American Academy
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AAR
American Academy of Religion
Founded in 1909, the Academy is the world's largest association of academics who research or teach topics related to religion.
In a world where religion plays so central a role in social, political, and economic events, as well as in the lives of communities and individuals, there is a critical need for ongoing reflection upon and understanding of religious traditions, issues, questions, and values. The Academy's mission is to promote such reflection through excellence in scholarship and teaching in the field of religion.
As a learned society and professional association of teachers and research scholars, the American Academy of Religion has over 9,000 members who teach in some 1,500 colleges, universities, seminaries, and schools in North America and abroad. The Academy is dedicated to furthering knowledge of religion and religious institutions in all their forms and manifestations. This is accomplished through Academy-wide and regional conferences and meetings, publications, programs, and membership services. Within a context of free inquiry and critical examination, the Academy welcomes all disciplined reflection on religion--both from within and outside of communities of belief and practice--and seeks to enhance its broad public understanding.
For further information about the Academy please go to: www.aarweb.org
- African Religions Group
This Group encourages critical inquiry about religions originating in Africa as well as all those practiced there. Proposals should go beyond description, analyzing conceptual tools and methods employed. This year we invite individual papers or panel proposals on the following themes: 1) The politics of method - insider/outsider, authority, and legitimacy in the study of African religions; 2) African religions - vision and moral response to environmental crises (global warming, toxic dumping, deforestation, etc.); and 3) For a session to be a cosponsored with the Religion and Migration Consultation, African religions and cultures in migration - interaction and influence between African immigrant communities and African-American communities in Atlanta and the South. - Afro-American Religious History Group
In recognition of the locale of our next meeting, this Group especially welcomes proposals on W. E. B. Du Bois, Vincent Harding, Martin Luther King Jr., historic black colleges, black Mennonites, or black women intellectuals in the civil rights movement. Other potential emphases for sessions might include the South, broadly construed; the relationship between historical and sociological approaches; or questions of class, wealth, or prosperity gospels in the religious history of African-Americans. More generally, we are looking for proposals that explore the relationship between racial and ethnic identity, as well as those which investigate the challenges of archival research in Afro-American religion. Papers or panels investigating religious dissent or discord are also encouraged. - Anthropology of Religion Group
We invite proposals from across the full range of anthropological theories and methods that address diverse traditions, regions, and periods. In particular, we welcome submissions on the following: 1) Lévi-Strauss, pedagogy, and deconstruction; 2) Evolutionary theories of religion and dialogue with the cognitive sciences, the 150th anniversary of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and how religion has changed since Darwin and might yet change in the future as a result; and/or 3) Secularization and new religious myth- and meaning-making. Possible cosponsorships include sessions with the Afro-American Religious History Group on how interdisciplinary dialogue might promote mutually enhancing approaches to studying Black religion in the Americas; the Law, Religion, and Culture Group on case studies and theoretical reflections exploring grounded methodologies for the anthropological study of religion and law; and/or the Religion and Cities Consultation on the changing cityscape and faithscape of cities in the southern United States. - Black Theology Group
This Group invites papers and panel proposals that will contribute to the following topics: 1) A joint panel with the Religion, Holocaust, and Genocide Group around the theme of creative responses to historic and contemporary forms of (racial, ethnic, religious) genocide and trauma - such as the challenges of prison-industrial complex, PTS(lavery)D, Maafa remembrances, and other communal emotional trauma; 2) A panel that will reflect on the ways that engagement between Black theology and African-centered religions might lead to theological and discursive creativity that benefits the Black community and the academy; and 3) A joint panel with the Transformative Scholarship and Pedagogy Consultation that will focus on transformative strategies for integrating activism and scholarship. One specific focus of this session will be the Black theologians' experience and identity in the Academy. - Contemporary Islam Group
