lived religion, concentrating on three areas that are of key significance in both religious traditions and experiences of displacement: body, space, and language. The significance of the body concerns the construction of a person's embodied existence (gender, race, health, etc.) when confronted with different bodies; the importance of space concerns the renegotiation of spatial belonging, the reconfiguration of " home " , the centre and the margin of one's world, the limits of hospitality, and so on. The centrality of language has to do with the experience of having to inhabit two (or more) languages at the same time, the need to find linguistic expression for traumatic experiences, and coping with new language barriers full of social and moral overtones. The traditional analysis of religion (focusing almost exclusively on collective phenomena, correlated with historical processes of ethnic, racial, and national group identity and heritage formations) omitted the critical from below view of everyday experiences and beliefs, grounded and lived in specific immediate surroundings. In contrast, lived religion is defined by the everyday habits and habitus of religious actors (religion from below), as well as the appropriations of repertoires that people encounter in religious and cultural traditions. A lived
![Research paper thumbnail of MEDIJI, RELIGIJA, NACIONALIZAM I TRANZICIONA PRAVDA [Media, Religion, Nationalism and Transitional Justice]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/45456362/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Religijski nacionalizmi na prostoru Zapadnog Balkana iako međusobno polarizovani i opterećeni raz... more Religijski nacionalizmi na prostoru Zapadnog Balkana iako međusobno polarizovani i opterećeni raznim antagonizmima imaju zapravo mnogo više zajedničkog. Viktimološki i mitološki narativ (Kosovski zavet, Antemurale Christianitatis), visok nivo konfesionalne identifikacije kojeg prati folklorni - deklarativni izraz religioznosti, antagonizmi prema seksualnim, verskim ili nacionalnim manjinama, evroskepticizam ili anti-zapadni resantiman, izjednačavanje verskog i nacionalnog identiteta neke su od gradivnih komponenti nacionalizama na prostoru Zapadnog Balkana koje bez sumnje utiču i oblikovanje dobrosusedskih odnosa i procesa suočavanja sa prošlošću na prostoru Zapadnog Balkana. Kakve su posledice ovakvih odnosa i kako one mogu uticati na dugoročnu situaciju u regionu? Kakva je uloga Medija u ovim procesima i da li se u ovom regionu, ili barem u nekim njegovim delovima, dešava relativizacija nacionalizma? Da li mediji svojim izveštavanjem povlađuju takvoj pojavi, što potom oživljava recidive prošlosti, i dovodi do porasta nasilja u društvu. Koliko mediji svojim senzacionalističkim i neetičkim pristupom zapravo propagiraju opravdavaju devijantne pojave, zaverenički diskurs, te populističku i ksenofobičnu retoriku. Koliko ova situcija u regionu zavisi od geopolitičkih uslova i velikih sila a koliko od neprevaziđenih podela na prostoru Balkana, na koji način prethodno pomenuti faktori utiču na odnose između Religije i Tranzicione pravde, neka su od pitanja kojima ćemo se baviti u ovom zborniku.
The Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion invites chapters for the volume Conversion a... more The Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion invites chapters for the volume Conversion and Lived Religion: Recovery, Imprisonment and Homelessness.
Religious and Sexual Nationalisms in Central and Eastern Europe: Gods, Gays, and Governments. pre... more Religious and Sexual Nationalisms in Central and Eastern Europe: Gods, Gays, and Governments. presents case studies from some ten countries that serve to explore the ways in which religion, nationalism, and (homo)sexuality intersect in public discourse. It shows how religious leaders, political and social movements, LGBT-organizations, governments, and media negotiate the powers of religion and state in taking position regarding sexual diversity. These negotiations are as much about sexual morality as they are about national identity, anti-EU sentiments, and the efforts of religious institutions to regain power in post-communist societies.
Europe as a Multiple Modernity: Multiplicity of Religious Identities and Belonging challenges the... more Europe as a Multiple Modernity: Multiplicity of Religious Identities and Belonging challenges the predominant modernity theory arguing that Europe can be considered as one multiple modernity. In that, the book presents a collection of essays that show plurality of discourses and variety in human self-reflexion on notions of religious and belonging in everyday lives. Emphasis is placed on religious actors and individuals in Europe, and multiplicity of their senses of religious identification and belonging.
