Accessing the Divine: Religious Sources of Resilience in an Age of Political Turmoil
5th Annual Graduate Student Conference - Hybrid
Co-hosted with
Date: Saturday, April 5, 2025
Time:听8:30am - 3:30pm
Location:听Boston College Campus - specific rooms TBD
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The Accessing the Divine conference took shape in 2021 under the leadership of students in the Boston Theological Interreligious Consortium. The conference was initially conceived as a disability theology conference, and its first two iterations explored themes related to disability, building joyful futures, relationality, and interdependence. This year鈥檚 conference, which will be co-sponsored by the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College and the Boston Theological Interreligious Consortium, hopes to expand the definition of its questions about access to include questions of resilience, sustainability, connection, and hope amidst political turmoil, activist and academic burnout, and social division. We hope to explore sources of resilience in religious and spiritual traditions (e.g. their rituals, practices, histories, major figures) in order to inform and energize exercises of resilience in our contemporary political era.听
Potential themes include, but not limited to:听
The nature and definition of resilience
Intersectionality and resilience听
Religious exemplars of political resilience
Comparative theologies of resilience
Rituals of resilience听
Vocabulary expansion as a form of resilience
Resilience across division
Case studies on practices of resilience听
Disability theology and resilience听
Political organizing and resilience
Resilience in the virtual age听
Black theology and resilience听
Resilience amidst the 鈥渓oneliness epidemic鈥�
Post-traumatic growth听
Mental health and the nature of resilience
Resilience amidst global conflicts听
Resilience in activism
Resilience in an age of climate change听