This Group invites submissions on all subjects relating to Islam in the contemporary world. We are particularly interested in papers relevant to the following topics: Islam and ecology, contemporary form of Muslim artistic and cultural expressions, an assessment of the state of the field in Islamic Studies, Muslim public intellectuals, Muslims in the media, critical readings of marketing reform (for example the phenomenon of Muslim critics of Islam - Irshad Manji, Ayan Hirsi Ali, etc.), critical theory and Islam, methodological approaches to and/or new trajectories in Islamic Studies, insider-outsider issues in the study of Islam, contemporary Sufi movements and/or the negotiation of Sufi identity in the West, and Muslim masculinities. - Contemporary Pagan Studies Group
This Group invites papers that address one of the following topics: 1) Pagan masculinities - male identity, gender injustice, and power relations. Who are the Pagan men, how is their understanding of masculinity constituted, and how are they affected by the emphasis on the feminine in Pagan spirituality? (This session will be cosponsored with the Men, Masculinities, and Religion Group); 2) Paganism, ethnicity and ultranationalism - the Right has increased representation in the European Parliament and some of those elected are Pagans with concerns about boundaries, immigration, and ethnicities. We welcome papers that investigate this growing phenomenon and the contentious issues that arise from it; 3) Idolatry and tangible sacrality - the conversation continues. This panel generated such excellent discussion at the 2009 meeting that we felt it important to explore it further; and 4) Papers on African-inspired religious traditions, such as Santeria, Vodun, Yoruba, and Candomble, especially as those are represented in the southeast United States (this will be a cosponsored session with the New Religious Movements Group). - Indigenous Religious Traditions Group
We invite submissions addressing: 1) Notions of what is an indigenous religion and the limits of both indigenous and Western categories; 2) Traditional indigenous science and technology (including but not limited to traditional environmental knowledge, star knowledge, traditional medicine, and changes to indigenous traditions from contact with Western technology); 3) For the centennial anniversary of the AAR, changes in approaches to indigenous traditions in the last one hundred years and the differences in religious studies versus anthropological approaches and categories; and 4) The politics of recognition. In keeping with the International Connections Committee focus for the 2010 Annual Meeting, we welcome submissions on these topics with a focus on Australia and/or Oceania. We also welcome papers on other themes dealing with indigenous traditions. - Religion and Ecology Group
This Group is seeking paper and panel proposals on the following topics: 1) Environmental justice and climate change (especially religious responses to the Copenhagen meeting on climate change); 2) The contributions of Thomas Berry to the field of religion and ecology/nature; 3) The importance of emerging alternatives to the language of sustainability and stewardship; 4) The place of technology and the virtual world in an environmental ethic and/or understandings of "nature"; and 5) The ways in which evolutionary theory has changed religious understanding. Finally, we are seeking papers for a session trisponsored with the Religions, Social Conflict, and Peace Group and the Religion, Film, and Visual Culture Group on the topic of virtual worlds, embodiment, and environmental justice, and/or religiously "green" movies and environmental justice. We will also consider paper and panel proposals on topics outside of the themes listed. We will only consider full and complete proposals. - African Diaspora Religions Consultation
We invite papers for a panel on themes and approaches to the study of African diaspora religions. In particular, we seek proposals that bring an interdisciplinary approach and that consider the transnational and global dimensions of African diaspora religions, emphasizing their geographic, historical, cultural, and linguistic complexities. We welcome proposals on the following themes: 1) African diaspora religions in a global context; 2) Continuity and separation from Africa; 3) African diaspora religions and postcolonial migrations; 4) Diasporic practices and African traditional religions; 5) Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in diasporic contexts; 6) African diaspora religions and material culture; and 7) Ritual and preserving African diaspora histories. - Religion and Migration Consultation
This Consultation is a forum in which scholars working on religion and migration from multiple perspectives can interact. For 2010, we are particularly interested in submissions that construct, test, and/or question theories and methodologies that speak to the intersections of migration and religion. Additionally, we invite proposals that explore the topic of gender, migration, and religion, that attend to representations of immigrants and their religions (self-representations, media representations, political representations, etc.), and that examine immigrant religions in the South. In particular, we seek proposals for African religions and cultures in migration - the influence on, and/or interaction with, the African American communities in Atlanta and the South (a session to be cosponsored with the African Religions Group). We accept individual papers and prearranged panel/paper sessions.
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