2025 Call for Papers
Proposal Instructions
2025 Conference Theme
Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality
Membership in AAR 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, 2024.
Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality
Membership in AAR 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, 2024.
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Introduction
The American Academy of Religion, Western Region (AAR-WR), is delighted to announce its annual Call for Papers (CFP) for its 2025 Conference, which will be held at the Arizona State University (ASU). It will be an in-person conference with some hybrid capabilities.
Our region is grateful for ASU’s wonderful support of our annual conference and look forward to this opportunity to share the exciting research, scholarship, and publication taking place within AAR’s Western Region!
We look forward with great enthusiasm to this conference and to seeing everyone at ASU!
Sincerely,
2024-2025 Board of Directors
American Academy of Religion, Western Region (AAR-WR)
Our region is grateful for ASU’s wonderful support of our annual conference and look forward to this opportunity to share the exciting research, scholarship, and publication taking place within AAR’s Western Region!
We look forward with great enthusiasm to this conference and to seeing everyone at ASU!
Sincerely,
2024-2025 Board of Directors
American Academy of Religion, Western Region (AAR-WR)
Call for Papers List
Special Session: Drumming, Noise Making Movement
Roberta Sabbath, University of Nevada, [email protected]
Alexander Warren Marcus, University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
We hope you will bring your hand drum, tambourine, your voice, your movement to join in this participatory session.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Laura Snell and Albert Shannon Toribio by October 31, 2024.
Asian American Religious Studies
Laura Snell, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Albert Shannon Toribio, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
For the AAR-WR Conference 2025, the Asian American Religious Studies Unit focuses on the overlapping and often mutually constituting categories of religion and performance. Attending to the mixture of creativity, religion, and spirituality in expressive practice, we invite papers from any discipline that address the various manifestations of performativity of Asian American religion, not preferring any particular mode of creative expression and not privileging any particular religious tradition.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Laura Snell and Albert Shannon Toribio by October 31, 2024.
Black Religion and Theology
Julius Bailey, University of Redlands, [email protected]
Aaron Grizzell, NorCal MLK Foundation, [email protected]
The Black Religion and Theology Unit’s mission is to further the development of scholarly research and discussion about the black religious experience; encourage the broadening of Black religion as an academic endeavor; and engage in discourse, from the African diasporic perspective, about religious and theological expression. Following along with this year’s theme, which focuses on examining the complex intersections of religion, technology, and science, we welcome proposal submissions from two focus areas. The selected panelists can expect 15-20 minutes to present their work and to enable time for questions and audience responses.
Focus Area A: Artificial intelligence and generative technologies are changing the landscape of the modes and definitions of communication, imagination, connectivity, and, arguably, reality. Both religion and theology in African diasporic expressions have much to say on these matters. We welcome papers that delve into the challenges, opportunities, and innovative expressions that are being forged in this space.
Focus Area B: In many ways, the Black religious expression has been the vanguard through which social justice movements have forged new rights under law, and Black religious scholarship has been vital to building a bulwark against theoretical and methodological pushback in the academy regarding the grounding of these movements in the Black experience. We welcome papers that take an innovative look at modes of Black scholarship at the fulcrum of movements for justice, civil and human rights. This includes speculative and afrofuturist thought now at the forefront of many popular cultural expressions.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Julius Bailey and Aaron Grizzell by October 31, 2024.
Buddhist Studies
Jake Nagasawa, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Alina Pokhrel, University of Virginia, [email protected]
"Religious Expression Across Buddhist Worlds"
The Buddhist Studies unit warmly invites scholars, practitioners, and artists to present their creative work that explores multifaceted dimensions of Buddhist thought and practice. We welcome interactive presentations, performances, songs, poetry readings with commentaries, and traditional paper presentations that explore Buddhist expressions of devotion, meditative wisdom, ethical cultivation, esoteric realities, or the significance of affective states across traditions and time and place.
We encourage collaborative presentations across disciplines and traditions as well as comparative readings that illuminate aspects of Buddhist thought and practice otherwise exiled from our scholarship. If you have connections with scholars in other departments or at other institutions, please reach out to them to develop robust and innovative proposals!
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Jake Nagasawa and Alina Pokhrel by October 31, 2024.
Catholic Studies
Samantha Kang, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Nathan McWeeney, University of Southern California, [email protected]
This year, the Catholic Studies unit invites papers related to the AAR/WR’s 2023 conference theme: Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality. We welcome papers from various methodological and disciplinary standpoints and are particularly interested in papers addressing the twin notions of Catholicism as performance and performances of Catholicism as demonstrated in art, popular culture, and politics. We also hope to explore the intersection between Catholicism and tourism as it is encountered at popular travel destinations such as the California Missions, Notre Dame, Sagrada Familia or Vatican City.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Samantha Kang and Nathan McWeeney by October 31, 2024.
Christianity
“Joey” Alan Le, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
The Christianity Unit seeks proposals that demonstrate the expression and embodiment of the Christian faith and spirituality as a performance in line with the Conference Theme, “Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality.” We are particularly interested in proposals that explore the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of the Christian religion, and we encourage real-world applications to be at the center of, or included in, the proposals.
Proposals of essays or works of art may include, but are not restricted to:
• How should Christian truths and values be demonstrated in public life?
• What is Christianity’s call to promote responsibility and justice in today's nations and corporations?
• How does the Christian faith inspire hope, serving as a wellspring for human creativity and imagination?
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to “Joey” Alan Le by October 31, 2024.
Disabilities Studies
Anjeanette LeBoeuf, Saint Louis University, [email protected]
Elizabeth Staszak, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
The Disability Studies Unit welcomes papers which engage with the Conference Theme of “Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality.” Our unit is also looking for papers which grapple with the questions of space, location, body, and perception. Some of the questions we are hoping to see in proposals are below:
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Anjeanette LeBoeuf and Elizabeth Staszak by October 31, 2024.
CO-SESSION: Disability Studies and Goddess Studies
Anjeanette LeBoeuf, Saint Louis University, [email protected]
Elizabeth Staszak, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
Kali (Meera) Tanikella, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
The Disability Studies Unit and the Goddess Studies Unit are collaborating in a Co-Session. As we navigate the complexities of artificial intelligence and its impact on our lives, goddess traditions and disability studies offer profound frameworks for understanding human embodiment, epistemic justice, and alternative epistemologies. Our Co-Session is focused on Understandings, Praxis, and the New Frontier: How do we understand Humanity and AI. We are looking for papers which address the following questions:
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Anjeanette LeBoeuf, Elizabeth Staszak, and Kali (Meera) Tanikella by October 31, 2024.
Ecology and Religion
Avalon Jade Theisen [email protected]
Matthew Switzer [email protected]
In alignment with this year’s conference theme, Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality, this session seeks to investigate how faith, wisdom, and spiritual practices intersect with religious and environmental peacebuilding to explore theoretical and practical aspects of conflict resolution and alternative methodologies that challenge conventional paradigms for peacebuilding strategies.
This unit is particularly interested in papers, panels, and performances that consider how practical approaches to peace might destabilize existing paradigms to open new pathways for reconnecting with one another across intractable divides. In doing so we hope to foster a cohesive yet expansive framework for exploring how various elements—religion, ecology, media, performance, and political dynamics—interact in the ongoing pursuit of peace.
