43rd Annual Conference

The theme for the 2019 Association for Bahá’í Studies (ABS) Conference—Beyond Critique: Laying the Groundwork for Social Transformation—builds on insights shared, and knowledge generated, at ABS gatherings over the past few years. A plenary presentation at the 2016 conference in Montreal, highlighted the “lamentably defective” nature of our current social order and the distinct contribution of our intellectual abilities, when inspired by the Revelation, in creating sound alternatives. Several contributions at the 2017 conference delved deep into knowledge systems that have given rise to the present order, and ways in which they perpetuate social, economic and political inequalities, instead of resolving them. This line of thinking calls for a need to examine the interconnection between knowledge and power. As demonstrated at last year’s conference by a panel of presenters working to build community with refugee populations in Clarkston, Georgia, important questions must be asked about how new knowledge is generated. Several presentations offered examples of the ways in which knowledge generated in active engagement with community (and, therefore, with social reality) can offer uniquely relevant and potentially transformative insights for a given context. 

This year, ABS seeks to extend this line of thinking to reconcile two intentions in the process of generating, diffusing, and applying new knowledge: on the one hand, continuing to explore some of the deficiencies of the current order, while at the same time moving beyond critique alone, to introduce modes of thought and practice that align with Bahá’u’lláh’s vision for social transformation.

The 2019 conference invites intellectual pursuits that endeavor to correlate the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh with lines of inquiry in various fields and disciplines in order to effect change at the level of thought, with further implications for change in practice and attitude. Specifically, we welcome contributions that help us grapple with the following questions: 

• How can we explore fundamental defects in present knowledge systems, while at the same time, advancing our understanding and generating spiritually grounded alternatives?
• How can we engage in a critique of the underlying ideologies of knowledge systems without being limited by relativist, postmodern and materialistic modes of thinking?
• Through Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation, how can we ensure that our contribution to discourse includes both a deep understanding of what is, but also informed insights of what could be?
• How can Bahá’í scholarship contribute to knowledge that seeks to lay the groundwork for new social structures built on principles of justice and oneness?