Identity, Land, and Place: Intersections of Theological Embodiment

When separated from believers’ lived practices and experiences, theology tends toward dissolution into lofty conversations between elite individuals. Theology can and should do better. The church is full of wonderfully ordinary people whose everyday lives are informed by their personal faith. Theological endeavors press beyond the boundaries of the academy and join personal beliefs and faith practices to become lived experience. Theology is manifested through individual lives, in individual places, at individual times and moments.

There are several important moments to commemorate this coming year. The year 2020 marks twenty-five years since the American Disabilities Act was passed; the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified one hundred years ago, eliminating a person’s sex as a qualification for voting; and today the 116th Congress has a record 102 women serving on the country’s behalf.

With these historic events in mind, how might our positionality and intersectionality transform our theology? How can theology transform our everyday lives? In what ways may we use theology as a means for inclusion? How does sacred Scripture narrate the stories of people and the places they occupy? How have religious communities throughout history offered spaces that acknowledge, ignore, or diminish people’s identities? How has the church historically wrestled with questions of situatedness or displacement? What are the practices the church has or must take on in order to recognize the people who fill its pews?

We invite graduate students and early-career scholars to submit papers considering these and related questions to the Spring 2020 issue of the Princeton Theological Review. We welcome submissions from diverse disciplinary perspectives: biblical studies, church history, theology, ethics, social science, philosophy, etc.

Paper submissions should be between 4500 and 5000 words and in an editable file type (doc or docx). All papers must be formatted according to The Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition) and include a full bibliography in addition to footnotes. Where CMOS does not offer specific guidance, please consult the Society of Biblical Literature’s SBL Handbook of Style (2nd edition). Papers should engage with recent research and scholarship. There are no restrictions on research methodology. Submissions must be original work, must not have been previously published, and will undergo double-blind peer review.

Deadline for submissions is November 4, 2019.

Questions about submissions may be sent to the editorial team at ptr@ptsem.edu.