Topics related to Performing Peace: Ecological and Spiritual Approaches to Peacebuilding in a Fractured World may include:
CO-SESSION:
RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY UNIT, THE INDIGENOUS RELIGIONS UNIT, AND THE ECOLOGY AND RELIGION UNIT (JOINT SESSION)
Organizers: Avalon Jade Theisen, Arizona State University, Greg Cootsona, CSU Chico, Lola Mondragon, University of California Santa Barbara, Matthew Switzer, California Institute of Integral Studies, Reed Metcalf, Fuller Theological Seminary, Roberta Sabbath, University of Nevada Las Vegas
The Religion, Science, and Technology unit, the Indigenous Religions Unit, and the Religion and Ecology Unit are collaborating to invite papers for a round table on religion and the environment for this year’s AAR Western Regional Conference. This co-sponsored session will address issues of performance related to religion and ecology. Many challenges of the present day are directly tied to overexploitation of ecological systems, which in turn, disproportionately affect the most marginalized human communities and their ability to breathe unpolluted air, drink clean water, eat nutritious food, and other daily necessities.
We invite papers that discuss environmentalism as a spiritual act, social justice, religious communities working towards sustainability, art's role in expressing connections between humans and nature, politics, and related topics. These traditions can help us navigate and grapple with the things we make that weigh heavily on our future and those of coming generations.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Chair any of the unit chairs of any of the three units by October 31, 2024
Education and Pedagogy
Peter Romaskiewicz, UC Santa Barbara, [email protected]
The Education and Pedagogy Unit is currently accepting a wide variety of abstracts for papers that relate to the 2025 AAR/WR Conference Theme: Performance of Religion, Faith, and Spirituality and specifically within the context of Education and Pedagogy. Our unit will give priority to those abstracts that address the theme but will also consider all proposals addressing other topics.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Chair Peter Romaskiewicz by October 31, 2024.
Goddess Studies
Kali (Meera) Tanikella, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
What Makes Us Human in the Time of AI?In keeping with the 2025 AAR-WR conference theme of "Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality," the Goddess Studies unit aims to delve into the question: What makes us human in an increasingly AI-driven world? As we navigate the complexities of artificial intelligence and its impact on our lives, the study of goddess traditions offers a profound framework for understanding human embodiment, epistemic justice, and alternative epistemologies. We invite papers that address these themes through various perspectives, including but not limited to:
Embodiment:
Goddess traditions have long celebrated the physical body as a sacred vessel, central to religious experience and spiritual practice. This embodiment is evident in rituals that honor the cycles of life, including birth, menstruation, childbearing, and nurturing. These traditions often emphasize the interconnectedness of the body with the earth, seeing the physical form not as separate from the divine but as a reflection of it.
In an era increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence, where virtual reality and digital interfaces can create disembodied experiences, goddess traditions offer a counter-narrative that reaffirms the importance of physical presence and lived experience. Papers in this section could explore how specific goddess rituals—such as those involving dance, touch, and communal activities—serve as acts of resistance against the disembodiment trends in modern technology. They might also examine how these practices can inspire contemporary movements that seek to re-integrate the body into spiritual practice, ensuring that technology serves to enhance rather than diminish our physical and communal lives.
Epistemic Justice:
Epistemic justice refers to the recognition and inclusion of diverse ways of knowing, particularly those that have been historically marginalized. Goddess-centered epistemologies, which often draw on oral traditions, communal knowledge, and embodied practices, challenge the dominant paradigms that privilege abstract, disembodied, and often patriarchal forms of knowledge.
In the context of AI, which tends to prioritize data-driven, algorithmic processes that can reinforce existing power structures, goddess traditions offer an alternative by valuing relational and experiential knowledge. Papers in this section could explore how goddess-centered practices—such as storytelling, communal rituals, and the transmission of wisdom through generations—can contribute to a more inclusive and equitable understanding of knowledge in the age of AI. They might also address the risks of AI homogenizing knowledge systems and how goddess traditions can offer a bulwark against this, preserving and promoting diverse epistemologies that honor the complexity and richness of human experience.
Alternative Epistemologies:
Goddess traditions provide frameworks for understanding reality and spirituality that differ significantly from the logic-driven, often reductionist approaches prevalent in AI development. These traditions emphasize holistic, relational, and cyclical ways of knowing that are deeply interconnected with the natural world and the community.
Alternative epistemologies in goddess traditions might include the use of myth and symbolism as tools for understanding deeper truths, the role of ritual in creating and transmitting knowledge, and the importance of intuition and emotional intelligence in spiritual practice. These approaches contrast sharply with the binary, linear thinking that underpins much of AI and technological development.
Papers could delve into how these alternative epistemologies can inform and challenge current technological paradigms, offering insights into how we might integrate technology into our lives in ways that respect and enhance our connection to the earth, our bodies, and each other. Additionally, these contributions could explore how goddess traditions’ emphasis on nurturing, cooperation, and sustainability can offer a vision for a future where technology serves as a tool for supporting life, rather than dominating it.
Expanded Themes:
1. Ritual as Resistance:
- Explore how goddess rituals, particularly those focused on the body and earth, act as forms of resistance against the disembodiment and dehumanization often associated with AI and technology.
- Consider how these rituals can be adapted or revived in contemporary spiritual practices to maintain a connection to the physical and natural world.
2. Goddess Myths and AI Ethics:
- Investigate the ethical frameworks inherent in goddess myths and how they might offer alternative perspectives on AI development, particularly regarding issues of power, control, and the sanctity of life.
- Compare and contrast these mythic narratives with current AI ethical discussions, highlighting the potential for goddess traditions to contribute to more holistic ethical guidelines.
3. Embodied Community Building:
- Discuss how goddess traditions emphasize the role of the community in spiritual and religious practices, particularly through embodied acts of care, support, and nurturing.
- Examine how these practices can inform and challenge the often individualistic and disembodied nature of online communities and AI-driven social networks.
4. Sustainability and AI:
- Explore how goddess-centered approaches to sustainability, which are rooted in cycles of life, death, and rebirth, offer a counterpoint to the often extractive and linear models of technological development.
- Consider how these sustainable practices can influence the development of technology that supports rather than depletes the earth’s resources.
We also welcome collaborative and innovative proposals that engage with other units and disciplines. We believe that a multidisciplinary approach will enrich our understanding and foster dynamic discussions.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Kali (Meera) Tanikella by October 31, 2024.
CO-SESSION: Disability Studies and Goddess Studies
Anjeanette LeBoeuf, Saint Louis University, [email protected]
Elizabeth Staszak, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
Kali (Meera) Tanikella, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
The Disability Studies Unit and the Goddess Studies Unit are collaborating in a Co-Session. As we navigate the complexities of artificial intelligence and its impact on our lives, goddess traditions and disability studies offer profound frameworks for understanding human embodiment, epistemic justice, and alternative epistemologies. Our Co-Session is focused on Understandings, Praxis, and the New Frontier: How do we understand Humanity and AI. We are looking for papers which address the following questions:
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Anjeanette LeBoeuf, Elizabeth Staszak, and Kali (Meera) Tanikella by October 31, 2024.
Graduate Student Professional Development
Kimberly Diaz, University of California, Riverside, [email protected]
For many academics, an integral part to their professional portfolio is the Curriculum vitae (CV). Latin for “course of life,” conventional standards for the CV only call for the most polished version of an academic’s journey. How can the CV be re-imagined in ways that go beyond an aesthetic and into transparency about the complexities of navigating academia? Is such re-imagination possible, especially given that as an industry academia demands efficiency? What alternative spaces, if any, hearten an academic’s vulnerability?
The Graduate Student Professional Development Unit invites scholars to submit proposals that (in-)directly relate to the aforementioned topics/questions or propose a new theme.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Kimberly Diaz by October 31, 2024.
