Peace History Society seeks submissions on theme of “Historical Perspectives on War, Peace, and Religion”

The PEACE HISTORY SOCIETY invites paper proposals for its ninth international conference that focus on the interrelationships among war, peace and religion.  Religious traditions and beliefs have always played a prominent role in study of war and peace, as in  scholarship on the Crusades, Islamic Jihad, Joan of Arc, Mohandas Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffer Khan, Thich Nhat Hanh, The Asian Conference of Religions for Peace and Christian Peacemakers Teams. This conference seeks to shed light on the relationship religious traditions and beliefs have had with the making of war and peace in all areas of the world.  We are most interested in papers that take a historical approach to this topic. We welcome panel and paper proposals that compare different historical periods and geographies as well as those that focus on a particular event, person, place or time-period.  Paper proposals about peace history not related to the conference theme will also be considered.

Topics might include but are not limited to: the role religious traditions and figures have historically played in peacemaking ; the historical development of the just war theory and its relationship to religious belief; comparative analysis of the understandings of war and peace within and among particular religious traditions;   historiographical examination of how religious tradition, beliefs, images and performances that have been interpreted in histories of war and peace; exploration of how individuals engage religion to make meaning of their experiences of peace and war.

Limited travel assistance might be available for graduate student presenters.  Strong conference papers will be given consideration for publication in a special issue of the journal Peace & Change to be co-edited by the program co-chairs.  For more information on the PHS and for conference updates, visit the PHS website at www.peacehistorysociety.org.  Please forward proposals for individual papers or a panel (limit of 250 words per paper) and a one page CV for each participant to both program committee co-chairs by February 1, 2015:

Prudence Moylan
Department of History
Loyola University Chicago
[email protected]

Benjamin Peters
Department of Religious Studies and Theology
University of Saint Joseph
[email protected]