1. Literature and Religion in the Biblical World
Coordinator: Prof. Dr. José Adriano Filho (FUV)
The WG “Literature and Religion in the Biblical World” accepts communications that are related to the creation of images, literary formation and reception of the Bible in Western literary traditions. In this sense, communication can work with the poetic document of biblical texts (class and rhetorical techniques utilized in its composition and that also consider the dynamic of persuasion and its function in historical and social contexts), that seek to present its religious and theological vision, or seek to understand the structure of thought in its temporality and the manner in which it impacts our experience of historical time (apocalyptic thought and construction of images, profane forms of apocalyptic literature, cinema, and its iconographic wealth related to the figurative power of this theme). Communications can also focus on the appropriation of biblical narrative models and their images in Western literary tradition, as well as the fact that in the process of reading the reader seeks to reveal the signification, the meanings and the diverse possibilities of interpretation of the text (esthetics of reception).
Key-words: Creation of images, Biblical texts, Esthetic of reception, Apocalyptic.

2.Contemporary Spiritualities, Religious Plurality and Dialogue
Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Claudio de Oliveira Ribeiro (UMESP)
The WG “Contemporary Spiritualities, Religious Plurality and Dialogue” has as its objective to analyze current religious plurality and tendencies to dialogue in the contemporary world. Research regarding daily life experiences of spirituality, stages of development of spiritual experience and the function of meditation, the deflection of superstitious behavior and of mysticism as well as fundamentalist practices are accepted. Religious plurality and mobility surpass reality and current statistical data. This plural cultural context invites religious and spiritual traditions to dialogue. Without denying or ignore what is unique and irrevocable in each experience, it deals with perceiving, in living with diversity, the spiritual dynamism that is among and beyond religions/spirituality. Included in this debate are expressions that are lay and without god. The inter-religious dialogue that all of these provide motivates the rethinking of the meaning of tolerance and the ethical commitment of these spiritualities to world peace.
Key – words: Contemporary spiritualities, Religious plurality, Dialogue, Religiosity.

3. Gender and Religion: Tendencies and Debates
Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Fernanda Lemos (UFPB)
The WG “Gender and Religion: tendencies and debates” has as its objective to propose the discussion of research that involves the articulation between gender and religion, seeking to analyze the implications of gender for symbolic-religious systems that inform followers and social institutions in general. This analysis is based on an interdisciplinary perspective and the WG seeks to assemble research around the axis of gender and religion based on diverse areas of knowledge, such as sociology, anthropology, history, theology, psychology and others. Religion, even in a secularized context, still shows itself to be an important system of signification in the conformation of masculine and feminine subjectivities. Its normalizing and regulating power are frequently discussed in the ambit of feminist studies. On the other hand, religious orthodoxies often fall out with the heterodoxies of the daily life of religious subjects that, in turn, significantly relativizes the regulating power of institutions and systems of religious significance. The WG accepts research communications that discuss theoretical-methodological aspects of the study of gender and religion, as well as proposals that analyze the exchanges or continuities of religious discourse regarding the social roles of sex in the context of the redefinition of gender identities. Proposals are welcome that articulated gender and religion in the discussion of violence, be it domestic, urban, in religious institutions, or in work relations, in the discussion of sexual diversity, in bioethics, in laity and in politics among other possibilities.
Key-words: Gender, Religion, Identities.

4.Religion as Text: Language and Production of Meaning
Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Douglas Conceição (UEPA)
The WG “Religion as Text: Language and Production of Meaning” seeks to offer a forum for the discussion of theoretical questions related to the role of symbols, narrative and religious systems in the creation of meaning, complex communication systems and poetic universes. Also dealt with are analyses of literary works, myths, creation of images, gestures, in the perspective of semiotics, hermeneutics, and literary criticism, among others. Religion is a constitutive part of the primary forms of expression of culture, present in symbolically adorned burial sites, in portable statues of gods, in rock paintings, among other prehistoric manifestations. Various scientific approaches agree with the fact that these religious symbolic forms are intrinsically related to the first articulations of language. The partnership between language and religion is, thus, fundamental to understand the implications of one to the other and to comprehend how religion manifests itself as text and structure and translated in many related forms of language: rituals, symbols, narrative, visual culture, among others.
Key-words: Religion and Language, Production of Meaning, Hermeneutics, Religion and Text, Narrative, Visual Culture.