Indigenous Religions
Delores (Lola) Mondragón, UC Santa Barbara, [email protected]
The Indigenous Religions Unit seeks proposals that demonstrate the varied intersectional approaches that enrich, inform, and sustain Native American and Indigenous religious traditions and ways of knowing within communities that can further inform others of these rich traditions.
In keeping with this year's theme of performing religions, faith, and spirituality—we welcome different ways of knowing that decolonize the environment and recenters the re-remembering of ceremonies—keeping in mind that we are not to here to be extracted from but that we share for the purposes of our mutual goals including Indigenous sovereignty, environmental dignity, and rematriation around the world.
All forms of knowledge sharing are welcome including songs, performances, and rituals that are mindful of who is being represented and who are the Elders that have been informed beforehand.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Lola Mondragón by October 31, 2024.
CO-SESSION:
RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY UNIT, THE INDIGENOUS RELIGIONS UNIT, AND THE RELIGION AND ECOLOGY UNIT (JOINT SESSION) Organizers: Avalon Jade Theisen, Arizona State University, Greg Cootsona, CSU Chico, Lola Mondragon, University of California Santa Barbara, Matthew Switzer, California Institute of Integral Studies, Reed Metcalf, Fuller Theological Seminary, Roberta Sabbath, University of Nevada Las Vegas The Religion, Science, and Technology unit, the Indigenous Religions Unit, and the Religion and Ecology Unit are collaborating to invite papers for a round table on religion and the environment for this year’s AAR Western Regional Conference. This co-sponsored session will address issues of performance related to religion and ecology. Many challenges of the present day are directly tied to overexploitation of ecological systems, which in turn, disproportionately affect the most marginalized human communities and their ability to breathe unpolluted air, drink clean water, eat nutritious food, and other daily necessities. We invite papers that discuss environmentalism as a spiritual act, social justice, religious communities working towards sustainability, art's role in expressing connections between humans and nature, politics, and related topics. These traditions can help us navigate and grapple with the things we make that weigh heavily on our future and those of coming generations.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Chair any of the unit chairs of any of the three units by October 31, 2024.
Islamic Studies
Souad Ali, Arizona State University, Tempe, [email protected]
The Islamic Studies Unit is currently accepting a wide variety of abstracts for papers that relate to the 2025 AAR/WR Conference Theme: Performance of Religion, Faith, and Spirituality and specifically within the context of Islamic Studies. Our unit will give priority to those abstracts that address the theme but will also consider all proposals addressing other topics.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Souad Ali by October 31, 2024.
Jewish Feminism
Emily Silverman, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
The Jewish Feminism Unit is currently accepting a wide variety of abstracts for papers that relate to the 2025 AAR/WR Conference Theme: Performance of Religion, Faith, and Spirituality and specifically within the context of Jewish Feminism. Our unit will give priority to those abstracts that address the theme but will also consider all proposals addressing other topics.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Emily Silverman by October 31, 2024.
Jewish Studies
Roberta Sabbath, University of Nevada, [email protected]
Alexander Warren Marcus, University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
Emily Silverman, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
Performing Judaism: Faith, Spirituality, and Creativity
This year, the Western Region conference of the American Academy of Religion is heading to Arizona State University, where we will be focusing on religions, faith, and spirituality. The Jewish Studies unit invites papers from any discipline that contributes to contemporary or historical issues around the performance of Judaism and Jewishness – broadly construed. Prayer, meditation, mystical practice, and public expression – along with music, dance, the production of ritual and cultural objects, and other artistic and creative acts – have always shaped the varieties of Jewish experience and identity, and they continue to do so. We also invite papers that examine the intersections of Judaism and Jewish performance with innovation and technology. We encourage participants to employ both traditional and experimental modalities in conducting and presenting their research.
The Jewish Studies Unit of the AAR-WR welcomes papers responding to any aspects of the above topics and questions, from all disciplines pertaining to the study of Jews and Judaism.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Roberta Sabbath, Alexander Warren Marcus, and Emily Silverman by October 31, 2024.
Latinx Religions and Spiritualities
Saul Barcelo, Loma Linda University, [email protected]
Marlene Ferreras, La Sierra University, [email protected]
The Latinx Religions and Spiritualities Unit invites papers related to AAR/WR’s conference theme, focusing on the diverse expressions and performances of religious practices among Latinx communities. We encourage critical engagement with the complexities of religious and spiritual experiences, exploring how these practices both shape and are shaped by broader social, political, and cultural contexts. This unit seeks to explore Latinx religions and spiritual traditions through examination of their historical trajectories, present-day practices, and future possibilities.
We welcome interdisciplinary perspectives and invite submissions that include (but are not limited to) empirical research, theoretical explorations, case studies, and comparative analyses.
Examples of proposed topics include (are not restricted to):
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Marlene Ferreras and Saul Barcelo by October 31, 2024.
Pagan Studies
Dorothea Kahena Viale, Cal Poly Pomona, [email protected]
Candace Kant, [email protected]
The Pagan Studies unit invites papers and/or panels from any discipline that address how Paganism is performed in the 21st century. Possible topics are daily spiritual practices, the ways in which Pagans celebrate nature in marking the spokes of the Wheel of the Year, how the ethics of Paganism guide us as we interact with others, including how we form our political ideas, how we utilize artistic expression (music, dance, drumming and more) to enhance our spiritual practice, or how the production of ritual tools focuses the practice of paganism.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word version or PDF version) to Dorothea Kahena Viale and Candace Kant by October 31, 2024.
Philosophy of Religion
Mitch Hickman, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Shakir Stephen, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
We welcome all papers engaging with this year’s conference theme – “Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality” – as well as additional topics of interest in contemporary Philosophy of Religion. Topics of interest might include:
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Mitch Hickman and Shakir Stephen by October 31, 2024.
Psychology, Culture, and Religion
Casey Crosbie, Scripps College, [email protected]
Katherine Kunz, Center for Religion and Cities, [email protected]
Keeping with the annual theme of "Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality," the Psychology, Culture, and Religion Unit invites papers that explore how religion is "performed" and how these performances affect the interior and social worlds of believers and the larger society.
We encourage interdisciplinary approaches and welcome contributions from a range of disciplines: religious studies, psychology, pastoral counseling, sociology, cultural studies, and related fields.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Casey Crosbie and Katherine Kunz by October 31, 2024.
Queer Studies in Religion
Marie Cartier, California State University, Northridge, [email protected]
John Erickson, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
The Queer Studies in Religion unit is searching for any and all Queer Content for the 2024 Regional Conference. We welcome topical presentations, papers, fully formed panels, poetry, performance art, ritual making, and presentations inside and outside of the academy which deals with the 2024 Elections and the ramifications. We are also interested in works that deal with any and all aspects of the rainbow identity.
We welcome joint sessions with other units especially during these challenges times for LGBTQ+ and other at risk and minority communities.
Lastly, The Queer Studies in Religion unit welcome papers that engages the general 2024 Conference CFP.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Marie Cartier and John Erickson by October 31, 2024.
Religion, Science, and Technology
Greg Cootsona, CSU Chico, [email protected]
Reed Metcalf, Fuller Theological Seminary, [email protected]
Religion, science, and technology have overlapped with each other for centuries, with each element a crucial component of humanity’s existence. Of course, unprecedented advances in technology and scientific discovery in the last two centuries have had far reaching implications for how humanity thinks about, interacts with, and performs its religions. But while the rate of change has increased, these pressure points between religion, science, and technology are not new; the printing press, the Copernican Revolution, and even the invention of the codex all changed how humans have experienced and understood the metaphysical. Of course, the reverse is true as well: religions have often influenced how humans use or think about technology and science.