Trauma and Nostalgia Practices in Memory and Identity, 2024
He earned a PhD from McGill University. His research interests include popular culture and theolo... more He earned a PhD from McGill University. His research interests include popular culture and theology, Christian-Muslim relations, and medieval theology and philosophy. M. Paula O'Donohoe holds a BA in social and cultural anthropology and an Erasmus Mundus MA in European studies. She is finalizing her PhD on transgenerational transmission of memories of the Spanish Civil War and Franco Regime across four generations at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Mario Panico is a lecturer and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Amsterdam and member of the Amsterdam School of Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM). His research interests include difficult heritage, memory spaces, nostalgia, and representations of perpetrators at trauma sites and in museums in Europe and South America. Trauma aNd NosTalgia Mariecke van den Berg is endowed professor of feminism and Christianity at Radboud University in Nijmegen and associate professor of religion and gender at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her work is often situated at the crossroads of religious studies and theology. Lucien van Liere is associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University. His research interests are in material and discursive representations of violent conflict as well as in micro-situational analyses of violence. Bram Verhagen is currently pursuing graduate studies at Lund University and the University of Hong Kong. He holds a BSc in political science and a BSc in sociology both from the University of Amsterdam. Verhagen's research explores the intersections between migration, global politics of knowledge, and East-West dichotomies.
He earned a PhD from McGill University. His research interests include popular culture and theolo... more He earned a PhD from McGill University. His research interests include popular culture and theology, Christian-Muslim relations, and medieval theology and philosophy. M. Paula O'Donohoe holds a BA in social and cultural anthropology and an Erasmus Mundus MA in European studies. She is finalizing her PhD on transgenerational transmission of memories of the Spanish Civil War and Franco Regime across four generations at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Mario Panico is a lecturer and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Amsterdam and member of the Amsterdam School of Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM). His research interests include difficult heritage, memory spaces, nostalgia, and representations of perpetrators at trauma sites and in museums in Europe and South America. Trauma aNd NosTalgia Mariecke van den Berg is endowed professor of feminism and Christianity at Radboud University in Nijmegen and associate professor of religion and gender at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her work is often situated at the crossroads of religious studies and theology. Lucien van Liere is associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University. His research interests are in material and discursive representations of violent conflict as well as in micro-situational analyses of violence. Bram Verhagen is currently pursuing graduate studies at Lund University and the University of Hong Kong. He holds a BSc in political science and a BSc in sociology both from the University of Amsterdam. Verhagen's research explores the intersections between migration, global politics of knowledge, and East-West dichotomies.
We invite scholars to contribute to a volume exploring the concept of ‘wild devotion’ in public r... more We invite scholars to contribute to a volume exploring the concept of ‘wild devotion’ in public rituals, particularly in the aftermath of tragic and traumatic events. This phenomenon, often marked by spontaneous gatherings and the placement of material objects (such as flowers, toys, photographs, or candles) at sites of sorrow, is intriguing for its non-religious nature yet profound transcendental undertones. The term 'wild devotion' (Stoffels, 2002) in this context refers to unofficial, still ungoverned and unregulated practices. It suggests a perception of institutionalized religion as being ‘tamed’, regulated , or integrated into powerful spiritual communities (Ganzevoort, 2011). However, the social dynamics and material presence of wild devotion provides a perspective for understanding the practice of ‘implicit lived religion’ in daily life, spanning domestic, and community spaces around places of trauma. Also, it suggests a perspective that addresses devotion in the space between traumatic events and grief on the one hand and political and religious discourses capturing these events and grief on the other. These contextualized viewpoints offer fresh insights into (a) spontaneous commemorative devotion in relation to trauma and grief and (b) the integration or ‘taming’ of this devotion by political, religious, or economic actors.
We encourage explorations of practices grounded in lived religious subjectivities/imaginaries and commitments to disrupt and resist trauma through 'wild devotion,' where multiple ontologies converge in these novel commemorative ritual spaces. When religious practices and material objects, along with the forms of belonging they foster undergo a process of both secularization and resacralization. This duality is why 'wild devotion' consistently serves as a facilitator of transcendence, transcending its own nature.
