The Department of Religion, Culture and Society at UC Davis is pleased to announce the second annual pan-UC Religious Studies Conference, a one-day convening that brings together students and faculty from across the University of California system.
Join us as we discuss current developments within Religious Studies and affiliated fields, and share scholarly research through paper presentations, themed roundtables, and workshops.
3 April 2026
9:00 AM - 5:30 PM
Sproul Hall 912 | Olson Hall 18 & 18A
Breakfast - 8:15am Sproul Hall 912
Draft Conference Schedule for the Second Annual Pan-UC Religious Studies Conference: Friday, April 3, 2026, UC Davis
Main Location: Sproul 912 with panels and break-out rooms in Olson 18A (45 seats) and Olson 18 (20 seats) as well as 922 Sproul Hall
Friday, April 3
8:15-9:00: Breakfast (912 Sproul)
9:00-9:10: Welcome (912 Sproul Hall)
9:20-10:45: Presentations - Session 1
• Panel 1 (Olson 18): Ritual, Selfhood, and the Paradoxes of Transcendence
Miriam Hamburger, “Angela’s Love Language” (UCSB)
Brent Horning, “The Meat of the Matter: Exponential Interiority and the Unlikely Success of a Blind Baul Musician” (UCD)
Gabriel Yee, “Jesus, Knowledge, and Materiality in Coptic Texts” (UCD)
Xinling Zhou, “Managing Ritual Pollution, Deploying Taboo: The Funeral Industry in Contemporary China” (UCI)
Discussant: Claire Waters (UCD)
• Panel 2 (Olson 18A): Religious Nationalism Meets Praxis and Contestations of Identity
Agnik Bhattacharya: “They are Ours”: Buddhism and Construction of Cultural Identity in Modern Kashmir” (UCI)
Hu Hsu, “Returning to the Local Pantheon: The Cult of the Neo-Confucian Scholar Wang Yangming in Contemporary China” (UCB)
Samyak Modi, “Refuting Christianity, Reclaiming Indianness: Vijayānanda Sūri’s Īsāimata Samīkṣā as a Decolonial Intervention” (UCR)
David Walker, “Brother Jonathan and the Mystique of Mormon Wrestling” (UCSB)
Discussant: Mairaj Syed (UCD)
10:45-11:00: 15-minute Break (refreshments in 118 Sproul)
11:05-12:30: Presentations - Session 2
- Panel 1 (Olson 18): Secular Temporalities, Material Embodiments
Roy Cherian, “An Anatomical Supper: The Secular Body of the Social Contract” (UCI)
Jennie Healy, “What’s the Big Idea? An Exploration of Jain Infinities” (UCSB)
Yesenia Brambila, “Mediating Time: Sacrificial Calendars and Social Temporalities in 5th-4th century Athens” (UCB)
Delaney Moss, “Ritual Borrowing, Disenchantment, and the Invention of a Secular Tradition: An Examination of Secular Rituals by Humanist Celebrants” (UCSB)
Indrani Maharaj, “A Call to Action: Advocacy for Individual Agency to Ensure Healing in the Garuda Purana” (UCD)
Discussant: Brianne Donaldson
- Panel 2 (Olson 18A): Governing the Religious Other: Pluralism, Reform, and Exclusion
Abraham Hawley Suárez, “Secular Shifts: Bureaucracy, Scholarship and Interfaith in the Remaking of Mexican Secularism” (UCSB)
Umbu Deta Krisharyanto: “Ingenious Indigeneity: Marapu in the Encounters with Religion and the State in Sumba, Indonesia” (UCSB)
Muhamad Ali, “Negotiated Orthodoxy: The Mechanics of Exclusivism and Pluralism in Indonesian Islam” (UCR)
Fadime Apaydin, “Who Is Targeted, Where, and How?: Patterns of Anti-Jewish, Anti-Muslim, and Anti-Sikh Hate Crime in the United States” (UCR)
Kelsey Cooper, “Afro-Brazilian Religious Solidarity in A Matriz Religiosa Brasileira and the Contemporary LGBTQ+ Movement” (UCSB)
Discussant: Flagg Miller (UCD)
12:30-1:20: Lunch (912 Sproul)
1:20-2:45: Session 3 (Olson 18A)
- Otherly Ruptures: Theorizing the Religious Encounter in Contexts of Structural Violence
Emily Bogin, “Circumcision of the Heart: Gender, Conversion, and Jewish-Christian Identity in Nineteenth-Century Berlin.” (UCB/BU)
Athenas Guerra & Eric Gu, “The Grammar of Conversion: Testimony and the Making of Political Subjects in American Populism and Beyond” (UCI)
Sara Tillema, “Enough is Enough: Breaking Points in Ex-vangelical Narratives” (UCD)
Bastien Bussières, “Queer and Feminist Expressions in Satanic New Religions” (UCR)
Discussant: Amanda Lucia (UCR)
2:45-3:00: 15-minute Break (refreshments in 118 Sproul)
3:00-3:45: State of Religious Studies at the University of California (912 Sproul) [UC Chairs/Directors, including: Brianne Donaldson (UCI), Juan Campo (UCSB), Matthew King (UCR), Amanda Lucia (UCR), Flagg Miller (UCD)]
3:45-4:00: 15-minute Break
4:00-5:00pm: Solidarity and Organization Sessions
- Graduate-student-only (Olson 18A)
- Faculty-only (912 Sproul)
5:05-5:30: Wrap-up Conversation / Plans for the Future (912 Sproul)
5:30 onwards: Optional dinner or drinks at a local restaurant, easily within walking distance from campus.