In this session, we invite papers that study the pressure points of how science, religion, and technology impinge on each other’s praxis. How has technology changed how people worship? How have religious convictions altered or restrained how people use technology? How have people begun to treat science like a religion, or their religion like a science? The possible lines of inquiry are as numerous as the ways that humans navigate between their tools, their understanding of the natural world, and their attempts to reach beyond their physical senses.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Greg Cootsona and Reed Metcalf by October 31, 2024.
CO-SESSION:
RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY UNIT, THE INDIGENOUS RELIGIONS UNIT, AND THE RELIGION AND ECOLOGY UNIT (JOINT SESSION) Organizers: Avalon Jade Theisen, Arizona State University, Greg Cootsona, CSU Chico, Lola Mondragon, University of California Santa Barbara, Matthew Switzer, California Institute of Integral Studies, Reed Metcalf, Fuller Theological Seminary, Roberta Sabbath, University of Nevada Las Vegas The Religion, Science, and Technology unit, the Indigenous Religions Unit, and the Religion and Ecology Unit are collaborating to invite papers for a round table on religion and the environment for this year’s AAR Western Regional Conference. This co-sponsored session will address issues of performance related to religion and ecology. Many challenges of the present day are directly tied to overexploitation of ecological systems, which in turn, disproportionately affect the most marginalized human communities and their ability to breathe unpolluted air, drink clean water, eat nutritious food, and other daily necessities. We invite papers that discuss environmentalism as a spiritual act, social justice, religious communities working towards sustainability, art's role in expressing connections between humans and nature, politics, and related topics. These traditions can help us navigate and grapple with the things we make that weigh heavily on our future and those of coming generations.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Chair any of the unit chairs of any of the three units by October 31, 2024.
Religion and Social Sciences
Meghan Tiller, University of Southern California, [email protected]
The Religion and Social Sciences Unit is currently accepting a wide variety of abstracts for papers that relate to the 2025 AAR/WR Conference Theme: Performance of Religion, Faith, and Spirituality and specifically within the context of Religion and Social Sciences. Our unit will give priority to those abstracts that address the theme but will also consider all proposals addressing other topics.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Meghan Tiller by October 31, 2024.
Religion and the Arts
Anna Hennessey, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
Tamisha Tyler, Fuller Theological Seminary, [email protected]
In line with AAR/WR’s 2025 Conference Theme, Performing Religion, Faith, and Spirituality, the Religion and the Arts unit this year explores performance and the arts, as well as religion and artistic expression more broadly. In light of the devastating situation this year in the Middle East, and in particular with the staggering loss of life that continues to increase in Palestine, as well as the issues of violent conflict, mass killing, and genocide in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, we are especially interested in how art interacts with religion and genocide, religion and war, and religion and trauma, both in the present time and also historically across cultures, religions and peoples. Performance art related to representation of these events or to cultural healing and survival are encouraged.
We are also always open to coverage of topics on art and religion that are unrelated to this year’s unit CFP or to the general conference theme. We encourage the submission of papers that utilize interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and nontraditional approaches to research, as well as a traditional format for paper delivery.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Anna Hennessey and Tamisha Tyler by October 31, 2024.
Religions of Asia
Fadime Apaydin, University of California, Riverside, [email protected]
İhsan Çapcıoğlu, Ankara University, Turkey, [email protected]
The Religions of Asia Unit invite scholars to explore how performance, in its broadest sense, shapes and is shaped by religious, spiritual, and faith practices within the diverse traditions of Asia. We particularly seek contributions that address the dynamic and performative aspects of religious practices and their impact on individual and community life.
Topics may address, but not limited to:
We welcome interdisciplinary approaches and encourage scholars from various fields, including religious studies, anthropology, sociology, history, and the arts, to submit their proposals.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Fadime Apaydin by October 31, 2024.
Womanist/Pan-African
Valerie Miles-Tribble, GTU / Berkeley School of Theology, [email protected]
Sakena Young-Scaggs, Stanford University, [email protected]
This unit is a forum engaging theory, method, and theoethics. Literary author Alice Walker coined a four-part definition of Womanist which became a worldwide scholarly discipline and movement forging bonds of solidarity between all indigenous and diasporic ethnic groups of African descent. We welcome interdisciplinary scholarship, seek to engage intersectional voices, encourage interfaith dialogue, and bridging the sacred and secular in public practice, justice and policy in church and society.
Please Note: Individuals whose proposals are accepted must be dues current members of the AAR before the conference date in order to present papers. Process: Proposals are anonymous to steering committee during the review, but visible to Chairs prior to final acceptance or rejection. You will receive notification regarding the status of your proposal in December 2024.
The Unit offers two sessions:
Womanist Session: Jazzin’ into the Future: Womanist Expression, Performance, and the Dancing Mind
At this writing, a national election is ahead with the first Democratic Party nominated Black identified Woman, Vice President Kamala Harris. By the time of the March 2025 AARWR conference, the outcome of that November election and January inauguration will be decided. Whatever the outcome, the palpable magic of kindred spirits with determination among black women from all walks of life is a visible and spiritual reality to empower future generations. In the roles of creative inspiration that women embody - how do the many contributions to the literary, visual, and performing arts propel actions to enrich the theopoetic, justice, and self-care discourse? Consider current and future innovative intergenerational directions.
Please submit your 250-word proposal using Proposal Form (Word or PDF) by October 31, 2024. to Rev. Dr. Valerie Miles-Tribble ([email protected]) and to Rev. Dr. Sakena Young Scaggs ([email protected]). Questions? Contact either Co-Chair.
Pan African Session: Pioneering the Possibilities: Afrofuturism / Wakanda and Creative Imagination
In an age of human and global upheaval and the search for a sustainable future, Black creativity sustains and inspires the imagination of global proportions and possibilities. We still ask in 2025: What does it mean to “do the work your soul must have”? What can the imaginary of the soul offer to this generation and beyond?
We are excited to embark on another transforming year in Womanist and Pan African scholarship at AAR in the Western Region. We invite papers that align with the broader AARWR call while retaining a particular focus on either Womanism, Pan Africanism, or both.
Please submit your 250-word proposal using Proposal Form (Word or PDF) by October 31, 2024. to Rev. Dr. Valerie Miles-Tribble ([email protected]) and to Rev. Dr. Sakena Young Scaggs ([email protected]). Questions? Contact either Co-Chair.
Women and Religion
Emily Silverman (Interim), Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
The Women and Religion Unit is currently accepting a wide variety of abstracts for papers that relate to the 2025 AAR/WR Conference Theme: Performance of Religion, Faith, and Spirituality and specifically within the context of Women and Religion. Our unit will give priority to those abstracts that address the theme but will also consider all proposals addressing other topics.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Emily Silverman by October 31, 2024.
Last Updated: September 8, 2024
Roberta Sabbath, University of Nevada, [email protected]
Alexander Warren Marcus, University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
We hope you will bring your hand drum, tambourine, your voice, your movement to join in this participatory session.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Laura Snell and Albert Shannon Toribio by October 31, 2024.
Asian American Religious Studies
Laura Snell, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Albert Shannon Toribio, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
For the AAR-WR Conference 2025, the Asian American Religious Studies Unit focuses on the overlapping and often mutually constituting categories of religion and performance. Attending to the mixture of creativity, religion, and spirituality in expressive practice, we invite papers from any discipline that address the various manifestations of performativity of Asian American religion, not preferring any particular mode of creative expression and not privileging any particular religious tradition.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Laura Snell and Albert Shannon Toribio by October 31, 2024.
