2024 ANNUAL CATA MEETING & CONFERENCE
Call for Papers: “Sustaining Shared Futures”
June 14, 2024: Public Lecture & Panel Discussion
(The Church of St. Mark and St. Peter, 7:30 – 9:30 p.m.)
June 15, 2024: Conference & Annual Meeting
(The Presbyterian College, McGill University)
The Executive of the Canadian-American Theological Association (CATA) welcomes
proposals for papers to be presented at our Annual Meeting to be held on June 15, 2024 The conference will be held at The Presbyterian College, McGill University,
Montreal, but it will be possible for some presenters to present remotely.
In addition, CATA will also host a Friday evening public lecture (7:30 – 9:30 p.m.) at The
Church of St. Mark and St. Peter in Montreal. Click here for more details.
This year, the CATA conference will be offered as a stand-alone conference, separate
from the Canadian Congress of the Humanities & Social Sciences, but offered at the
same time and location. Consequently, enrolling in the CATA conference does not
require enrollment in Congress.
Keynote Address:
The keynote address will be presented by Dr. Ashoor Yousif and is entitled: Shared Past, Shared Future: Interreligious Engagements, Socio-Political Involvements and Intellectual Partnerships of Middle Eastern Christians in Late Antiquity and Early Medieval Periods.
Dr. Ashoor Yousif is Associate Professor of Christian History at Tyndale University, where he also serves as the Assistant Dean. His teaching portfolio includes multiple universities and seminaries in Canada and the Middle East. His interdisciplinary research focuses on the history of Middle Eastern Christianity, Christian–Muslim Relations, and the Islamic World during the early Abbasid caliphate (750-950 AD). Dr. Yousif is a member of various academic societies, including the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies (CSSS) serving on its Board of Directors. He is an Assyrian-Iraqi Christian, previously a practicing biomedical-electrical engineer before shifting his focus to History and Religious Studies.
An abstract for the keynote address can be found here.
Schedule: The schedule for the conference will be announced soon!
Call for Papers:
CATA encourages submission of high-quality papers on any topic of theological
relevance to the church. Graduate students, post-docs, independent scholars, and pre-
tenured faculty are invited to submit papers for the CATA Student and Early Career
Paper Competition. Special consideration will be given to papers that deal with the theme “Sustaining Shared Futures.” However, topics that fall outside of the specific theme will also
be given strong consideration. The main theme, “Sustaining Shared Futures,” lends
itself to several possible sub-themes, such as the following:
- Theological reflection addressing the climate crisis / ecological concerns and issues
- Theological reflection addressing cultural and political division and polarization
- Theological reflection on the changing demographics of Canada (immigration, multiculturalism) impacting our shared future
- Theological reflection on the changing religious composition of Canada (and the twin trends of secularization and religious pluralism via immigration)
- Theological reflection on science-faith dialogue and integration
Papers for the CATA meeting should be scholarly but not highly specialized
presentations of 20–25 minutes, aimed at an audience of scholars from across the
spectrum of theological disciplines. We are interpreting “theological reflection” to
include: biblical studies; theological readings of Scripture; historical, systematic, philosophical, moral, and pastoral theology; and theology that engages culture, the church, and other academic disciplines. Proposals from graduate students are enthusiastically welcomed.
Proposals should be approximately 250 words in length. Please prepare them for blind review and submit as an email attachment, accompanied by a short CV in a separate file. To facilitate anonymous review of proposals, please include your name, institutional affiliation, contact information, and the title of your proposal in the body of your email.
In addition, graduate students, post-docs, independent scholars, and pre-tenured faculty are invited to indicate “Submission for Paper Competition” in their email. Of these, submissions that are accepted for presentation at the conference (according to the same criteria by which all papers are accepted) will be concurrently considered for the competition.
All proposals should be submitted electronically by January 31, 2024 to the address below in Word or PDF format. Please entitle your email “CATA 2024 Paper Proposal.” For those intending to enter the Student and Early Career paper competition, proposals are due on January 31, 2024 and then finalized, full-text papers must be submitted by March 31, 2024.
Papers chosen for participation will be notified by the end of March. The winning paper will be published in CATA’s journal, the Canadian-American Theological Review, and its author will receive a congratulatory monetary gift.
Email all conference paper proposals to: Dr. Patrick Franklin President, Canadian-American Theological Association pfranklin@tyndale.ca