ISMRC
The Center for Media, Religion, and Culture serves as the global secretariat for the biennial international conferences on Media, Religion, and Culture. This series of meetings was initiated by an invitational meeting held in Uppsala, Sweden in 1994. An international public meeting in 1996 in Boulder, Colorado, launched these as a regular series. That conference, attended by over 200 scholars and interested individuals from throughout the world, was directed by Stewart Hoover and Lynn Schofield Clark, and was the first major effort of what subsequently became the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture. It was followed by the 3rd Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture directed by Jolyon Mitchell at the University of Edinburgh in 1999. The meetings 4-6 were supported by a grant from the Schichtung Porticus Foundation of Amsterdam.
The International Society for Media, Religion, and Culture
At the 2008 meeting, strong sentiments were expressed by participants concerning the value of an ongoing scholarly organization or association for the study of media, religion, and culture. The Steering Committee which then oversaw the conference series took this under advisement and began exploring options and taking input. A public forum on incorporation took place at Toronto. Following that, the Steering Committee took the advice and input of these two meetings and proceeded to form an association, formally incorporating it. Following a strong sentiment expressed at Toronto, the association is being called The International Society for Media, Religion, and Culture (ISMRC). Plans are underway for an inauguration of the society at the 2012 meeting. More details will be posted here in due course. Anyone wishing to give input to the Committee as it proceeds can be in touch with any member of the Committee (now the Board of the ISMRC), listed below.
Future meetings of the biennial ISMRC series
The 9th conference is tentatively planned for Canterbury, UK in (northern) Summer 2014.
The 10th is anticipated to be held in Seoul, Korea, in 2016, and the 11th in Los Angeles, California, in 2018.
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