Black Religion and Theology
Julius Bailey, University of Redlands, [email protected]
Aaron Grizzell, NorCal MLK Foundation, [email protected]
The Black Religion and Theology Unit’s mission is to further the development of scholarly research and discussion about the black religious experience; encourage the broadening of Black religion as an academic endeavor; and engage in discourse, from the African diasporic perspective, about religious and theological expression. Following along with this year’s theme, which focuses on examining the complex intersections of religion, technology, and science, we welcome proposal submissions from two focus areas. The selected panelists can expect 15-20 minutes to present their work and to enable time for questions and audience responses.
Focus Area A: Artificial intelligence and generative technologies are changing the landscape of the modes and definitions of communication, imagination, connectivity, and, arguably, reality. Both religion and theology in African diasporic expressions have much to say on these matters. We welcome papers that delve into the challenges, opportunities, and innovative expressions that are being forged in this space.
Focus Area B: In many ways, the Black religious expression has been the vanguard through which social justice movements have forged new rights under law, and Black religious scholarship has been vital to building a bulwark against theoretical and methodological pushback in the academy regarding the grounding of these movements in the Black experience. We welcome papers that take an innovative look at modes of Black scholarship at the fulcrum of movements for justice, civil and human rights. This includes speculative and afrofuturist thought now at the forefront of many popular cultural expressions.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Julius Bailey and Aaron Grizzell by October 31, 2024.
Buddhist Studies
Jake Nagasawa, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Alina Pokhrel, University of Virginia, [email protected]
"Religious Expression Across Buddhist Worlds"
The Buddhist Studies unit warmly invites scholars, practitioners, and artists to present their creative work that explores multifaceted dimensions of Buddhist thought and practice. We welcome interactive presentations, performances, songs, poetry readings with commentaries, and traditional paper presentations that explore Buddhist expressions of devotion, meditative wisdom, ethical cultivation, esoteric realities, or the significance of affective states across traditions and time and place.
- How have Buddhist peoples and communities articulated and practiced their devotion across different contexts?
- How are insights from meditative practices cultivated, communicated, or contrasted?
- What can we learn from the metaphorical and poetic articulations found across Buddhist traditions?
- How are emotions understood, experienced, and transformed within Buddhist practice?
- What role do affective states play in Buddhist practice and theory?
- What does a contextual understanding of ethics and ethical cultivation look like from within different Buddhist traditions?
We encourage collaborative presentations across disciplines and traditions as well as comparative readings that illuminate aspects of Buddhist thought and practice otherwise exiled from our scholarship. If you have connections with scholars in other departments or at other institutions, please reach out to them to develop robust and innovative proposals!
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Jake Nagasawa and Alina Pokhrel by October 31, 2024.
Catholic Studies
Samantha Kang, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Nathan McWeeney, University of Southern California, [email protected]
This year, the Catholic Studies unit invites papers related to the AAR/WR’s 2023 conference theme: Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality. We welcome papers from various methodological and disciplinary standpoints and are particularly interested in papers addressing the twin notions of Catholicism as performance and performances of Catholicism as demonstrated in art, popular culture, and politics. We also hope to explore the intersection between Catholicism and tourism as it is encountered at popular travel destinations such as the California Missions, Notre Dame, Sagrada Familia or Vatican City.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Samantha Kang and Nathan McWeeney by October 31, 2024.
Christianity
“Joey” Alan Le, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
The Christianity Unit seeks proposals that demonstrate the expression and embodiment of the Christian faith and spirituality as a performance in line with the Conference Theme, “Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality.” We are particularly interested in proposals that explore the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of the Christian religion, and we encourage real-world applications to be at the center of, or included in, the proposals.
Proposals of essays or works of art may include, but are not restricted to:
• How should Christian truths and values be demonstrated in public life?
• What is Christianity’s call to promote responsibility and justice in today's nations and corporations?
• How does the Christian faith inspire hope, serving as a wellspring for human creativity and imagination?
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to “Joey” Alan Le by October 31, 2024.
Disabilities Studies
Anjeanette LeBoeuf, Saint Louis University, [email protected]
Elizabeth Staszak, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
The Disability Studies Unit welcomes papers which engage with the Conference Theme of “Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality.” Our unit is also looking for papers which grapple with the questions of space, location, body, and perception. Some of the questions we are hoping to see in proposals are below:
- What does performativity look like? Who decides what is sacred and what isn’t? What is a religious or spiritual experience?
- What type of body, gender, and ability becomes the template for religious or spiritual participation? What happens to those types which do not fit the mainstream conception?
- How can those that live beyond and out of the mainstream – white, male, nondisabled – find ways to perform their religion, faith, and spirituality?
- In what ways do disabled people interact with religion and spirituality and science and technology?
- Does disability allow us to envision and participate in religion and spirituality in varying ways? How might disability and technology dovetail with religion?
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Anjeanette LeBoeuf and Elizabeth Staszak by October 31, 2024.
CO-SESSION: Disability Studies and Goddess Studies
Anjeanette LeBoeuf, Saint Louis University, [email protected]
Elizabeth Staszak, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
Kali (Meera) Tanikella, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
The Disability Studies Unit and the Goddess Studies Unit are collaborating in a Co-Session. As we navigate the complexities of artificial intelligence and its impact on our lives, goddess traditions and disability studies offer profound frameworks for understanding human embodiment, epistemic justice, and alternative epistemologies. Our Co-Session is focused on Understandings, Praxis, and the New Frontier: How do we understand Humanity and AI. We are looking for papers which address the following questions:
- What makes us human in the time of AI? How does AI challenge these definitions and understandings? How can they strengthen or dismantle them?
- How does AI affect religion and participation? Is there a place for AI in disability studies and religion? How do goddess-centered epistemologies challenge dominant paradigms and offer alternative ways of knowing?
- Does further adoption of technology in religion make more space for disabled and goddess practitioners to participate in mainstream religion and personal spirituality? What forms of AI and Technology need to be monitored or have established codes of conduct?
- In what ways do science and technology limit these participations in religion and spirituality? Can AI benefit disability and disabled people? Can AI threaten or diminish our understandings, culture, and beliefs?
- In what ways can these perspectives contribute to a more just and inclusive understanding of knowledge in the age of AI?
- What are some similar ways that goddess traditions and people with disabilities provide alternative frameworks for understanding reality, spirituality, and the self? How can these frameworks inform our interactions with technology and our vision for the future?
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Anjeanette LeBoeuf, Elizabeth Staszak, and Kali (Meera) Tanikella by October 31, 2024.
Ecology and Religion
Avalon Jade Theisen [email protected]
Matthew Switzer [email protected]
In alignment with this year’s conference theme, Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality, this session seeks to investigate how faith, wisdom, and spiritual practices intersect with religious and environmental peacebuilding to explore theoretical and practical aspects of conflict resolution and alternative methodologies that challenge conventional paradigms for peacebuilding strategies.
This unit is particularly interested in papers, panels, and performances that consider how practical approaches to peace might destabilize existing paradigms to open new pathways for reconnecting with one another across intractable divides. In doing so we hope to foster a cohesive yet expansive framework for exploring how various elements—religion, ecology, media, performance, and political dynamics—interact in the ongoing pursuit of peace.
Topics related to Performing Peace: Ecological and Spiritual Approaches to Peacebuilding in a Fractured World may include:
- how religious traditions and ecological practices can collaborate to address environmental conflicts, while examining how foundational narratives and metaphors shape or constrain pathways to peace and underlie ecological and spiritual strife
- how creative mediums like music, dance, visual arts, and guerrilla theater serve as catalysts for ecological awareness and spiritual activism, and how these performative acts shape or destabilize possibilities for peace within broader political, religious, and ecological contexts.
