Gender, Sexuality, and Wholeness

Our REA2021 Proceedings are now available. The proceedings include all the papers presented at Research Interest Group sessions during the conference.

We are sorry to announce that the plenary planned for Thursday, July 8th at 9:30am Eastern Time has been cancelled due to an unexpected illness. Please read what Dr. Mark Jordan was going to share with us, and he will join us at a later date this Fall to engage all of us in a wonderful dialogue.

I am very sorry that I cannot be with you. I was honored to receive the invitation from Boyung Lee and much anticipating the chance to share time with Almeda Wright and all of you. …

Though we cannot gather in an on-line imitation of a classroom, I ask you to imagine, as circumstances allow, that this space –a scene of instruction, as I like to say—has been set apart from distractions, intrusions, and chores. We do not ignore the world. In fact, we try our best to understand it. Still, for a scene of instruction to begin, we must protect attention—especially if we hope to understand sex and gender, those volatile, inseparable, and still risky topics. Could I ask you to set aside some 40 or 50 minutes for this work? To read the paper well you will need to do a little writing. Some weeks from now, REA will schedule an online session for us to discuss it.

Mark D. Jordan

We hope you are well and excited about our completely online REA Annual Meeting 2021 Gender, Sexuality, and Wholeness: Religious Education for Confrontation and Healing that begins tomorrow, July 5th!

We wanted to share a few reminders as you make your plans:

• Everything kicks off tomorrow, July 5 at 9am Eastern Time with the Program Chair’s welcome, followed by the Orientation & Lightning Talks at 10am Eastern Time.
• The Business Meeting is on Wednesday, July 7th at 10am Eastern Time. The Business Meeting materials are on our website.
• Please visit the REA Annual Meeting 2021 Upcoming Sessions list on Run The World to enter any session.
• A full schedule along with all RIG papers and Collaborative outlines can be found as part of the schedule here on the REA website.
• You can write your thoughts, concerns, joys, pictures, and hellos here on the REA2021 Padlet.
• During the meeting, please use our feedback form to let us know how it is going.
• Check out our Frequently Asked Questions page for answers to some questions about the Run The World platform we are using for our meeting. If you have any questions or concerns please reach out to info [at] religiouseducation [dot] net.

You will also get a reminder or two from Run The World. The “Enter Event” button on those reminders will also take your to REA2021. We look forward to seeing you soon! Take care and be well!

Excitement is building, as we are so close to the beginning of our meeting.

Please make sure to read the papers ahead of the RIG sessions you are going to (linked in the schedule at this site), read through the business meeting materials prior to the business meeting (although note that some won’t go up until after the Board meets), and generally enjoy!

We are slowly populating the schedule with paper abstracts, full papers where available, and many more details. This page will be updated regularly, but you can subscribe to the ICS and that way whenever this is updated your calendar will also be update.

As more and more speakers register, more and more sessions are becoming visible on the schedule of our meeting. You can see the basic public version here, and then register for more details.

Read the latest eREACH for detailed biographies and more information about dates/times of plenary speakers.

Stay tuned for more details, but please note that today the REA Steering Committee decided to move our REA2021 full meeting online, due to continuing concerns with COVID-19.

The deadline for proposals was shifted to January 31st, so keep in mind that your paper/panel/etc. will now need to take place in an online space.

More details coming soonest!

Due to circumstances beyond our control, the call for proposals for REA2021 is being extended. At this point we know only that we will accept proposals at least until January 31st, but the precise deadline is still being formulated by the steering committee.

After careful consideration of all of the issues, and upon reaching the deadline past which the fees for cancelling a hotel contract become onerous, the REA Steering Committee has decided to postpone our annual meeting to 6-9 July 2021.

In doing so we realize there are many things that will have to change, but we feel very strongly that the REA community does its best work — both in scholarship and teaching — when we are able to gather in person.

So, please mark your calendars right now to come to St. Paul, Minnesota, 6-9 July 2021.

Many more details will be forthcoming in the weeks ahead, including some special events that will take place during what would have been our meeting in November.