31
July 2013
4:45-6:45
pm : Macquarie University, W6A
308
Present:
Hilary Carey (outgoing President), John Gascoigne (President elect), Ian Tregenza (Secretary elect), Carole Cusack (JRH editor),
Philip Almond, Shurlee Swain.
Apologies:
Chris Hartney
1.
Minutes
of 19 November 2012 of the Religious History Association.
The
minutes were accepted as a true record.
2.
Matters Arising
Election
of Committee of Management, 2013-2014 held over from November 2012
meeting.
The
following members were elected to the new committee of
management
President:
John Gascoigne
Vice
President: TBA - at the nomination of the President
Treasurer:
Malcolm Prentis
Secretary:
Ian Tregenza
Two
ordinary members: Joanna Cruickshank/ Shurlee Swain;
Philip Almond/ Peter Harrison
Editor
of the Journal of Religious History (ex officio).
After confirmation of fourth and final two-year term), Carole
Cusack and Christopher Hartney.
RHA
President’s Report
3.1
Welcome to new members
3.2.
Planning for JRH editors’ transition
This
item inserted to remind us of need to plan ahead for transition to a new
editorial team.
·
At
the November 2010 AGM Carole Cusack and Chris Hartney were confirmed
as Editors of the
Journal of Religious History for a
second two-year term, from mid. 2009 to June 2011. Note that this renewal was
retrospective and the Editors commenced their first two-year term of office n in
mid. 2007 under the auspices of the Association for the Journal of Religious
History.
·
The RHA
confirmed Carole Cusack and Chris Hartney for a third two-year term in June
2011.
·
This
meeting will now confirm the Editors for a fourth a final two-year term from
July 2013 to June 2015.
Extract
from Constitution:
THE
EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY
14.
The Editor of the Journal of Religious
History
(a)
will be appointed for a two-year term by the committee
on conditions specified by the committee; and
(b)
will be a voting member of the management committee;
and
(c)
will serve a maximum of four continuous two-year terms
as Editor.
In
addition, the Editor:
(a)
will have complete editorial autonomy in deciding which articles to publish in
the Journal only ensuring that published articles meet the highest scholarly
standards; and
(b)
will conduct
day-to-day negotiations with the publisher of the Journal on behalf of the
Association; and
(c) will present a written report on the Journal which will be
circulated to all members at least once a year.
The
committee decided to appoint a search committee by June
2014 to be made up of three people: The President, the Secretary, and
Shurlee Swain if she is agreeable.
3.3
International
Commission
Internationale d'Histoire Ecclésiastique Comparée / International Commission for
Comparative Ecclesiastical History: http://www.cihec.bham.ac.uk/
CIHEC
is
the international organisation for historians of Christianity.
·
Contacted
by Dr Mikko Ketola (Finland)
to provide a report of our national commissions
·
I
sent a report of our activities based on my TheRHA report. In the past, this has appeared on the
CIHEC website.
·
The
most recent meeting of CIHEC was held in Vilnius from 6 - 8 June 2013 on the
theme: "Christians and the Non-Christian Other."
·
In
2014, the location will be in Dubrovnik, Split, Trogir
or Zagreb. In 2015 the location will be Salzburg.
Recommendation:
RHA send a delegate to the next meeting of CIHEC to extend our engagement with
this international organization.
CISH
- ICHS
The
XXII Congress of CISH will be held in Jinan, China in 2015. Three sessions are
proposed by CIHEC:
·
Indigenization
of Christianity (Hugh McLeod)
·
Science
and Religion (Yves Krumenacher)
·
Migration
of Religious Ideas (Robert Swanson and Ray Mentzer)
Recommendation:
RHA promote the three sessions on the RHA website and discussion list and
support members interested in attending.
RHA
Aotearoa New Zealand
·
Allan
Davidson, President of RHAANZ responded to plans for a joint conference to be
held at Massey University’s Auckland campus from 26 - 27 November 2014. Carole
Cusack attended a planning meeting in December 2013 but is unable to attend next
year. Joanna Cruickshank kindly agreed to serve as the RHA delegate on the
planning committee for this event. Peter Lineham is now the conference
convenor.
Recommendation:
Ask for update from Joanna Cruickshank.
3.4 National - Australian Historical
Association.
AHA
2013
The AHA
held its annual meeting in Wollongong from 8 - 12 July on the theme "Mobilities."
A stream
of papers was organized by Josip Matesic, who submitted a useful report. The report
notes:
·
The AHA
would not permit the RHA speaker to be placed as a keynote in the conference
program or to have an extended session.
·
Despite
this, Wayne Hudson generously presented his paper anyway on the topic:
"Australian Religious Thought."
·
Other
papers presented by Robert Withycombe, Elizabeth
Miller, Doris LeRoy, Margaret McLeod, Timothy Jones,
Robert Hogg, Josip Matesic,
Laura Rademaker.
·
Other
paper givers also nominated their papers for the RHA sessions but were
programmed elsewhere.
·
On the
whole the association with the AHA, while there are problems, brings benefits to
the Association.
·
Cambridge
Scholars approached the organiser with the offer to publish the papers but time
did not permit this.
AHA
2014
The next
meeting of the AHA will be held in Brisbane from 7 - 11 July 2014 with organiser
Martin Crotty from the University of Sydney. The theme
is History and Conflict.
·
RHA
Committee members Philip Almond and Peter Harrison were invited to consider
involvement in this conference, through the Centre for the History of European
Discourse.
·
Dr Leigh
Penman, postdoctoral fellow at the CHED has agreed to act as
organizer.
