San Diego 2014

General session
Time: 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Date: Sat 11/22/2014
Room: 410 A (Level 4 (Sapphire)) – Hilton Bayfront (HB)

Jutta Jokiranta, University of Helsinki, Presiding
Anne Katrine Gudme, University of Copenhagen
Among Patriarchs and Baboons: Ritual, Morality and Indexicality
(25 min)
Discussion (5 min)
Rikard Roitto, Stockholm School of Theology
Perception of Risk in the Sermon on the Mount (25 min)
Discussion (5 min)
Frederick S. Tappenden, McGill University
Mapping the Religious History of Latium: The Challenges and Potentiality of Constructing a Database of Religious History (25 min)
Discussion (5 min)
Nicole Tilford, Georgia State University
The Syncretistic Mind of Early Christianity (25 min)
Discussion (5 min)
Discussion (20 min)
Business Meeting (10 min)

Religious Experience in Antiquity
Joint Session with Mind, Society, and Religion in the Biblical World
Time: 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Date: Sun 11/23/2014
Room: Room 30 B (Upper level) – San Diego Convention Center (CC)
Review Session: The Neuroscience of Religious Experience (Patrick McNamara)
This is a special session devoted to discussing Patrick McNamara’s book, The Neuroscience of Religious Experience (CUP, 2009).

Colleen Shantz, Toronto School of Theology, Presiding (5 min)
Christopher T. Holmes, Emory University
(Religious) Language and the Decentering Process: McNamara and De Sublimitate on the Ecstatic Effect of Language (25 min)
Angela Kim Harkins, Marie Curie Fellow, University of Birmingham
Thinking about the Neuroscience of Religious Experience: Daniel’s Interpretation of Scripture (25 min)
CHAN, Lung Pun Common, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Fides et ratio: Apocalyptic Experience of “I” in Light of McNamara’s Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Decentering (25 min)
Istvan Czachesz, University of Heidelberg
Tours of heaven in light of the neuroscientific study of religious experience(25 min)
April D. DeConick, Rice University
The Care of the Self and Gnostic Initiation (25 min)
Discussion (20 min)

Note also the special session on “Cognitive and Evolutionary Approaches to Early Christianity” organized by the Redescribing Early Christianity seminar. Click the session program here.