Announcing a forthcoming anthology by the Mad and Crip Theology Press, co-edited by Naomi Lawson Jacobs and Amy Panton

 

This will be a book by disabled people. The editors are looking for chapters about the ways our experiences of disability and disabled body-minds shape our theologies - how we think and talk about God. The book will aim to take lived experience seriously, as an authentic source of theology, in Christian and other faith traditions.

 

"The world we know is the world projected by our bodies," writes blind theologian John M. Hull (2013: 62). Disability influences the ways we think about faith and relate to the divine. Our embodied experiences and social contexts can have a profound impact on our God-talk. And if our “social and historical context decides not only the questions we address to God but also the mode or form of the answers given to the questions” (Cone 1975: 15), then our experiences of disability may also influence our methods in research on religions.

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*Please note: A Plain English Version of the Call for Content is available on Google Docs here.

 

What kinds of content are we looking for?

 

We would welcome:

• Academic theology that draws on your lived experience, and the experiences of your communities

• Personal reflections about how disability shapes your thinking or practice of faith

• Research on disability and religions which reflects on lived experience. 

• Creative submissions, including poetry

• Theology, research and reflections from all religious traditions (and non-religion).

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What themes will the book explore?

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You may want to write about:

• How experiences of disability have impacted the ways you think and write about God 

• How disability has shaped your everyday practice of faith 

• Embodiment and its role in your experience of prayer, worship, liturgy, or ministry

• How your leadership in faith communities is affected by your experiences of disability

• How personal experience informs "the questions you address to God" - how it shapes your research methodologies or your academic theology

• Reflections on disability-related exclusion from faith spaces 

• How disability or experiences of embodiment have shaped your theologies (for example) of the incarnation or the disabled God

• Theologies from the edge - how does your experience of marginalisation shape your thinking about the God of the margins?

• Healing prayer and ministry, and how these have changed your relationship to your body - and/or how your body has led you think differently about healing and cure

• Intersectionality - how multiple experiences of oppression shape your theologies

• Contextual theologies of justice - how experiences of disability oppression and injustice have led you to explore theologies of disability justice

• Creative resistance against exclusion & misfitting - how we speak back against exclusion from churches and fight back again not fitting in 

• Stories of lament, anger and pain, and what our communities can learn from these 

• Stories of our joy and pride, as disabled believers.

 

These themes are just suggestions. We would welcome submissions that look at disability lived theology from other directions.

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Who can submit? 

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We welcome submissions from authors reflecting on experiences and theologies of: 

• disability

• chronic and long-term illness

• deafness and Deaf culture

• neurodiversity 

• mental distress and madness

 

We would also like to hear from authors who move in the messy 'grey areas' of disability in their lives and theologies. This might include people:

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• who may be reluctant to define as disabled

• who disagree with a medicalised diagnosis or label, e.g. a mental health label

• who define as (e.g.) neurodivergent, Deaf, Mad, or chronically ill, rather than disabled

• whose disability identity is complex or shifting.

 

However, we are not accepting submissions from non-disabled authors. 

 

You do not need to be an academic to submit. We are keen to work with first-time authors. 

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Accessible language

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While we are keen to include academic submissions, we want to ensure that the book is accessible to many readers. Language should be clear, readable, and free of jargon.

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How to submit

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Please submit a one-page Word document, by 1st March 2024, that includes two elements:

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1) a 150-word "pitch" outlining your idea 

2) a short biography of around 50–100 words 

 

Send your submission to Amy Panton at amy@madandcriptheologypress.ca or Naomi Lawson Jacobs at naomilawsonjacobs@bantrybridge.com. We may ask for a sample of your writing, to help with our decision. 

 

We will let you know by 1st May 2024 if your submission has been selected, subject to an editorial process. Completed chapters will be due by 30th Sept 2024.

 

Chapters should be 2,000-5,000 words, but we are happy to consider shorter lengths for creative work. Guidelines for formatting and referencing will be sent to shortlisted authors.

 

If you have an idea for a chapter but you are not sure whether it might fit the book, please email Naomi or Amy for an informal discussion.