2027 Call for Papers
Beyond Boundaries and Silos: Toward Interconnection and Collaboration
Beyond Boundaries and Silos: Toward Interconnection and Collaboration
In light of our deeply polarized times, the American Academy of Religion, Western Region invites scholars, practitioners, educators, and community leaders to submit proposals for its Annual Conference, Moving Beyond Boundaries and Silos Toward Interconnection. The theme reflects AAR/WR's foundational commitment to inter-religious, inter-disciplinary, and inter-generational dialogue.
Across disciplines, religious communities, and generations, we are too often separated by assumed difference, entrenched institutional structures, and siloed discourse. Yet there is a growing hunger for approaches that build connection rather than reinforce division. This conference asks: What does it mean to move beyond the silos that confine our scholarship, our religious communities, and our relationships across generations? How do we cultivate genuine interconnection—not by erasing difference, but by engaging it more honestly, generously, and creatively?
Our co-host sites embodied the theme: alongside Pacific School of Religion, the Graduate Theological Union is a consortium of schools, centers, and institutes spanning Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Islamic, and other traditions whose collaborative design dissolves the very silos this call critiques.
We welcome submissions engaging one or more of three interconnected dimensions:
Across disciplines, religious communities, and generations, we are too often separated by assumed difference, entrenched institutional structures, and siloed discourse. Yet there is a growing hunger for approaches that build connection rather than reinforce division. This conference asks: What does it mean to move beyond the silos that confine our scholarship, our religious communities, and our relationships across generations? How do we cultivate genuine interconnection—not by erasing difference, but by engaging it more honestly, generously, and creatively?
Our co-host sites embodied the theme: alongside Pacific School of Religion, the Graduate Theological Union is a consortium of schools, centers, and institutes spanning Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Islamic, and other traditions whose collaborative design dissolves the very silos this call critiques.
We welcome submissions engaging one or more of three interconnected dimensions:
- Inter-Religious Engagement: comparative theology, interfaith dialogue and action, responses to polarization and ecological crisis
- Inter-Disciplinary Scholarship: religious studies in conversation with the sciences, arts, technology, and public life
- Inter-Generational Dialogue: mentorship, emerging voices, transmission of traditional wisdom, and bridging generational divides
2027 Conference Proposal Instructions
Membership in AAR is required to present at the conference. Become an AAR Member here.
Submission of an abstract alone, however, does not require membership.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word version or PDF version) to the relevant Unit Chair listed below by October 31, 2026.
We also invite, though do not require, a brief statement of your personal interests; this helps us know you as more than an abstract.
The 2027 Annual Meeting will be hosted at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA
Submission of an abstract alone, however, does not require membership.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word version or PDF version) to the relevant Unit Chair listed below by October 31, 2026.
We also invite, though do not require, a brief statement of your personal interests; this helps us know you as more than an abstract.
The 2027 Annual Meeting will be hosted at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA
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Call for Papers List
Black Religion and Theology
Julius Bailey, University of Redlands, [email protected]
Aaron Grizzell, NorCal MLK Foundation, [email protected]
Buddhist Studies
Jake Nagasawa, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Alina Pokhrel, University of Virginia, [email protected]
Catholic Studies
Samantha Kang, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Nathan McWeeney, University of Southern California, [email protected]
Christianity
“Joey” Alan Le, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
Dharma Studies
Kali (Meera) Tanikella, [email protected]
Disabilities Studies
Elizabeth Staszak, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
Disabilities Studies and Graduate Student Professional Development and Joint CFP
Ecology and Religion
Avalon Jade Theisen [email protected]
Matthew Switzer [email protected]
Ethics
Lisa Asedillo, Pacific School of Religion, [email protected]
Joshua S. Bartholomew, Pacific School of Religion, [email protected]
The Ethics Unit takes up this year's theme by asking what makes genuine interconnection possible and what it demands of those who pursue it. This requires examining the histories, power asymmetries, cultural and media narrative campaigns, and material conditions that produce division—holding that difference itself is not the problem; supremacy is. With Audre Lorde, we also hold that "it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence.” We invite scholarship that treats disagreement, refusal, and the breaking of silence as themselves forms of ethical and religious labor. Such work may require transgressing the very communal boundaries that define us for the sake of collective liberation, raising the question of what solidarity costs and when it asks us to move from ally to accomplice.
The unit invites work that brings these questions to each of the conference's three foci — interreligious, interdisciplinary, and intergenerational. We welcome these and other approaches that carry the inquiry into the conference's broader invitation to move beyond boundaries and silos toward interconnection.
See Queer Studies Unit CFP for a Joint Ecology and Religion and Queer Studies CFP.
