Expanding the Boundaries of Unitarian Universalist Studies
Note: this announcement includes information about the Convocation 2025 dates, location, speakers, and themes. However, the final date to submit papers/proposals has passed – was Nov 24, 2024. Convo 2025 full program announcement is forthcoming.
Scholarship on Unitarian Universalism has focused primarily on white elite men in the Northeast or the Midwest and the field has been dominated by historians and theologians. This conference seeks to move beyond the traditional subjects of Unitarian Universalist scholarship and expand the geographical, thematic, and chronological scope of the field. The 2023 UUSN Convocation sought to widen the circle and this Convocation seeks to make it wider still. We thus invite papers on the broad range of topics in American and global Unitarian Universalism, including, but not limited to, explorations of race, gender, and class; religious and spiritual hybridity and Unitarian Universalism; and Unitarianism and Universalism outside of the United States.
We highly encourage interdisciplinary panels that consider Unitarian Universalism from a variety of fields and perspectives, including the arts, digital humanities, history, philosophy, environmental justice, theology, community activism, women’s and gender studies, and more.
The Unitarian Universalist Studies Network invites scholars across career stages and affiliations (from graduate students to senior faculty and independent scholars) to submit proposals for scholarly papers (20-minute presentations), organized panels of three or four papers, poster presentations, film-screenings, and workshops. We will accept individual paper submissions, but will give preference to full panel proposals. Proposals should be submitted via email (Christopher.Cameron@charlotte.edu) as a PDF by November 24, 2024.
Location and Date: November 6-9, 2025 in Charlotte, NC
Individual proposals should include: an abridged C.V. (1-2 pages) and abstract of no more than 250 words that includes the author’s full name, institutional affiliation (if any), phone number, email address, proposed format (paper, poster, etc.), and A/V equipment needs.
Complete panel proposals should include: (1) a panel abstract and title (2) a 250- word abstract for each paper (3) names, contact information, institutional affiliation (if any), and an abridged C.V. for each presenter (4) names and contact information for the panel chair and commentator (5) format of the presentation (paper, panel, poster, workshop, etc.) and A/V equipment requirements.
Convocation Keynote Speakers:
1. Emily Dumler-Winkler is an assistant professor of constructive theology at Saint Louis University. She received an M.Div, a Th.M. in Moral Theology, and a Ph.D. in Religion and Society from Princeton Theological Seminary. Her research interests include virtue theory, Christian ethics, social theory, and modern religious thought. She is the author of Modern Virtue: Mary Wollstonecraft and a Tradition of Dissent (2022).
2. Peter Wirzbicki received his Ph.D. in History from New York University and is an assistant professor of history at Princeton University. He is an intellectual historian of the 19th century United States. His scholarship focuses on the relationship between American intellectual life, political movements, and cultural expression. His first book, Fighting for the Higher Law: Black and White Transcendentalists Against Slavery (2021), examines how Transcendentalist ideas influenced the political strategies, ideologies, and struggles of the abolitionist movement.
Convocation Program Committee:
- Christopher Cameron, University of North Carolina at Charlotte (Chair)
- Rev. Mykal Slack, Community Minister for Worship and Spiritual Care, Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism
- Gloria Korsman, Associate Librarian for Research Services, Harvard Divinity School
- Rev. Dr. Andrea Johnson, Unitarian Universalist Community Minister, Affiliated with the First Universalist Church of Minneapolis
- Rev. Dr. Colin Bossen, Senior Minister, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston
- Rev. Dr. Meg Richardson, Associate Professor of Unitarian Universalist History, Starr King School for the Ministry