Pastoral Psychology, 2023
Using a biographical-reconstructive approach, we examine the interplay between the symbolic repre... more Using a biographical-reconstructive approach, we examine the interplay between the symbolic representation of spirit possession and healing forms of ritual purification in the context of the war-related trauma of former Lord's Resistance Army child soldiers in Uganda. We illustrate how these former child soldiers articulate their trauma and resilience and how their communities deal with forms of spirit possession, what the role of religious communities is, and how rituals function as a coping mechanism for war-related trauma. The narrative approach is used to analyze 12 digital reports of different nongovernmental organizations and five digital testimonies of former child soldiers. The results provide relevant knowledge for a successful reintegration of returnees into society.
The Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) invites chapt... more The Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) invites chapter-proposals for a volume on camera-based approaches to lived religion.
Dear Colleagues, This Special Issue of Religions will focus on trauma and lived religion in time... more Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue of Religions will focus on trauma and lived religion in times of pandemic. In particular, we seek to explore the implications of bringing trauma and religion together, so as to increase our understanding of the meaning of trauma for society, identity, religion, and everyday life in pandemic times; and the ways in which individuals and communities negotiate, transfigure, and transcend traumatic events and radical situations of anxiety, uncertainty, and vulnerability.
The current pandemic has impacted religious practices and responses in various ways. As the pandemic interrupts life and reconfigures the ways we see, know, understand, and engage with the world, lived religious world-making processes involve negotiations of various relationships between body, community, fear of death, anxiety, coping mechanisms, meaning, and the sacred. These processes take place in a realm where earlier taken-for-granted references have been traumatically interrupted and stripped of their previous significations. Lived religious subjectivities can, however, inform post-traumatic coping mechanisms, significantly contribute to the re-envisioning of traumatic responses, and open a regenerative realm of action, coping, and resilience.
The aim of the Special Issue is, therefore, to bring together scholars from different areas, disciplines, and interests to explore the links between lived religion and trauma studies in the context of pandemic times. Using lived religion as an approach to the interdisciplinary study of trauma allows for a wider interpretation of meaning and also provides an opportunity for a better understanding of spirituality, resilience, hope, anxiety, meaning making, religious coping, and rituals. It is this lived experience that itself invites an interdisciplinary approach and more inclusive and nuanced interpretations. Granting recent scholarly developments in attending to the disrupting power of traumatic experiences and its influence on lived religious world making, a profound reflection on the meaning of trauma for society, identity, religion, and everyday life in pandemic times is called for.
We invite contributions to this Special Issue based on empirical research and innovative theoretical constructions. We also hope that this Special Issue will inspire new topics and frameworks in the study of lived religion, trauma, and pandemics as possible sites of new knowledge production. Researchers from the social sciences, humanities, religious studies, and practical/empirical theology are invited to contribute to this volume.
Topics might include, but are by no means limited to, the following:
Public health and religion;
Collective trauma, uncertainty, and resilience;
The esthetics of illness and trauma;
The history of plagues and religion;
Materiality, lived religion, and pandemics;
Pandemics, trauma, and rituals;
The politics of trauma and pandemics;
Conspiracy theories, trauma, and religion;
Theology of illness and trauma;
Finding meaning in uncertain times (religious, spiritual, and secular);
Digital ethnography, trauma, and pandemics;
Lived religion, fear of death, and trauma;
Religious coping and pandemics;
Trauma, communities, and pandemics;
Religion and vaccination.