- how indigenous spiritualities and decolonial methodologies reimagine peaceful coexistence with the earth and build bridges through ecological resistance.
- how alternative economic systems, pluralistic philosophies, and diverse healing practices can promote peace with nature, and/or how ritual processes can prefigure utopian communities prepared to face future challenges.
- how religious institutions, NGOs, and nonprofits can drive infrastructural changes for environmental peace and justice, including topics like incarceration, radical degrowth, energy systems, eco-civilization, and transforming religious and ecological values.
- the role of magic, resistance, and spirituality in movements for ecological and social peace, while exploring spiritual lineages, ritual, performative utterances, ecopoetics, and book of nature traditions, in opening new spaces for peace and the intersection of technology and magic in these efforts.
CO-SESSION:
RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY UNIT, THE INDIGENOUS RELIGIONS UNIT, AND THE ECOLOGY AND RELIGION UNIT (JOINT SESSION)
Organizers: Avalon Jade Theisen, Arizona State University, Greg Cootsona, CSU Chico, Lola Mondragon, University of California Santa Barbara, Matthew Switzer, California Institute of Integral Studies, Reed Metcalf, Fuller Theological Seminary, Roberta Sabbath, University of Nevada Las Vegas
The Religion, Science, and Technology unit, the Indigenous Religions Unit, and the Religion and Ecology Unit are collaborating to invite papers for a round table on religion and the environment for this year’s AAR Western Regional Conference. This co-sponsored session will address issues of performance related to religion and ecology. Many challenges of the present day are directly tied to overexploitation of ecological systems, which in turn, disproportionately affect the most marginalized human communities and their ability to breathe unpolluted air, drink clean water, eat nutritious food, and other daily necessities.
We invite papers that discuss environmentalism as a spiritual act, social justice, religious communities working towards sustainability, art's role in expressing connections between humans and nature, politics, and related topics. These traditions can help us navigate and grapple with the things we make that weigh heavily on our future and those of coming generations.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Chair any of the unit chairs of any of the three units by October 31, 2024
Education and Pedagogy
Peter Romaskiewicz, UC Santa Barbara, [email protected]
The Education and Pedagogy Unit is currently accepting a wide variety of abstracts for papers that relate to the 2025 AAR/WR Conference Theme: Performance of Religion, Faith, and Spirituality and specifically within the context of Education and Pedagogy. Our unit will give priority to those abstracts that address the theme but will also consider all proposals addressing other topics.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Chair Peter Romaskiewicz by October 31, 2024.
Goddess Studies
Kali (Meera) Tanikella, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
What Makes Us Human in the Time of AI?In keeping with the 2025 AAR-WR conference theme of "Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality," the Goddess Studies unit aims to delve into the question: What makes us human in an increasingly AI-driven world? As we navigate the complexities of artificial intelligence and its impact on our lives, the study of goddess traditions offers a profound framework for understanding human embodiment, epistemic justice, and alternative epistemologies. We invite papers that address these themes through various perspectives, including but not limited to:
Embodiment:
Goddess traditions have long celebrated the physical body as a sacred vessel, central to religious experience and spiritual practice. This embodiment is evident in rituals that honor the cycles of life, including birth, menstruation, childbearing, and nurturing. These traditions often emphasize the interconnectedness of the body with the earth, seeing the physical form not as separate from the divine but as a reflection of it.
In an era increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence, where virtual reality and digital interfaces can create disembodied experiences, goddess traditions offer a counter-narrative that reaffirms the importance of physical presence and lived experience. Papers in this section could explore how specific goddess rituals—such as those involving dance, touch, and communal activities—serve as acts of resistance against the disembodiment trends in modern technology. They might also examine how these practices can inspire contemporary movements that seek to re-integrate the body into spiritual practice, ensuring that technology serves to enhance rather than diminish our physical and communal lives.
Epistemic Justice:
Epistemic justice refers to the recognition and inclusion of diverse ways of knowing, particularly those that have been historically marginalized. Goddess-centered epistemologies, which often draw on oral traditions, communal knowledge, and embodied practices, challenge the dominant paradigms that privilege abstract, disembodied, and often patriarchal forms of knowledge.
In the context of AI, which tends to prioritize data-driven, algorithmic processes that can reinforce existing power structures, goddess traditions offer an alternative by valuing relational and experiential knowledge. Papers in this section could explore how goddess-centered practices—such as storytelling, communal rituals, and the transmission of wisdom through generations—can contribute to a more inclusive and equitable understanding of knowledge in the age of AI. They might also address the risks of AI homogenizing knowledge systems and how goddess traditions can offer a bulwark against this, preserving and promoting diverse epistemologies that honor the complexity and richness of human experience.
Alternative Epistemologies:
Goddess traditions provide frameworks for understanding reality and spirituality that differ significantly from the logic-driven, often reductionist approaches prevalent in AI development. These traditions emphasize holistic, relational, and cyclical ways of knowing that are deeply interconnected with the natural world and the community.
Alternative epistemologies in goddess traditions might include the use of myth and symbolism as tools for understanding deeper truths, the role of ritual in creating and transmitting knowledge, and the importance of intuition and emotional intelligence in spiritual practice. These approaches contrast sharply with the binary, linear thinking that underpins much of AI and technological development.
Papers could delve into how these alternative epistemologies can inform and challenge current technological paradigms, offering insights into how we might integrate technology into our lives in ways that respect and enhance our connection to the earth, our bodies, and each other. Additionally, these contributions could explore how goddess traditions’ emphasis on nurturing, cooperation, and sustainability can offer a vision for a future where technology serves as a tool for supporting life, rather than dominating it.
Expanded Themes:
1. Ritual as Resistance:
- Explore how goddess rituals, particularly those focused on the body and earth, act as forms of resistance against the disembodiment and dehumanization often associated with AI and technology.
- Consider how these rituals can be adapted or revived in contemporary spiritual practices to maintain a connection to the physical and natural world.
2. Goddess Myths and AI Ethics:
- Investigate the ethical frameworks inherent in goddess myths and how they might offer alternative perspectives on AI development, particularly regarding issues of power, control, and the sanctity of life.
- Compare and contrast these mythic narratives with current AI ethical discussions, highlighting the potential for goddess traditions to contribute to more holistic ethical guidelines.
3. Embodied Community Building:
- Discuss how goddess traditions emphasize the role of the community in spiritual and religious practices, particularly through embodied acts of care, support, and nurturing.
- Examine how these practices can inform and challenge the often individualistic and disembodied nature of online communities and AI-driven social networks.
4. Sustainability and AI:
- Explore how goddess-centered approaches to sustainability, which are rooted in cycles of life, death, and rebirth, offer a counterpoint to the often extractive and linear models of technological development.
- Consider how these sustainable practices can influence the development of technology that supports rather than depletes the earth’s resources.
We also welcome collaborative and innovative proposals that engage with other units and disciplines. We believe that a multidisciplinary approach will enrich our understanding and foster dynamic discussions.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Kali (Meera) Tanikella by October 31, 2024.
CO-SESSION: Disability Studies and Goddess Studies
Anjeanette LeBoeuf, Saint Louis University, [email protected]
Elizabeth Staszak, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
Kali (Meera) Tanikella, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
The Disability Studies Unit and the Goddess Studies Unit are collaborating in a Co-Session. As we navigate the complexities of artificial intelligence and its impact on our lives, goddess traditions and disability studies offer profound frameworks for understanding human embodiment, epistemic justice, and alternative epistemologies. Our Co-Session is focused on Understandings, Praxis, and the New Frontier: How do we understand Humanity and AI. We are looking for papers which address the following questions:
- What makes us human in the time of AI? How does AI challenge these definitions and understandings? How can they strengthen or dismantle them?
