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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Our final session is a critical conversation between Dr George Gonzalez and @drfstewart.bsky.social on the topic of "Doing Research in Challenging Times" exploring how one navigates the current climate in academia, how one finds & grows community, how one navigates the need to have a multi job life.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Our second paper for the panel is by @drfstewart.bsky.social who is speaking on "Challenging Disability Narratives: Implicit religion, DIY Punk and Healthcare Outcomes." As that is me, I can't live post it - not quite at that stage of multi-tasking.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Implicit religion allows us to examine systems of commitment. Integrating foci and intensive concerns with extensive effects in this community care in this context becomes a structure of devotion, of obligation, of continuity, and of meaning making. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Panel 3 begins with a presentation by Sarah Obenauer, who is speaking on "The Three Rs of Care: Chronic illness and Implicit Religion in Central Appalachia." #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

We now have a workshop being delivered by @davidfeltmate.bsky.social on demistifying the publication process. Dr Feltmate is the editor in chief of the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture: www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/j... Workshops are not live posted as people are working on live projects.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

For Bailey, religion has not retreated from public life, but has become so seamlessly woven into daily practices that often goes unrecognised. AI may listen, respond, & affirm in ways that are programmed to be 'secular', yet simultaneously cultivate effective states that resemble devotional forms.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Next up we have Amanda Furiasse who is speaking on "Digital Devotions: Implicit Religion and the Ethics of AI Romance."

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

These reflect the specific struggles of a minority community. Their healing practices are a response to the structural violence as much as an expression of faith. It also represents the complexity of lived religious identity beneath the service of formal community boundaries.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Day 2 begins with the second panel of speakers. Opening this panel is Simran Sidhu who is speaking on "Healing, Testimony and Authority in a Pentecostal Church in Punjab."

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Our first workshop for the Implicit Religion US conference is being run by @ichatterjea.bsky.social of @soraaad.bsky.social which focuses on "Manage the narratives that intersect with your research." We do not live post this as it people working live together on figuring out aspects of their work.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

The entirety of our lives, including & explicitly the political realm, has been wholly captured by the economic realm. This realm of unpredictable futures being made together in mutual solidarity has been completely subsumed by the idea of yielding predictable results that yield a profit. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Our next speaker is David Dault, who is speaking on "Challenging Narratives: Carrier Bags, Queer Temporalities, and the Politics of Failure."

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Like Dachau, moral injury does not fit neatly into widely recognized medical or psychological categories. Physical wounds can be seen directly, while trauma often becomes visible only afterward, through its effects on a person's identity, relationships, and understanding of the world. #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Our first panel speaker for the Implicit Religion US conference is Octavio Carrasco who is speaking on "After Liberation: Moral injury and the Dachau Reprisals." #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

In the wake of Trump's first election, several mosques were targeted by far right extremists and white supremacist nationalists with vandalism and often fatal violence across the globe. Part of the challenge of challenging narratives is that this work is long, arduous, and often exhausting.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Discourse often did not centre or pay enough attention to Black Muslim voices, challenges, and experiences. Saad Abdul Kabir notes Muslim identity in the United States has often taken on the characteristic of foreign, subordinate, and brown - deeply conflated with Arab and South Asian ethnicities.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

According to Fisher, audiences evaluate stories through 2 standards: narrative fidelity and narrative coherence. Narrative fidelity: does the story feels true to the audience's experiences / understandings of the world? Narrative coherence: does the elements of a story hang together? #IRUS26

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

We being the 2026 Implicit Religion US conference with a keynote from Marwa Abdalla from @ucsandiego.bsky.social. Her keynote is entitled "Implicit Religion and the Narrative Politics of Inclusion."

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Implicit Religion US conference is 28 & 29 May, online and free of charge. It includes a workshop being run by @ichatterjea.bsky.social of @soraaad.bsky.social on the topic of "Manage the Narratives that Intersect with your Research." Further information: www.implicitreligion.co.uk/ir-us/implic...

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Implicit Religion US will include a workshop by @davidfeltmate.bsky.social on demystifying the publication process. Dr Feltmate is the editor in chief of the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, which has offered articles for free during the conference: www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/j...

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Implicit Religion US conference 28th & 29th May, online only. Keynote open to all. Marwa Abdalla will deliver her keynote on "Implicit Religion & the Narrative Politics of Inclusion." Registration: www.ticketsource.com/edward-baile... About: www.implicitreligion.co.uk/ir-us/implic...

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

From 1922 onwards the Irish state assumes full responsibility for providing care for those in need. The fledging state had little in the way of money or resources, so care was handed over to the church. Authority is therefore unchallengable because it is but divinely appointed. #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

In oral histories: initial sympathy for the touched, then irritation with them when their symptoms do not clear after the intervention of the church. They're individuals that are not fully known because they're not able to communicate aspects of themselves, or are losing aspects of themselves. #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Our final speaker for panel 3 is @drfstewart.bsky.social who is presenting on “Look Not Upon the Amadán dubh: Knowingness, Agency, and Disability in Northern Ireland.”