Dr. Srdjan Sremac
Mrs. Lenneke Post
Guest Editors
In the past few decades, we have witnessed the emergence of the research fields of both trauma an... more In the past few decades, we have witnessed the emergence of the research fields of both trauma and nostalgia. This volume seeks to explore implications of bringing the two together. Granting these scholarly developments in attending to the disrupting power of traumatic experiences, a profound reflection on the meaning of nostalgic longings for collective and individual identity, construction of the past, religion and everyday life is called for. In order to understand the processes through which trauma and nostalgia are constructed, and how they shape individual as well as collective identity, it is necessary to focus on the everyday experiences, interests, and needs of the different actors involved in this process. An interdisciplinary comparison of trauma and nostalgia allows for a wider interpretation of meaning and also provides an opportunity for better understanding of the integration of trauma in nostalgic sentiments and its impact on the construction of identities, intergenerational transmission of the past, practices of memorialization and commemoration, reconciliation, grief, justice, hope, forgiveness, cultural politics of memory construction and spirituality. In this volume we will look specifically at the integration of trauma into nostalgic memories with keen attention of their interaction in public spaces, patriotic symbolism and rituals, popular culture, cinematography, monuments, museums, commemoration sites and memorials. Media and other technologies of mass-culture have been called on to play a new and important role in circulating images and narratives about the traumatic and nostalgic past. In these processes, the linguistic/discursive and the physical/spatial/aesthetic dimensions of cultural, political, and religious narratives are inextricably intertwined. How nostalgia and trauma make both individual and collective memories fallible and subjective? How nostalgic sentiments romanticized traumatic pasts? How traumatic and nostalgic memory function as coping mechanisms in remembering the past? And how these affects, shape and integrate into individual and cultural memory/identity? Areas of interest for this volume include, but are not limited to, the following topics: • Theories of trauma and nostalgia
LIVED RELIGION, CONVERSION AND RECOVERY, 2020
The central theme of this book is the nexus between the self, the social, and the sacred in conve... more The central theme of this book is the nexus between the self, the social, and the sacred in conversion and recovery. The contributions explore the complex interactions that occur between the person, the sacred, and various recovery situations, which can include prisons, substance abuse recovery settings and domestic violence shelters.
With an interdisciplinary approach to the study of conversion, the collection provides an opportunity for a better understanding of lived religion, guilt, shame, hope, forgiveness, narrative identity reconstruction, religious coping, religious conversion and spiritual transformation. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of lived religion, religious conversion, recovery, homelessness, and substance dependence.
Sex trafficking is a crime that not only impacts victims physically or psychologically but also s... more Sex trafficking is a crime that not only impacts victims physically or psychologically but also spiritually. This article surveys the Polish Catholic context for sex trafficking alongside Christian responses to it with background interviews from those in anti-trafficking work. Analysis from a lived religion perspective is offered on how three Polish female survivors of sex trafficking talk about God in testimony. Their religious and cultural context also is considered when analyzing their narratives. Taken together the survivors and their supporters words reveal the vital themes of love and forgiveness. First forgiveness brings about love, which then stimulates the possibility of a new narrative identity construction. The freedom that a new narrative ushers in is transformative.
Analyses what people actually do, think, and feel in their everyday societal contexts to develop ... more Analyses what people actually do, think, and feel in their everyday societal contexts to develop a more nuanced insight into the relationship between religion and trauma
Adopts the general framework of everyday lived religion as the ethnographic and hermeneutical background for understanding the performative dimensions of ‘religion-in-action’
Critically correlates the experience of trauma with lived religious realities, symbols, texts, religious stories, contemplative practices and transcendental material/aesthetic meaning-making
The purpose of this article is to understand how people with substance dependence problems employ... more The purpose of this article is to understand how people with substance dependence problems employ testimonies of spiritual transformation to develop, cope and sustain a sense of personal identity and create meaning from conflicting (traumatic) life experiences. The quest to undo the struggling with substance dependence is seen as a spiritual attempt to reconfigure the person’s ‘spoiled identity’. Drawing on 31 autobiographies of people who recovered from substance dependence problems I analyzed their conversion testimonies in two European contexts (Serbia and the Netherlands, including a sample of immigrants). It draws on the observation that substance dependence often (though certainly not always) develops in response to life crises or trauma and identity confusion, while spiritual transformation, including religious conversion, can foster recovery. The study focuses specifically of the role of testimony in reconstructing a viable narrative of the self, accounting for trauma, substance dependence experience, and conversion and embedding in different social, cultural, and spiritual contexts. Finally, suggestions for the helping professions and care providers of substance dependence service will be offered.
The Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion invites chapter-essay proposals for an edite... more The Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion invites chapter-essay proposals for an edited volume Lived Religion and Participatory Democracy: Beyond Identity Politics. In the past decade or so, an observation that 'religion has returned into politics has become commonplace. The emphasis has normally been on the influence of religiously informed moralities, political ideas and parties, as well as religious identity politics, on contemporary politics around the world. There are, however, other angles from which the relation of religion and politics can be studied, and some of those angles have been underexplored. For example, very few careful studies have been done of either actual or potential ways in which lived religion contributes to, mixes with, or obstructs participatory democracy. This volume will bring together original essays which will explore – either theoretical or empirical or both – exactly this: the intersection between the above-mentioned research themes, the lived religion and participatory democracy. The focus on 'lived religion' means an ethnographic and hermeneutical framework for understanding the performative dimensions of religion as it functions in people's ordinary lives. The theme of participatory democracy, on the other hand, stands for political theories and arrangements which make a broad inclusion into the democratic process a top priority and include the commitment and/or policies that enable or even ensure broad participation, often not only in the political but also economic and social-communal decision-making. Areas of interest include, but are not strictly limited to, the following topics: • Different aspects of participatory democracy and the ways they intersect with the study of lived religion, that is: o Lived religion and direct democracy o Lived religion and economic democracy o Lived religion and environmental democracy o Lived religion and political activism • Lived religion form the perspectives of epistemology of democracy (e.g. Dewey, Foucault, Medina) and various political theories of participatory democracy (B. Kaufmann, T. Schiller, J. Fishkin)
Embodiment, Emplotment and Displacement (Eds. Srdjan Sremac, Peter-‐Ben Smit and Eddy van der Bo... more Embodiment, Emplotment and Displacement (Eds. Srdjan Sremac, Peter-‐Ben Smit and Eddy van der Borght, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Palgrave Studies in Lived Religion and Societal Challenges (Palgrave Macmillan) The Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion invites chapters for the volume Lived Religion and Migration. Although the subject of migration and/or displacement is particularly relevant in the current societal and political scholarly debate (attending especially to the distinction between refugees and economic migrants), it has also been of longstanding interest to scholars in the field of religion. This volume aims to take a lived religion perspective to migration, looking both at migrants' experiences and at groups in receiving societies. It will look at how religious identities and practices interact with performative bodily actions, spatial belonging, materiality, and language of the migrants and of the communities in which they arrive. Contested understandings of the body, space, and voice may enable or limit migrants to negotiate, affirm, cope, and maintain their religious and/or spiritual beliefs in relation to their displacement to a new (often secular) social environment and to sometimes multiple locations. They may also define how refugees and/or other migrants are perceived. Religious patterns of action and meaning are part and parcel of many migrants' response to voluntary and involuntary transitions but also of people voluntarily offering support or speaking out for the protection of society against the influx of migrants. How are these imagined communities construed and promulgated and what is the role of lived religion in these dynamics? The volume proposes to analyze the motions of displacement in relation to lived religion, concentrating on three areas that are of key significance in both religious traditions and experiences of displacement: body, space, and language. The significance of the body concerns the construction of a person's embodied existence (gender, race, health, etc.) when confronted with different bodies; the importance of space concerns the renegotiation of spatial belonging, the reconfiguration of " home " , the centre and the margin of one's world, the limits of hospitality, and so on. The centrality of language has to do with the experience of having to inhabit two (or more) languages at the same time, the need to find linguistic expression for traumatic experiences, and coping with new language barriers full of social and moral overtones. The traditional analysis of religion (focusing almost exclusively on collective phenomena, correlated with historical processes of ethnic, racial, and national group identity and heritage formations) omitted the critical from below view of everyday experiences and beliefs, grounded and lived in specific immediate surroundings. In contrast, lived religion is defined by the everyday habits and habitus of religious actors (religion from below), as well as the appropriations of repertoires that people encounter in religious and cultural traditions. A lived
Religijski nacionalizmi na prostoru Zapadnog Balkana iako međusobno polarizovani i opterećeni raz... more Religijski nacionalizmi na prostoru Zapadnog Balkana iako međusobno polarizovani i opterećeni raznim antagonizmima imaju zapravo mnogo više zajedničkog. Viktimološki i mitološki narativ (Kosovski zavet, Antemurale Christianitatis), visok nivo konfesionalne identifikacije kojeg prati folklorni - deklarativni izraz religioznosti, antagonizmi prema seksualnim, verskim ili nacionalnim manjinama, evroskepticizam ili anti-zapadni resantiman, izjednačavanje verskog i nacionalnog identiteta neke su od gradivnih komponenti nacionalizama na prostoru Zapadnog Balkana koje bez sumnje utiču i oblikovanje dobrosusedskih odnosa i procesa suočavanja sa prošlošću na prostoru Zapadnog Balkana. Kakve su posledice ovakvih odnosa i kako one mogu uticati na dugoročnu situaciju u regionu? Kakva je uloga Medija u ovim procesima i da li se u ovom regionu, ili barem u nekim njegovim delovima, dešava relativizacija nacionalizma? Da li mediji svojim izveštavanjem povlađuju takvoj pojavi, što potom oživljava recidive prošlosti, i dovodi do porasta nasilja u društvu. Koliko mediji svojim senzacionalističkim i neetičkim pristupom zapravo propagiraju opravdavaju devijantne pojave, zaverenički diskurs, te populističku i ksenofobičnu retoriku. Koliko ova situcija u regionu zavisi od geopolitičkih uslova i velikih sila a koliko od neprevaziđenih podela na prostoru Balkana, na koji način prethodno pomenuti faktori utiču na odnose između Religije i Tranzicione pravde, neka su od pitanja kojima ćemo se baviti u ovom zborniku.
The Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion invites chapters for the volume Conversion a... more The Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion invites chapters for the volume Conversion and Lived Religion: Recovery, Imprisonment and Homelessness.
Religious and Sexual Nationalisms in Central and Eastern Europe: Gods, Gays, and Governments. pre... more Religious and Sexual Nationalisms in Central and Eastern Europe: Gods, Gays, and Governments. presents case studies from some ten countries that serve to explore the ways in which religion, nationalism, and (homo)sexuality intersect in public discourse. It shows how religious leaders, political and social movements, LGBT-organizations, governments, and media negotiate the powers of religion and state in taking position regarding sexual diversity. These negotiations are as much about sexual morality as they are about national identity, anti-EU sentiments, and the efforts of religious institutions to regain power in post-communist societies.
Europe as a Multiple Modernity: Multiplicity of Religious Identities and Belonging challenges the... more Europe as a Multiple Modernity: Multiplicity of Religious Identities and Belonging challenges the predominant modernity theory arguing that Europe can be considered as one multiple modernity. In that, the book presents a collection of essays that show plurality of discourses and variety in human self-reflexion on notions of religious and belonging in everyday lives. Emphasis is placed on religious actors and individuals in Europe, and multiplicity of their senses of religious identification and belonging.
When Did We See You Naked?, Mar 1, 2021
Religija i tolerancija, 2010
... Oxford: Oxford University Press. Koenig, HG (1998) The healing power of faith. New York: Simo... more ... Oxford: Oxford University Press. Koenig, HG (1998) The healing power of faith. New York: Simon & Schuster. ... Addiction, 93(7): 979-990. Monti, PM, Damaris, RR, Colby, CM, Abrams, DB (1995) Coping and social skills training. ...
In this paper we analyze activist tactics in two films from the post-Yugoslav region, Ahmed Imamo... more In this paper we analyze activist tactics in two films from the post-Yugoslav region, Ahmed Imamović’s film Go West (2005) and Srđan Dragojević’s film Parada (The Parade 2011). Particularly, we focus on the alliances between male dominated society and homosexuality which contain a form of resistance to the dominant discourses of sexual and religious nationalisms in the region. Our claim is that a step-by-step approach but also sometimes really dubious tactics need to be adopted in order to be able to successfully penetrate into the heteronormative environment. We argue that setting up an alliance between the father figure and the gay figure in Bosnia and Herzegovina as presented in Go West is one of the tactics of the rhetoric of detournement from a common discourse of no alliances and a constant conflict between them. The idea of such alliance shows solidarity between nationalists and queer community. Similar alliances are addressed also in the case of Parada which presents an imag...