- How does AI affect religion and participation? Is there a place for AI in disability studies and religion? How do goddess-centered epistemologies challenge dominant paradigms and offer alternative ways of knowing?
- Does further adoption of technology in religion make more space for disabled and goddess practitioners to participate in mainstream religion and personal spirituality? What forms of AI and Technology need to be monitored or have established codes of conduct?
- In what ways do science and technology limit these participations in religion and spirituality? Can AI benefit disability and disabled people? Can AI threaten or diminish our understandings, culture, and beliefs?
- In what ways can these perspectives contribute to a more just and inclusive understanding of knowledge in the age of AI?
- What are some similar ways that goddess traditions and people with disabilities provide alternative frameworks for understanding reality, spirituality, and the self? How can these frameworks inform our interactions with technology and our vision for the future?
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Anjeanette LeBoeuf, Elizabeth Staszak, and Kali (Meera) Tanikella by October 31, 2024.
Graduate Student Professional Development
Kimberly Diaz, University of California, Riverside, [email protected]
For many academics, an integral part to their professional portfolio is the Curriculum vitae (CV). Latin for “course of life,” conventional standards for the CV only call for the most polished version of an academic’s journey. How can the CV be re-imagined in ways that go beyond an aesthetic and into transparency about the complexities of navigating academia? Is such re-imagination possible, especially given that as an industry academia demands efficiency? What alternative spaces, if any, hearten an academic’s vulnerability?
The Graduate Student Professional Development Unit invites scholars to submit proposals that (in-)directly relate to the aforementioned topics/questions or propose a new theme.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Kimberly Diaz by October 31, 2024.
Indigenous Religions
Delores (Lola) Mondragón, UC Santa Barbara, [email protected]
The Indigenous Religions Unit seeks proposals that demonstrate the varied intersectional approaches that enrich, inform, and sustain Native American and Indigenous religious traditions and ways of knowing within communities that can further inform others of these rich traditions.
In keeping with this year's theme of performing religions, faith, and spirituality—we welcome different ways of knowing that decolonize the environment and recenters the re-remembering of ceremonies—keeping in mind that we are not to here to be extracted from but that we share for the purposes of our mutual goals including Indigenous sovereignty, environmental dignity, and rematriation around the world.
All forms of knowledge sharing are welcome including songs, performances, and rituals that are mindful of who is being represented and who are the Elders that have been informed beforehand.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Lola Mondragón by October 31, 2024.
CO-SESSION:
RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY UNIT, THE INDIGENOUS RELIGIONS UNIT, AND THE RELIGION AND ECOLOGY UNIT (JOINT SESSION) Organizers: Avalon Jade Theisen, Arizona State University, Greg Cootsona, CSU Chico, Lola Mondragon, University of California Santa Barbara, Matthew Switzer, California Institute of Integral Studies, Reed Metcalf, Fuller Theological Seminary, Roberta Sabbath, University of Nevada Las Vegas The Religion, Science, and Technology unit, the Indigenous Religions Unit, and the Religion and Ecology Unit are collaborating to invite papers for a round table on religion and the environment for this year’s AAR Western Regional Conference. This co-sponsored session will address issues of performance related to religion and ecology. Many challenges of the present day are directly tied to overexploitation of ecological systems, which in turn, disproportionately affect the most marginalized human communities and their ability to breathe unpolluted air, drink clean water, eat nutritious food, and other daily necessities. We invite papers that discuss environmentalism as a spiritual act, social justice, religious communities working towards sustainability, art's role in expressing connections between humans and nature, politics, and related topics. These traditions can help us navigate and grapple with the things we make that weigh heavily on our future and those of coming generations.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Chair any of the unit chairs of any of the three units by October 31, 2024.
Islamic Studies
Souad Ali, Arizona State University, Tempe, [email protected]
The Islamic Studies Unit is currently accepting a wide variety of abstracts for papers that relate to the 2025 AAR/WR Conference Theme: Performance of Religion, Faith, and Spirituality and specifically within the context of Islamic Studies. Our unit will give priority to those abstracts that address the theme but will also consider all proposals addressing other topics.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Souad Ali by October 31, 2024.
Jewish Feminism
Emily Silverman, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
The Jewish Feminism Unit is currently accepting a wide variety of abstracts for papers that relate to the 2025 AAR/WR Conference Theme: Performance of Religion, Faith, and Spirituality and specifically within the context of Jewish Feminism. Our unit will give priority to those abstracts that address the theme but will also consider all proposals addressing other topics.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Emily Silverman by October 31, 2024.
Jewish Studies
Roberta Sabbath, University of Nevada, [email protected]
Alexander Warren Marcus, University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
Emily Silverman, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
Performing Judaism: Faith, Spirituality, and Creativity
This year, the Western Region conference of the American Academy of Religion is heading to Arizona State University, where we will be focusing on religions, faith, and spirituality. The Jewish Studies unit invites papers from any discipline that contributes to contemporary or historical issues around the performance of Judaism and Jewishness – broadly construed. Prayer, meditation, mystical practice, and public expression – along with music, dance, the production of ritual and cultural objects, and other artistic and creative acts – have always shaped the varieties of Jewish experience and identity, and they continue to do so. We also invite papers that examine the intersections of Judaism and Jewish performance with innovation and technology. We encourage participants to employ both traditional and experimental modalities in conducting and presenting their research.
The Jewish Studies Unit of the AAR-WR welcomes papers responding to any aspects of the above topics and questions, from all disciplines pertaining to the study of Jews and Judaism.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Roberta Sabbath, Alexander Warren Marcus, and Emily Silverman by October 31, 2024.
Latinx Religions and Spiritualities
Saul Barcelo, Loma Linda University, [email protected]
Marlene Ferreras, La Sierra University, [email protected]
The Latinx Religions and Spiritualities Unit invites papers related to AAR/WR’s conference theme, focusing on the diverse expressions and performances of religious practices among Latinx communities. We encourage critical engagement with the complexities of religious and spiritual experiences, exploring how these practices both shape and are shaped by broader social, political, and cultural contexts. This unit seeks to explore Latinx religions and spiritual traditions through examination of their historical trajectories, present-day practices, and future possibilities.
We welcome interdisciplinary perspectives and invite submissions that include (but are not limited to) empirical research, theoretical explorations, case studies, and comparative analyses.
Examples of proposed topics include (are not restricted to):
- Case studies of specific Latinx religious communities or traditions.
- The influence/impact of migration and diaspora on Latinx religious identities and practices.
- Ritual practices and their role in maintaining cultural and religious heritage.
- Intersections between Latinx religious expressions and social justice movements.
- Representations of Latinx spiritualities in literature, arts, and media.
- Challenges and innovations in the preservation and revitalization of Latinx religious traditions.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Marlene Ferreras and Saul Barcelo by October 31, 2024.
Pagan Studies
Dorothea Kahena Viale, Cal Poly Pomona, [email protected]
Candace Kant, [email protected]
The Pagan Studies unit invites papers and/or panels from any discipline that address how Paganism is performed in the 21st century. Possible topics are daily spiritual practices, the ways in which Pagans celebrate nature in marking the spokes of the Wheel of the Year, how the ethics of Paganism guide us as we interact with others, including how we form our political ideas, how we utilize artistic expression (music, dance, drumming and more) to enhance our spiritual practice, or how the production of ritual tools focuses the practice of paganism.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word version or PDF version) to Dorothea Kahena Viale and Candace Kant by October 31, 2024.
