Objective: To explore the appeal, meaning, and impact of Fethullah Gülen and the Gülen movement as exemplifying approaches to education, dialogue, and peace that transcend and mediate traditional distinctions between "East" and West".

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Invitation to a conference on "East and West Encounters: The Gülen Movement"

www.gulenconference.net

Sponsors:

Office of Religious Life at the University of Southern California

Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University

Santa Monica College International Education Center

Department of Religious Studies at Humboldt State University

Pacifica Institute

Editorial Board:

Dean Varun Soni - University of Southern California

Prof. Juan Campo - UC Santa Barbara

Prof. Reza Aslan - UC Riverside

Prof. Jill Carroll - Rice University

Prof. Darryl Tippens - Pepperdine University

Prof. Reuven Firestone - Hebrew Union College

Prof. Marcia Hermansen - Loyola University of Chicago

Prof. William Martin - Rice University

Prof. Paul Weller - University of Derby, UK

Prof. Helen Rose Ebaugh - University of Houston

Prof. Amir Hussain - Loyola Marymount University

Prof. Andrew Achenbaum - University of Houston

Prof. Daniel Skubik - California Baptist University

Prof. Jon Paulien - Loma Linda University

Prof. John Olsen - University of Arizona

Prof. David Capes - Houston Baptist University

Prof. Marilyn Gottschall - Whittier College

Prof. Richard Penaskovic - Auburn University

Prof. Thomas Burns - University of Oklahoma

Prof. Alan Godlas - University of Georgia

Prof. Lynn Mitchell - University of Houston

Prof. Tom Gage - Humboldt State University

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are pleased to announce the International Conference on East and West Encounters: The Gülen Movement, to be held on December 4-6, 2009 at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA. This conference follows a series of very successful conferences on the Gülen movement that are held at Georgetown University (2008), House of Lords & London School of Economics (2007), University of Oklahoma (2006) and Rice University (2005).

During the past several years, over 300 academics like yourself around the world studied and presented on the impact of Gülen movement over religious, cultural, social spheres of the world. The growing interest in this new exciting field led us to give attention and thus, we are convening another International Conference on the Gülen movement with the title "East and West Encounters: The Gülen Movement" on December 4-6, 2009 at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA. Please note that the abstract deadline for presentations is July 15, 2009.

Topics include:

• Impact of Gülen movement in the encounter between East and West

• Democracy and dialogue: Gülen's contributions

• Gülen inspired educational institutions

• Structure, development and finance in the Gülen movement

• Women and gender roles in the Gülen movement

• Humanistic vision of Gülen

• Gülen's contributions to Islamic theology

• Gülen's impact on the youth

The Editorial Board is especially interested to the contributions regarding the following topics:

• Contributions of the Gülen movement to the dialogue between East and West

• Gülen’s view of the challenges facing Muslim citizens in the western democracies

• Gülen’s view on Zimmi’s: status of non-Muslims in the Muslim world

• Violence in the name of God: Gülen’s fight with violence

• Gülen’s view of the clash of civilizations

• Gülen’s view on Islamic theocracies

• Gülen’s perspective on Muslim and non-Muslim thinkers and philosophers

• Gülen’s understanding of humanism

• Social sciences and arts in Gülen inspired schools

• The impact of the Environment and Energy Olympiads by Gülen inspired schools and organizations

• Educational transformation of African youth by Gülen inspired schools

• Character education in Gülen inspired schools

• Recruitment and fundraising in the Gülen movement

• Gülen’s role in the movement

• Post-Gülen survival of the Gülen Movement

• Advantages and disadvantages of the lack of central coordination in the Gülen movement

• Is a Gülen inspired insurance company, Işık Sigorta, a new concept in modern Islamic finance?

• Mobilization of the young generation by Gülen’s ideals

• Gülen’s views on women rights

• Gülen’s view on roles and rights of the family members

• Gülen’s view on inheritance, equality and divorce rights of Muslim women

The authors should submit an abstract (approximately 250 words) and biography (approximately 150 words) at the conference website by July 15, 2009. The editorial committee will review the abstracts and respond by July 31, 2009. The selected authors should then submit papers of minimum 3000 and maximum 6000 words to the editorial board by September 20, 2009. Electronic submission via the conference web page is preferred. Authors who choose to submit hard copies are responsible for the timely delivery of their submissions by the same deadlines. The editorial board will evaluate and ask the authors to revise the papers (if needed) and resubmit camera ready copies by November 1, 2009. The conference organizers reserve the right to remove from the proposed program papers not received by the published deadlines or that fail to respond to the comments of the editorial board. The accepted papers will be published at the conference webpage and as conference proceedings. The coverage of the conference will be publicized on the conference web page: www.gulenconference.net.

Travel and accommodation expenses of the invited presenters including airport pickups, meals, and organized sightseeing trips will be met by the organizing committee. Please inquire for scholarships for non-presenting participation.

We look forward to your participation. Please do not hesitate to contact us at coordinator@gulenconference.net or by using our web form.

Please click for the conference flyer and call for papers

Regards,

Dr. Jeff Yavuz

coordinator@gulenconference.net

www.gulenconference.net