Lived Religion and the Politics of (In)Tolerance, 2017
For that reason, there is a clear shortfall in the existing literature in terms of analysing live... more For that reason, there is a clear shortfall in the existing literature in terms of analysing lived religion in the virtual (online) spaces. Lived Religion and Sexual Nationalism in Serbia With the fall of Communism and the strengthening of the civil war in the Western Balkans, a revitalization of religion occurred in the Serbian public and political sphere, exemplified by the prominent place of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the public space (Drezgić, 2010). The rise of religious nationalism in Serbia today is partly attributable to current post-conflict and economic problems, notably the conversion from communism to nationalism, the establishment and expansion of religion as a new dominant ideology, and the failures of secular politicians to distance themselves from the church leaders. Despite the constitutional warrants for secularity and strict separation of church and state, in reality this separation does not exist. The Serbian Orthodox Church constantly blurs the boundaries between the ethnic or national and the religious, thus contributing to the process of "ethnogenesis and national jockeying" (Kalaitzidis, 2012, p. 67). Indeed, nationalism, especially in its ethnocentric and religiously driven manifestations, is certainly one of the greatest problems that Serbian Orthodox Church faces today (Džalto, 2013). In this context, sexual diversity has become a pivotal issue of contestation and a topic on which strong nationalist and religious identities amalgamate. A theologically Orthodox piety that seeks to protect traditional values and aspires national power sits uncomfortably within issues of sexual diversity. Moss (2002, p. 338) argues that nationalism in Serbia has "reaffirmed the traditional gender roles: men are macho warriors, women are at home, caring for the extension of the nation by giving birth to children; homosexuals are traitors to the nation." Along the same lines of argument, Isanović (2007, p. 52) notes that in postconflict societies of the former Yugoslavia gender differentiation was polarized to the extreme, in ways that "men are perceived as warriors and women as mothers and victims, thus contributing to the strengthening of traditional power relations, social and cultural roles and norms." This polarized gender system is put to the test leading to a 'crisis of masculinity' in the post-socialist and post-conflict Serbia and an ensuing ambivalent attitude towards sexual diversity. Because of huge unemployment rate in Serbia and the devastating consequences of ongoing transitions, men struggle to find a new sense of identity beyond the one that was defined by the socialist labor and the 'warrior' type of masculinity during the war (Zorgdrager, 2013). In a way, we can say that masculinity is in transition as well.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The introduction to the volume first outlines the central theme of this book, which is the nexus ... more The introduction to the volume first outlines the central theme of this book, which is the nexus between the self, the social, and that which someone deems sacred in religious conversion and recovery. The editors describe how the collection invites readers into a deeper exploration of the life of lived religion and how it functions to keep alive the possibility that underneath recovery processes is a transformative realm that might bring things back into a meaningful order. Thus, the introduction consists of an overview of existing research on spiritually based treatment and recovery movements, lived religion, and conversion, how these topics intersect, and how the chapters in this volume fit the overarching theme. Afterward, the editors outline the structure of the volume, briefly describing each chapter.
Europe as a Multiple Modernity: Multiplicity of Religious Identities and Belonging challenges the... more Europe as a Multiple Modernity: Multiplicity of Religious Identities and Belonging challenges the predominant modernity theory arguing that Europe can be considered as one multiple modernity. In that, the book presents a collection of essays that show plurality of discourses and variety in human self-reflexion on notions of religious and belonging in everyday lives. Emphasis is placed on religious actors and individuals in Europe, and multiplicity of their senses of religious identification and belonging.
Practical Theology, 2020
ABSTRACT This research analysed the data gathered from ten interviews with Eritrean newcomers liv... more ABSTRACT This research analysed the data gathered from ten interviews with Eritrean newcomers living in Amsterdam on the relation between their experiences of lived religion and the experience of their process of integration in the Netherlands. The narratives reflect the participants’ attempts to combine their religious worlds, which are one of the few things they brought from Eritrea, with their new lives in their newly found place of residence. The narratives provide rich examples of their willingness to negotiate the ‘rules of religion’ with ‘the rules of the host culture’. Finally, suggestions for the helping professions and care providers of newcomers’ service will be offered.
In this paper we analyze activist tactics in two films from the post-Yugoslav region, Ahmed Imamo... more In this paper we analyze activist tactics in two films from the post-Yugoslav region, Ahmed Imamovic’s film Go West (2005) and Srđan Dragojevic’s film Parada (The Parade 2011). Particularly, we focus on the alliances between male dominated society and homosexuality which contain a form of resistance to the dominant discourses of sexual and religious nationalisms in the region. Our claim is that a step-by-step approach but also sometimes really dubious tactics need to be adopted in order to be able to successfully penetrate into the heteronormative environment. We argue that setting up an alliance between the father figure and the gay figure in Bosnia and Herzegovina as presented in Go West is one of the tactics of the rhetoric of detournement from a common discourse of no alliances and a constant conflict between them. The idea of such alliance shows solidarity between nationalists and queer community. Similar alliances are addressed also in the case of Parada which presents an imag...