5. Religion and Education
Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Elisa Rodrigues (UFJF)
The WG “Religion and Education” organizes studies and research regarding the relation between education, culture and religion in that this field opens itself systematically to researchers of Theology and Religious Studies, as well as other related areas. With an interdisciplinary perspective, its intention is to comprehend the different processes of teaching and learning in educational and community spaces. This nucleus deals with themes such as religious education, education in different confessional spaces, diversity, initial and continued education, formation of leadership for movements and the study of different school segments, among others. Such elements are related to the comprehension and transformation of practices and the conduction of life and educational politics presented as platforms for the organization and directions of human relations and its diffusion (nature, transcendence, modification).
Key-words: Education, Religion, Religious education.

6.Protestantism, Pentecostalism and Power
Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Edin Abumanssur ( PUC SP)
The WG “Protestantism, Pentecostalism and Power” intends to maintain itself as a form of aggregation of researches that consider and produce knowledge regarding Protestants and Pentecostals in their different expressions, their form of insertion in Brazilian reality and, consequently, of the complex of related themes and correlatives. In this sense, this group accepts works and researcher from the fields of Theology and Religious Studies. The field of Brazilian religion has presented such dynamism and capacity for transformation that specialization in its different sub-themes has become a demand in recent years. The various readings and interpretations that the Pentecostal movement rouses in the academy, the multiplicity and particularities of the phenomenon, demand the dedication of those dedicated to study. Although it is impossible to exhaust the hermeneutical possibilities of this field of religion, and of the interests of researches, it requires the maintenance of a minimal legitimacy of the referred to quadrant.
Key-words: Protestantism, Pentecostalism, Religious field.

7. Religion and Politics
Coordenator: Prof. Dr. Jorge Pinheiro (Faculdade Batista de São Paulo)
The WG “Religion and Politics” unites communications with the objective of analyzing how religious persons and their institutions act in different periods in the political sphere. What this could mean in the fields of political studies and of religion for the comprehension of the different historical periods. It aspires to recover the memory of religious men and women in the context of military dictatorships in Latin America, and in the processes of newly formed democracies, as well as analyze current processes of political participation of religious groups.
Key-Words: Memory, Church and State, Christians and politics.

8. Religion, Economy and Daily Life
Coordinators: Prof. Dr. Lauri Wirth and Prof. Dr. Jung Mo Sung
The WG “Religion, Economy and Daily Life” discusses, with priority, three relations between religion and economy: a) the presence and role of economic themes and logic in the field of religion, for example the “theology of prosperity” and the “preferential option for the poor”; b) the presence and role of religious symbols and languages in the field of economy and in consumer culture, for example religious language in advertising and economic discourses, and shopping centers as new cathedrals, and; c) the impacts of socioeconomic changes occurring from globalization in religious institutions and dynamics.
Key-words: Religion and Economy, Globalization, Daily Life.

9.Visual Culture and Religion
Coordinator: Prof. Dr., Frederico Pieper (UFJF)
The WG “Visual Culture and Religion” has as its objective to unite research that explore the mutual relation between visual culture and religion. As such, it unites works that deal with diverse forms in which visual culture gains expression (icons, photographs, prints, sculpture, art, cinema, etc.), from diverse historical periods, religious traditions, and cultures. Works are also considered that propose analysis of the force of the performance of images and methodology for the interpretation of contemporary visual culture. The WG begins with the presupposition that attention to these aspects of culture is a response to the advance of “visualization” and “aesthetics” of contemporary culture, with the expansion of image creating worlds in all areas of life, from daily to scientific. The problem that the WG proposes to develop is around how religion participates in this phenomenon, as well implications for thinking about religion in contemporary culture. This type of study has been a specific theme of scientific investigation since the decade of the 90s of the past century. It has provided continuity for the intuitions of Wittgenstein, Merleu-Ponty, Panofsy, among others. It represents a field of research that involves the study of sacred texts and the history of religions, as well as the relation between culture and religion from different forms of the production of perception and image, for example, photographs, films, pictures, engravings, pictorial artifacts and aspects of metaphors.
Key-words: Image, Aesthetic, Visual Culture.

10.Religious Praxis and Public Dimension
Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Roberto Zwetsch (EST)
The WG has as its objective to discuss the diversity of religious practices in Christian communities, or not, the relation between people and leaders, and until what point religious practices lived by people coincide with social public life. Public theology has lately demonstrated that faith communities play an important role in society because they open space for celebration and concrete support for people in the midst of their difficulties and anxieties. But beyond this function, religious communities also occupy a public space that needs to be analyzed in careful and critical forms, above all in the current political moment in Brazilian society. Conservative tendencies that currently dominate the Brazilian parliament indicate true retrocession in diverse points of legislation with regard to children and adolescents, women, and different minorities. The WG pretends to open space for communication and research that seek to help in the analysis of these question and other related themes.
Key-words: Diverse Religious Practices, Community of Faith, Public Space, Conservative Tendencies x Social Rights in the Religious Landscape.