Australia is one of the most rapidly secularising countries in the world, yet the people behind that statistic remain comparatively understudied (38.9% in 2021).
This symposium, held alongside the 50th anniversary of Religious Studies at the University of Sydney, gathers researchers taking nonreligion seriously as a subject in its own right.
We welcome work from across the humanities and social sciences, at every career stage.
Event Details:
Date: Friday 23rd October 2026
Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm
Location:The University of Sydney
Cost: $30 *includes morning tea & lunch
Format: This event also includes a Zoom panel option for overseas and interstate-based scholars to deliver their presentation online
Call for Papers:
Topic 1: Leaving Religion
Exit from religion is rarely the clean break the word “deconversion” suggests.
We invite papers on deconversion as process, on religious trauma and recovery, on the ex-member communities that have become important sites of mutual aid, on the renegotiation of family after a departure, and on the still-open question of what a post-religious life actually consists of.
Topic 2: The Politics of nonreligion
With the 2026 census on the horizon, it is newly urgent to ask what “no religion” actually represents and whose interests it carries.
We welcome papers on the 2021 “Mark No Religion” campaign and its afterlives, on the methodological puzzles of measuring nonreligion, on the difficulty of organising a population defined largely by what it is not, and on the church–state contexts where nonreligion is a stakeholder whether or not it shows up as one.
Submissions:
Please send a 250-word abstract and a short bio (c. 100 words) by 25 June 2026 to:
Katja Strehle (k.strehle@westernsydney.edu.au)
Samantha Hauw (s.hauw@deakin.edu.au)
Papers to be 15 minutes in length plus discussion time.
We especially encourage submissions from postgraduate and early-career researchers.