This is a busy time of year for faculty members as they attend conferences and make presentations on their research.  Here is a sampling of what some of the faculty are up to.

Richard Ascough will be presenting papers this summer that arise out of his continued work on Greco-Roman associations and his forthcoming collection of new translations of inscriptions and papyri. At the end of May he delivered a plenary lecture on "Meals, Memories, and Methods: (Re-)Constructing the Origins of ‘Christianity’" at the annual convention of the College Theology Society, in San Antonio, Texas. In August he will be at the Annual Meeting of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, Leuven, Belgium, at which he has been invited to give a paper on “Early Christian Recruitment and Associations.” Richard has is also giving two presentations locally: “Marketing Christianity in the Roman Empire: How a Grass-Roots Movement Became a World-Religion” at the Spring Queen’s MiniU for alumni and “Forging Identity with Food” at the Freemasons Lodge in Kingston, where Richard is the first non-Mason to have been invited to present.

Pamela Holmes is presenting two papers.  The first entitled "Issues Facing Canadian Pentecostalism" is for the Consultation on Global Pentecostalism, Oxford University, UK, June 7-9, 2012.  Second, she is giving the Walter J. Hollenweger Lectures, June 11, 2012 at the University of Birmingham, UK, Center for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies, School of Philosophy, Theology & Religion, on the topic, "Towards a Liberative Use of Power and Authority for Canadian Pentecostal Ministering Women."

In March 2012, James Miller gave a series of lectures on Daoism at seven universities in Beijing, Dalian and Harbin, China. In May 2012, he returned to East Asia to give a keynote address at a conference on religious concord organized by the Society for the Study of Religious Philosophy  in Taiwan. In July he travels with Professor Emily Hill (History) to Tongji University, Shanghai, where he will give a presentation on Chinese religion and development. His presentation will be published in a forthcoming Handbook of Research on Religion and Development. From Shanghai, Professor Miller will visit the department of philosophy and religious studies at Nanjing University, which will be sending a visiting PhD student to the School of Religion in the fall. 

William Morrow is presenting a research report, entitled “Legal Ambiguities” during the annual meeting of the Catholic Biblical Association at the University of Notre Dame, July 28-31, 2012. In this paper he explores differing analyses of connections between the Covenant Code (CC) in Exod 20:19–23:19 and Codex Hammurabi (CH) which have appeared in the past decade.

Tracy Trothen presents a paper entitled “Sport, Techno-Science, and Religion: the enhancement debate reconsidered” at the International Convention on Science, Education and Medicine in Sport (ICSEMIS) on July 23. ICSEMIS occurs once every four years immediately preceding the summer Olympic Games

Pamela Dickey Young presented a paper entitled:  “Violence in the Lives of Gay and Lesbian Christians” at the recent meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion at Wilfrid Laurier University.