Goddess Studies
Kali (Meera) Tanikella, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
Graduate Student Professional Development
Kimberly Diaz, University of California, Riverside, [email protected]
Graduate Student Professional Development and Disabilities Studies Joint CFP
Indigenous Religions
Delores (Lola) Mondragón, UC Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Islamic Studies
Souad Ali, Arizona State University, Tempe, [email protected]
Jewish Studies
Roberta Sabbath, University of Nevada, [email protected]
Alexander Warren Marcus, University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
Latinx Religions and Spiritualities
Saul Barcelo, Loma Linda University, [email protected]
Pagan Studies
Polly Springhorn, [email protected]
Candace Kant, [email protected]
Kahana Viale, [email protected]
Philosophy of Religion
Mitch Hickman, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Shakir Stephen, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Psychology, Culture, and Religion
Casey Crosbie, Scripps College, [email protected]
Katherine Kunz, Center for Religion and Cities, [email protected]
Queer Studies in Religion, Joint CFP with Ecology and Religion
Marie Cartier, California State University, Northridge, [email protected]
John Erickson, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
Religion, Science, and Technology
Greg Cootsona, CSU Chico, [email protected]
Reed Metcalf, Fuller Theological Seminary, [email protected]
Religion and the Arts
Anna Hennessey, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
Religions of Asia
Fadime Apaydin, University of California, Riverside, [email protected]
İhsan Çapcıoğlu, Ankara University, Turkey, [email protected]
Womanist/Pan-African
Valerie Miles-Tribble, GTU / Berkeley School of Theology, [email protected]
Sakena Young-Scaggs, Stanford University, [email protected]
Women and Religion
Emily Silverman (Interim), Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
Last Updated: Aug 5, 2026
Julius Bailey, University of Redlands, [email protected]
Aaron Grizzell, NorCal MLK Foundation, [email protected]
Buddhist Studies
Jake Nagasawa, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Alina Pokhrel, University of Virginia, [email protected]
Catholic Studies
Samantha Kang, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Nathan McWeeney, University of Southern California, [email protected]
Christianity
“Joey” Alan Le, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
Dharma Studies
Kali (Meera) Tanikella, [email protected]
Disabilities Studies
Elizabeth Staszak, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
Disabilities Studies and Graduate Student Professional Development and Joint CFP
Ecology and Religion
Avalon Jade Theisen [email protected]
Matthew Switzer [email protected]
Ethics
Lisa Asedillo, Pacific School of Religion, [email protected]
Joshua S. Bartholomew, Pacific School of Religion, [email protected]
The Ethics Unit takes up this year's theme by asking what makes genuine interconnection possible and what it demands of those who pursue it. This requires examining the histories, power asymmetries, cultural and media narrative campaigns, and material conditions that produce division—holding that difference itself is not the problem; supremacy is. With Audre Lorde, we also hold that "it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence.” We invite scholarship that treats disagreement, refusal, and the breaking of silence as themselves forms of ethical and religious labor. Such work may require transgressing the very communal boundaries that define us for the sake of collective liberation, raising the question of what solidarity costs and when it asks us to move from ally to accomplice.
The unit invites work that brings these questions to each of the conference's three foci — interreligious, interdisciplinary, and intergenerational. We welcome these and other approaches that carry the inquiry into the conference's broader invitation to move beyond boundaries and silos toward interconnection.
See Queer Studies Unit CFP for a Joint Ecology and Religion and Queer Studies CFP.
Goddess Studies
Kali (Meera) Tanikella, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
Graduate Student Professional Development
Kimberly Diaz, University of California, Riverside, [email protected]
Graduate Student Professional Development and Disabilities Studies Joint CFP
Indigenous Religions
Delores (Lola) Mondragón, UC Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Islamic Studies
Souad Ali, Arizona State University, Tempe, [email protected]
Jewish Studies
Roberta Sabbath, University of Nevada, [email protected]
Alexander Warren Marcus, University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
Latinx Religions and Spiritualities
Saul Barcelo, Loma Linda University, [email protected]
Pagan Studies
Polly Springhorn, [email protected]
Candace Kant, [email protected]
Kahana Viale, [email protected]
Philosophy of Religion
Mitch Hickman, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Shakir Stephen, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Psychology, Culture, and Religion
Casey Crosbie, Scripps College, [email protected]
Katherine Kunz, Center for Religion and Cities, [email protected]
Queer Studies in Religion, Joint CFP with Ecology and Religion
Marie Cartier, California State University, Northridge, [email protected]
John Erickson, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
Religion, Science, and Technology
Greg Cootsona, CSU Chico, [email protected]
Reed Metcalf, Fuller Theological Seminary, [email protected]
Religion and the Arts
Anna Hennessey, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
Religions of Asia
Fadime Apaydin, University of California, Riverside, [email protected]
İhsan Çapcıoğlu, Ankara University, Turkey, [email protected]
Womanist/Pan-African
Valerie Miles-Tribble, GTU / Berkeley School of Theology, [email protected]
Sakena Young-Scaggs, Stanford University, [email protected]
Women and Religion
Emily Silverman (Interim), Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
Last Updated: Aug 5, 2026