2017 Schedule
Day 1: Saturday, May 20
SOEB 174 (School of Education) - See the School of Education Building on a map!
8:45 – 9:00 am: Coffee and welcome by Professor Archana Venkatesan, Chair, Department of Religious Studies, UC Davis
9:00 – 10:30 am: Religious Rhetoric in Policy and Practice Decisions
Acacia Keith (UC Davis), Religious Concerns in Abortion Politics
Luna Salazar (UC Davis), Creation Care in Policy and Public Discourse: A comparative Study of Catholics and Southern Baptists in Environmental Rhetorical and Ideological Differences
Grace Zimmerman (Santa Clara University), The Help and the Harm: An examination of the trafficking prevention efforts of DhammaMoli – Saving the Young Girls in contrast with NGO efforts in the Kathmandu Valley
Respondent: Professor Rachel Gross (San Francisco State University)
10:30 – 10:45 am: Break
10:45-12:30: Festival, Spectacle, and Community in America
Gabrielle Banathy (UC Davis), Modern Family: Ritual in Festival Culture
Cynthia Alvarado (UC Davis), It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane! No, It’s Comic Con!
Steven Zepeda (UC Irvine), Sand, Wind and Fire: The Dunites’ Spiritual Religionship with the Oceano Dunes
Connor Austin (Humboldt State University), Exploring Bhakti and Boundaries in California Festival Culture
Respondent: Professor David Gray (Santa Clara University)
12:45 – 1:45 pm: Lunch in courtyard (between Sproul Hall and School of Education Building)
1:45 – 3:30 pm: Claiming the Land: Competition and Appropriation in Religious Landscapes
Ana Nunez (Pomona College), Blurred Lines: To see Beyond the Present in Early Latin Christian Pilgrim Accounts to the Holy Land
Anna Crossman (UC Santa Barbara), Legitimizing Conquest and Missionization Through Cultural Tourism
Alex Ditzel (UC Davis), Taking and Remaking the Arrow: Appropriation of Native American Traditions in the Boy Scouts of America
Caitlin Ruderman (Chapman University), Political Resistance as Sacred Space: The Manifestation of Progressive Divine Presence
Respondent: Professor Seth L. Sanders (UC Davis)
3:30 – 3:45 pm: Break
3:45 – 5:15 pm: Modern Museums as Sites of Religion; Death and Dying
Modern Museums as Sites of Religion:
Aileen Thong (University of San Francisco), Immaculate Collections: Post-Enlightenment Museum Culture and the 21st Century Aesthete
Eileen Yohannes (UC Davis), Walking the Line: An Analysis of the Museum on the Seam in Jerusalem and its Artful Address to the Holy City and its Religious and Secular Inhabitants
Death and Dying:
Sarah Potter (UC Davis), Death, Dying and Assisted Suicide
Respondent: Professor Rita Lucarelli (UC Berkeley)
5:15 – 5:45 pm: Pre-keynote refreshments, Student Community Center Multipurpose Room Patio (See the Student Community Center on a map!)
5:45 – 7:00 pm: Keynote Lecture: Professor Jeff Sharlet (Dartmouth College)
“Fables of the Trumpocene: On Reading and Reporting Religion in the Secular Kingdom”
Student Community Center Multipurpose Room
7:30 pm: Dinner for Conference Participants
Day 2: Sunday, May 21
SOEB 174 (School of Education) - See the School of Education Building on a map!
9:15 – 9:30 am: Coffee
9:30 – 11:15 am: Religious Identity and Adaptability
Mark Rivera (UC Davis), Self-Regulation in Buddhism and Christianity: An Investigation of Hyper and Hypo-Egoic Phenomena
Daniella Izaguirre (California Lutheran University), How Muslim Women Adapt to Islamophobia
Paul Kenniston (Santa Clara University), An Observation of the Prevalence of Romantic Love in Buddhism in Sikkim
Meaghan Ford (Sacramento State University), Studying Blended Families: An Exploration into Familiar Bonds in the Midst of Religious Difference
Respondent: Professor Harvey Stark (Sacramento State University)
11:15 – 11:30 am: Break
11:30 am – 1:00 pm: Finding the Sacred: Religious Communication and the Senses
Ariana Pemberton (UC Berkeley), Geography, Identity, and Monumentality: Global Cosmopolitanisms and the Martand Sun Temple in Kashmir
Syona Puliady (University of San Francisco), Mandatory Memories: Finding the Divine in Oral Tradition
Victoria Silva (Sacramento State University), Does Reading a Kindle Make One Less Holy? On the Quran and Technology
Respondent: Professor Vasudha Paramasivan (UC Berkeley)
1:00 pm: Closing