Conferences and Congresses.

This article presents notes on the 13th Conference of the Sociology of Religion at lloret-de-Mar, Costa-Brava, Catalonia, Spain, in 1975. The conference was held at a popular tourist resort. The place was crowded with bars, souvenirs and tourists mainly coming from Great Britain and West Germany. The theme of the conference was Religion and Social Change. The principal papers were not read at the conference but appeared in advance in the acts either in extenso or as resumés. The papers were discussed at the conference in five different kinds of sessions. It is quite possible to unite the many different papers and discussions in one single view or even in a short article. Thirty papers were printed in the acts, and half of them in extenso. The subject areas also varied widely: From African to Irish religion and from Polish to Japanese popular beliefs. The theoretical discussions also covered the wide range from traditional positivism and functionalism to some tender outbreaks of critical theory, This confrontation which is very usual among secular sociologists still possesses the charm of novelty among sociologists of religion, but nevertheless it made discussions difficult at the conference.