We propose a new approach based on a local Hilbert transform to design non-Hermitian potentials g... more We propose a new approach based on a local Hilbert transform to design non-Hermitian potentials generating arbitrary vector fields of directionality, ⃗(⃗), with desired shapes and topologies. We derive a local Hilbert transform to systematically build such potentials, by modifying background potentials (being either regular or random, extended or localized). In particular, we explore particular directionality fields, for instance in the form of a focus to create sinks for probe fields (which could help to increase absorption at the sink), or to generate vortices in the probe fields. Physically, the proposed directionality fields provide a flexible new mechanism for dynamically shaping and precise control over probe fields leading to novel effects in wave dynamics.
The central theme of this book is the nexus between the self, the social, and the sacred in conve... more The central theme of this book is the nexus between the self, the social, and the sacred in conversion and recovery. The contributions explore the complex interactions that occur between the person, the sacred, and various recovery situations, which can include prisons, substance abuse recovery settings and domestic violence shelters. With an interdisciplinary approach to the study of conversion, the collection provides an opportunity for a better understanding of lived religion, guilt, shame, hope, forgiveness, narrative identity reconstruction, religious coping, religious conversion and spiritual transformation. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of lived religion, religious conversion, recovery, homelessness, and substance dependence.
Journal of Empirical Theology, 2018
The purpose of this article is to understand how people with substance dependence problems employ... more The purpose of this article is to understand how people with substance dependence problems employ testimonies of spiritual transformation to develop, cope and sustain a sense of personal identity and create meaning from conflicting (traumatic) life experiences. The quest to undo the struggling with substance dependence is seen as a spiritual attempt to reconfigure the person’s ‘spoiled identity’. Drawing on 31 autobiographies of people who recovered from substance dependence problems I analyzed their conversion testimonies in two European contexts (Serbia and the Netherlands, including a sample of immigrants). It draws on the observation that substance dependence often (though certainly not always) develops in response to life crises or trauma and identity confusion, while spiritual transformation, including religious conversion, can foster recovery. The study focuses specifically of the role of testimony in reconstructing a viable narrative of the self, accounting for trauma, subst...
In the past few decades, we have witnessed the emergence of the research fields of both trauma an... more In the past few decades, we have witnessed the emergence of the research fields of both trauma and nostalgia. This volume seeks to explore implications of bringing the two together. Granting these scholarly developments in attending to the disrupting power of traumatic experiences, a profound reflection on the meaning of nostalgic longings for collective and individual identity, construction of the past, religion and everyday life is called for. In order to understand the processes through which trauma and nostalgia are constructed, and how they shape individual as well as collective identity, it is necessary to focus on the everyday experiences, interests, and needs of the different actors involved in this process. An interdisciplinary comparison of trauma and nostalgia allows for a wider interpretation of meaning and also provides an opportunity for better understanding of the integration of trauma in nostalgic sentiments and its impact on the construction of identities, intergenerational transmission of the past, practices of memorialization and commemoration, reconciliation, grief, justice, hope, forgiveness, cultural politics of memory construction and spirituality. In this volume we will look specifically at the integration of trauma into nostalgic memories with keen attention of their interaction in public spaces, patriotic symbolism and rituals, popular culture, cinematography, monuments, museums, commemoration sites and memorials. Media and other technologies of mass-culture have been called on to play a new and important role in circulating images and narratives about the traumatic and nostalgic past. In these processes, the linguistic/discursive and the physical/spatial/aesthetic dimensions of cultural, political, and religious narratives are inextricably intertwined. How nostalgia and trauma make both individual and collective memories fallible and subjective? How nostalgic sentiments romanticized traumatic pasts? How traumatic and nostalgic memory function as coping mechanisms in remembering the past? And how these affects, shape and integrate into individual and cultural memory/identity? Areas of interest for this volume include, but are not limited to, the following topics: • Theories of trauma and nostalgia