·
An
invitation has been issued to William Cavanaugh, author of The Myth of Religious
Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (2005). If
unavailable, it is suggested that an approach be made to Ron Numbers, University
of Madison-Wisconsin.
AHA
organisers have said that there is not room for a RHA keynote in the conference
itself (unless it were timetabled alongside the AHA keynotes) so the option of
holding a public lecture the evening before the conference will be explored
along with a panel of related papers within the conference
itself.
Other
events of interest:
19-20
September,
"The
Sermon in History," Charles Sturt University,
Canberra.
Organiser Dr Michael Gladwin.
3 - 6
October,
"Empire, Faith and Conflict Conference," University of Notre Dame Fremantle,
WA. AHA/
World HIstory Association conference, Organiser:
Deborah Gare. Keynote speaker: Dr Andrew
May.
4.
Website and Therha (Anna
Haunton)
The
committee expressed its gratitude to Anna Haunton for her continued good work in
upgrading the website and producing Therha.
The
anomalies in the RHA mailing were discussed (not all RHA members are on the
Yahoo list). Carole Cusack suggested that Anna might be able to compile one
mailing list from all the RHA members.
5.
Treasurer's Report (John Gascoigne)
The
outgoing treasurer tabled and spoke to this report. He reported that the
association's finances are in a healthy state though the current balance doesn't
include a number of upcoming payments,including a subsidy of up to $5000 for our
involvement in the 2014 RHA
Aotearoa New Zealand conference,
next
year's AHA conference, the workshop subsidies, and the Mansfield
Prize.
6.
Nomination of Stuart Piggin as Fellow of the
Association
Hilary
Carey nominated (Ian Tregenza seconded) Stuart Piggin
to be a Fellow of the Association and the following was
read:
Since the
publication of his ground-breaking doctoral thesis, Making Evangelical Missionaries, 1789-1858
(1984), Stuart Piggin has published more than 100 academic articles and seven
books, a number of which have become classics in the field. While his most distinguished
contribution to international religious history has been focused on the history
of Evangelical Christianity, Piggin has also written a critical history of the
Mount Kembla Disaster of 1902 (OUP, 1992) and his work
has spanned the full range of critical, social and political studies of
Evangelical Christianity in the English-speaking world. His landmark work, Evangelical Christianity in Australia:
Spirit, Word and Work (OUP, 1996) defined a new agenda for the
interpretation of the influence of Protestant Christianity - and of religion
generally - in Australian history, politics and society.
Piggin
has also played a critical role in public reception of new research in religious
history, including presentations to the first National Forum on Australia's
Christian Heritage in Parliament House, Canberra, establishing the School of
Christian studies during the period he was Master of Robert Menzies College at Macquarie University from 1990 to 2004.
He has been a mentor to many new and established researchers in the field,
supervising a stream of PhD students, many fostered
through his ongoing seminar on Christian history in connection with the Centre
for the History of Christian Thought and Experience at Macquarie University.
Stuart
Piggin became a Member of the Association for the Journal of Religious History
in1990, later serving on the Executive. During the period when the old
Association was struggling to adjust to the retirement of the first generation
who had created the Journal in 1960, he played a leading role in the
negotiations which led to the formation of Religious History Association through
the amalgamation of the Association for the Journal of Religious History and the
Religious History Society in 2010, including the suggestion for the name of the
new organisation. He served as Secretary of the Religious History Association
from its formation in 2010 until 2013.
Stuart
Piggin has been at the heart of the academic study of religious history in
Australia for more than three decades during which time he has been instrumental
in the growth of religious history as a part of the Academy in Australia.
7.
Editors' Report (Carole Cusack and Chris Hartney)
The
editor reported on a successful 6 month period for the Journal. Over this time
22 original papers have been received. 7 of these are in the process of
revision, 6 were rejected as inappropriate for the journal and 5 were rejected
on the basis of quality.
All
issues of the journal up to September 2014 are in the production phase and there
is only one revised article to come in for the December 2014 before it can be
sent to Wiley.
It was
noted that with a change of production editor at Wiley (the new contact is Amy
Chong) there has been an improvement in the copy editing
process.
Chris
Hartney's correspondence with Wiley regarding the
issue of Green and Gold Open Access to the journal was tabled and discussed. The
Association endorsed the changes that Chris was able to negotiate with Wiley
regarding the embargo on articles for a 24 month period after
publication.
It was
suggested that correspondence between Wiley and us has legal standing but it was
agreed that an email would be sent to Wiley in the New Year to confirm the
arrangement.
The short
list for this year's Mansfield Prize was listed as: P. Terracini, A. Laats, E. Helgen, and K. Paramore. These
papers will be circulated among the executive and a winner
chosen.
8.
Workshop subsidies and bursaries.
The EHA
application for a subsidy for its recent conference was tabled and funding was
agreed to for the full amount ($500).
Two
further applications for another conference were considered. Both of these were
from individuals to subsidise their expenses for the Empire, faith and conflict conference in
Perth, 3-5 October. It was agreed that since the guidelines stipulate funding
for workshops/conferences rather than individuals, funding of $500 would be
provided to the organiser (Rowan Strong) to be used for the purpose of
supporting the conference, which might include subsidising individuals' travel
or conference expenses.
9. Any Other
Business
Philip
Almond asked whether the RHA had a preference regarding the running of the RHA
stream in the AHA conference next year. It was agreed that the number of
sessions and days would depend on the number and quality of the papers
received.
Hilary
Carey's excellent contribution to the RHA executive over the past few years was
noted. The committee thanked her for her efforts and wished her well in her new
role at Bristol.
10. Date
of next meeting
TBA