[Commlist] Call for Proposals: Religion and Media in the Age of Polycrisis

Call for Proposals: Religion and Media in the Age of Polycrisis
Kristin Peterson (petersub /at/ bc.edu) <mailto:(petersub /at/ bc.edu)>
14th Biennial Conference of the International Society of Media, Religion 
and Culture
Boston College, USA
6-8 August 2025

Keynote speakers:

  * Amanda Lagerkvist, Professor at Department of Informatics and Media,
    Uppsala University, Sweden
  * Margarita Guillory, Associate Professor of Religion and African
    American Studies at Boston University
  * Mara Einstein, Professor of Media Studies, Queens College, CUNY

The submission deadline for paper proposals and panel discussions has 
been extended to _Friday, February 14_.

For more information about the conference, to read the Call for Papers, 
and to submit abstracts, visit https://www.ismrc.org/25boston 
<https://www.ismrc.org/25boston>

+++

Call for Proposals
Religion and Media in the Age of Polycrisis
14th Biennial Conference of the International Society of Media, Religion 
and Culture
Boston College, USA 6-8 August 2025

The climate crisis, global pandemics, natural disasters, wars, economic 
uncertainty, energy shortages and crises of pluralistic democratic 
societies are among the oft-mentioned crises permeating the 
contemporary, global public discourse and policy debates of the last 
decade. Discussions about “the epistemological crisis,” the crisis of 
meaning, the crisis of truth and crises of pluralistic democratic 
societies emphasize the conflicts of values and the overarching concern 
over the erosion of social cohesion in contemporary societies.
“Polycrisis” is one of the buzzwords that has appeared to describe the 
widespread feeling that unprecedented events keep presenting themselves 
one after the other. The concept, originally developed by complexity 
theorists Edgar Morin and Anne Brigitte Kern in 1999, aims to describe 
the system of entangled and escalating problems, or “interwoven and 
overlapping crises … [the] complex inter-solidarity of problems, 
antagonisms, crises, uncontrollable processes, and the general crisis of 
the planet.” Used by the historian Adam Tooze in a 2022 article in The 
Financial Times, the concept soon inspired the participants of the World 
Economic Forum at Davos and ended up as a core concept in the Global 
Risk Report produced by the WEF in January 2023.
It can be said that the polycrisis takes place on and through our 
commodified, transnational media environment. The Internet has 
undoubtedly provided avenues for participation and activism but the 
algorithmic logics of social media have also been demonstrated to 
prioritize aXective and conflictual modes of communication making liberal 
democratic societies vulnerable to dis- and misinformation, hybrid 
warfare and demagoguery. Growing populist and even totalitarian trends 
in diXerent parts of the world combined with the leaps taken in the 
development of facial recognition, generative AI and robotics are among 
the trends pointing towards yet another crisis in the making.
In addition, the polycrisis of the contemporary communication and 
technological environments ensnares questions of beliefs, worldviews and 
values. The cascading crises of various meaning- making systems 
strengthen feelings of uncertainty and ambiguity. Conflicts are 
heightened as ideologies, worldviews and beliefs are being challenged in 
a global context, spanning borders, languages, and platforms. Getting 
one’s arms around understanding the polycrisis, not to mention creating 
constructive responses and measures in addressing some of its elements, 
becomes harder in an attention economy.
The diXerent aspects of the polycrisis–and discourses about the 
polycrisis–pose profound social, cultural and religious challenges. In 
particular, they call for a reevaluation of the relationship between 
humans, animals, nature, and technology. Religion and media as human 
structures for

communication, social interaction, rituals, value-formation and 
meaning-making in many ways sit at the nexus of the constituent elements 
of the polycrisis as well as responses to it.
Thus, the conference invites proposals (250 words) for panels and 
roundtable sessions as well as individual papers. Panel and roundtable 
proposals should also include paper titles, 150-word abstracts for each 
paper, and names and titles of up to four participants (in addition a 
panel moderator or respondent can be included).
Please note that conference attendees are not allowed to be included in 
more than two presentations (i.e., present on a panel and oXer a paper, 
take part in a panel and a roundtable, or have their names listed on two 
papers). Paper and panel sessions will be conducted in English.
Potential panel, roundtable, and paper proposals may address, but should 
not be limited to, the following themes:
•	Media, religion and culture scholarship responding to polycrisis
•	Social media, misinformation and religion
•	Online religious discourse on climate crisis and natural disasters
•	Indigenous traditions and crisis
•	Media, migration, refugees and religion
•	War, religion and politics
•	Authoritarianism, religion and politics
•	Media, religion and economic inequality
•	Religious nationalism, populism and media
•	Religious conflict in the media
•	Conflict resolution, religion and media
•	Conspiracy theories and spirituality online
•	Media, social justice and religion
•	Religion, gender, media and crisis
•	Religion and marketing
•	The commodification of religion
•	Artificial Intelligence in connection to polycrisis
•	Artificial intelligence and perceptions of humanity
•	Datafication of religion
•	Representations of religion and polycrisis

Submission: Please send proposals via the Google Form on the ISMRC 
website (ismrc.org) under “Conferences.”
Important dates: Deadline: 31 January 2025 | Notification of acceptances: 
15 March 2025
Any queries, please contact: (sam.han /at/ brunel.ac.uk).
*Note: There will also be a formal announcement of a pre-conference 
doctoral colloquium, the details of which will be distributed in due course.

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