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

This complicates the simplistic assumption that observant Muslims are just deferring to religious authority uncritically. What we actually see is a reflexive moral arbitration. Participants are actively evaluating who and what counts as legitimate authoritative, and ethically trustworthy. #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

(2/2) Within this framework, religion is expected to remain private and individualised and separate from supposedly neutral economic systems. Islamic financial reasoning disrupts those assumptions by treating economic life itself as a domain of moral and religious practice. #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Our second speaker is @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social PhD student Parisa who is speaking on "Islamic Prescriptions for Economic Behaviour as Forms of Lived and Embodied Knowledge."

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Our first paper of panel 3 is being delivered by Dr Eleanor Higgs who is speaking on “Academic Knowledge and Student Weaponisation of Christian Identity.” Due to the nature of the case study this talk will not be live posted to protect precariously employed academic staff.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Our final speaker for panel 2 is Dr @ichatterjea.bsky.social who will present on “Knowingness: Authority and the Manufacture of Deviance”. As this is a work in progress, intended for publication, it will not be live posted to protect the scholar's ideas and work.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Many secular magazines faced censorship or suspensions. However, religious magazines had a slightly different position. They were still watched, but they sometimes had more room to publish. Because of this, religious magazines become very significant in the 1910s. #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Printed culture changed the way knowledge moved. Before the modern period, Buddhist knowledge was often transmitted through temples, monastic educations, sermons, ritual practice, and classical texts. This did not disappear but it was no longer the only channel. #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Next up is PhD student Jusung Lee speaking on “From Doctrine to Public Knowingness: Buddhist Magazines, Media Authority, and the Making of Modern Religious Discourse in Colonial Korea (1910–1945).”

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Our second panel is opened with a paper by Professor Leslie Francis speaking on “Implicit Religion, Agency and Human Flourishing: Reframing Cathedral Studies.” #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

(2/2) She does not initiate communication; she is made available through the mechanisms of authority. The reader is given interpretive tools to understand David, yet Bathsheba remains obstructed. Knowledge is distributed unevenly.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

(2/2) Feminist & womanist interpretations disrupt this construction by reclaiming her as a subject who knows, speaks, and acts.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Our final speaker for the first panel is PhD student @annemariefoster.bsky.social who is speaking on “Who Gets to Know Bathsheba? Narrative Authority, Knowingness, and the Silencing of the Subaltern.”

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Due to the central importance of the identification and rejection of such false signs for the brethren & witnesses, this act of eschatological discernment, is an important part of being an apprentice sign searcher when conducting anthropological field work among millenarian communities. #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

From the perspective of brethren and witness informants, to say that all enduring religions are true is tantamount to saying that all enduring religions are false. If every belief, every Christology, every eschatology is true, then there are no false beliefs with which to compare them against.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Our next speaker is Dr Joseph Webster who is speaking on : “Who Knows What, and on What Authority? Multiple Millenarian Monopolies, Theological Disdain, and the (non)Answer of Anthropological Relativism” #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Evidential mediumship is based on the speech. The medium is inspired by an invisible being from the spirit world. They have to give evidence of the presence of a loved one to somebody who will be receiving this description and will have known the person who has passed. #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

#IR48 begins its second day with a presentation from Dr Laure Montarry who is asking us “How do mediumistic interlocutions contribute to self-knowledge and agency beyond the normative framework of teaching authorities in mediumship?”

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

The responses to both Black Lives Matter & Critical Race Theory expose the enduring implication of American Christianity with frameworks of whiteness and the systems of white supremacy. Systems that are perhaps far more central to the United States than the stolen valour of the Jewish people. #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

According to this evangelical demonological framing, BLM calls for violence and holds an insatiable desire for lawlessness, so Christians have a deep spiritual reasons to resist aligning with this movement, its founders, and their core convictions. #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

The ferocity of the border of the difference between self and other also has a long history within American discourses of anti-blackness, particularly during enslavement. This racial history is often made opaque within spiritual warfare narratives. #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

While in many spiritual warfare texts, this framing is primarily personal or familial, focused on rededicating one's life & liberty to God; cleansing your immediate life and environs. In the Trump prophecies, framework is distinctly national spiritual cleansing hinges on nationwide shifts. #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

The border, in particular the southern US-Mexico border, has adopted an archetypal role in US reactionary discourses over the last few decades. #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

The framing of demonology as a strategy of socio-political dehumanization, frequently divorced from the theological archive, is found in works across academic disciplines, ranging from political theory to anthropology, to film criticism, and even in religious studies. #IR48

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

#IR48 begins with the Edward Bailey Keynote Lecture, delivered by @demonologian.bsky.social and entitled "“Delineating Deviations, Articulating Absence: Political Demonologies in Fascist Times” speaking directly to our theme of Knowingness, Agency & Authority.

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

45 minutes until #IR48 gets underway. Registration is closed, but please follow along here for the live posts. #IR48 is likely of interest to those interested in collective behaviours and religion www.implicitreligion.co.uk/ir-uk/implic... Programme cdn.prod.website-files.com/616453adbf9f...

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Implicit Religion @implicitreligion.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Registration closes midday on Fri 15th, conference is free & online. @demonologian.bsky.social will deliver the Edward Bailey Keynote Lecture. Register www.ticketsource.com/edward-baile... About www.implicitreligion.co.uk/ir-uk/implic... Programme cdn.prod.website-files.com/616453adbf9f...

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