Philosophy of Religion
Mitch Hickman, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
Shakir Stephen, University of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]
We welcome all papers engaging with this year’s conference theme – “Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality” – as well as additional topics of interest in contemporary Philosophy of Religion. Topics of interest might include:
- How have philosophers conceptualized performance, expression, and spontaneity, especially in terms of faith, spirituality, and religion? What kinds of performances undergird what it means to be "philosophical" or participate in the discipline of Philosophy of Religion?
- What is the impact of philosophical thinking in the expression of religious life in and through technological innovation? (e.g. online baptism, virtual communion). In what ways do science, technology, and philosophy contribute to what it means to be (or perform being) modern or postmodern?
- We invite experts of non-Western philosophies to think through differences in "performing religions, faith, and spirituality" across cultural boundaries. Where do differing philosophies create dialogue or disagreement? How do technologies impact these conversations?
- In acknowledging the diversity of expressions of religion, spirituality, and faith, which areas can benefit from dialogue with trends and concerns in the Philosophy of Religion? What are the horizons of the discipline? What are some novel applications?
- We also welcome proposals that investigate particular or individual philosophers, religious thinkers, theologians, or prominent social or political figures in terms of their insights, reflections, or ideas that contribute to the study of religion, or topics within the field of philosophy of religion.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Mitch Hickman and Shakir Stephen by October 31, 2024.
Psychology, Culture, and Religion
Casey Crosbie, Scripps College, [email protected]
Katherine Kunz, Center for Religion and Cities, [email protected]
Keeping with the annual theme of "Performing Religions, Faith, and Spirituality," the Psychology, Culture, and Religion Unit invites papers that explore how religion is "performed" and how these performances affect the interior and social worlds of believers and the larger society.
- How do you differentiate between "frontstage" (public behavior) and "backstage" (private behavior) in a religious context? Does one support or undergird the other, or is one more indicative of "true" religious observance? Or is religion all just a performance?
- How does religious ritual, with its repeated acts, gestures, and behaviors, serve to construct and maintain cultural norms? How does this, in turn, influence theology and religious belief?
- What does it mean to create a "subversive" performance? What examples do we have of marginalized or oppressed communities creating dissenting or innovative religious rituals? What role do these performances play in the evolution of religious practices and beliefs as well as how these communities assert their identity and agency?
- How do religious performances intersect with other forms of cultural resistance (e.g., art, music, literature)? What role do performances and innovation play in the diversity of religious expression, especially novel religious practices?
- How has the intersection between science, technology, psychology, and religion evolved? What role does the rapid evolution of AI and other technologies play in religious practice and belief?
- How has religious performativity changed in the 21st Century, and how has that changed the way we conceive of religion?
We encourage interdisciplinary approaches and welcome contributions from a range of disciplines: religious studies, psychology, pastoral counseling, sociology, cultural studies, and related fields.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Casey Crosbie and Katherine Kunz by October 31, 2024.
Queer Studies in Religion
Marie Cartier, California State University, Northridge, [email protected]
John Erickson, Independent Scholar, [email protected]
The Queer Studies in Religion unit is searching for any and all Queer Content for the 2024 Regional Conference. We welcome topical presentations, papers, fully formed panels, poetry, performance art, ritual making, and presentations inside and outside of the academy which deals with the 2024 Elections and the ramifications. We are also interested in works that deal with any and all aspects of the rainbow identity.
We welcome joint sessions with other units especially during these challenges times for LGBTQ+ and other at risk and minority communities.
Lastly, The Queer Studies in Religion unit welcome papers that engages the general 2024 Conference CFP.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Marie Cartier and John Erickson by October 31, 2024.
Religion, Science, and Technology
Greg Cootsona, CSU Chico, [email protected]
Reed Metcalf, Fuller Theological Seminary, [email protected]
Religion, science, and technology have overlapped with each other for centuries, with each element a crucial component of humanity’s existence. Of course, unprecedented advances in technology and scientific discovery in the last two centuries have had far reaching implications for how humanity thinks about, interacts with, and performs its religions. But while the rate of change has increased, these pressure points between religion, science, and technology are not new; the printing press, the Copernican Revolution, and even the invention of the codex all changed how humans have experienced and understood the metaphysical. Of course, the reverse is true as well: religions have often influenced how humans use or think about technology and science.
In this session, we invite papers that study the pressure points of how science, religion, and technology impinge on each other’s praxis. How has technology changed how people worship? How have religious convictions altered or restrained how people use technology? How have people begun to treat science like a religion, or their religion like a science? The possible lines of inquiry are as numerous as the ways that humans navigate between their tools, their understanding of the natural world, and their attempts to reach beyond their physical senses.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Greg Cootsona and Reed Metcalf by October 31, 2024.
CO-SESSION:
RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY UNIT, THE INDIGENOUS RELIGIONS UNIT, AND THE RELIGION AND ECOLOGY UNIT (JOINT SESSION) Organizers: Avalon Jade Theisen, Arizona State University, Greg Cootsona, CSU Chico, Lola Mondragon, University of California Santa Barbara, Matthew Switzer, California Institute of Integral Studies, Reed Metcalf, Fuller Theological Seminary, Roberta Sabbath, University of Nevada Las Vegas The Religion, Science, and Technology unit, the Indigenous Religions Unit, and the Religion and Ecology Unit are collaborating to invite papers for a round table on religion and the environment for this year’s AAR Western Regional Conference. This co-sponsored session will address issues of performance related to religion and ecology. Many challenges of the present day are directly tied to overexploitation of ecological systems, which in turn, disproportionately affect the most marginalized human communities and their ability to breathe unpolluted air, drink clean water, eat nutritious food, and other daily necessities. We invite papers that discuss environmentalism as a spiritual act, social justice, religious communities working towards sustainability, art's role in expressing connections between humans and nature, politics, and related topics. These traditions can help us navigate and grapple with the things we make that weigh heavily on our future and those of coming generations.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Chair any of the unit chairs of any of the three units by October 31, 2024.
Religion and Social Sciences
Meghan Tiller, University of Southern California, [email protected]
The Religion and Social Sciences Unit is currently accepting a wide variety of abstracts for papers that relate to the 2025 AAR/WR Conference Theme: Performance of Religion, Faith, and Spirituality and specifically within the context of Religion and Social Sciences. Our unit will give priority to those abstracts that address the theme but will also consider all proposals addressing other topics.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Meghan Tiller by October 31, 2024.
Religion and the Arts
Anna Hennessey, Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
Tamisha Tyler, Fuller Theological Seminary, [email protected]
In line with AAR/WR’s 2025 Conference Theme, Performing Religion, Faith, and Spirituality, the Religion and the Arts unit this year explores performance and the arts, as well as religion and artistic expression more broadly. In light of the devastating situation this year in the Middle East, and in particular with the staggering loss of life that continues to increase in Palestine, as well as the issues of violent conflict, mass killing, and genocide in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, we are especially interested in how art interacts with religion and genocide, religion and war, and religion and trauma, both in the present time and also historically across cultures, religions and peoples. Performance art related to representation of these events or to cultural healing and survival are encouraged.
We are also always open to coverage of topics on art and religion that are unrelated to this year’s unit CFP or to the general conference theme. We encourage the submission of papers that utilize interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and nontraditional approaches to research, as well as a traditional format for paper delivery.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Anna Hennessey and Tamisha Tyler by October 31, 2024.
Religions of Asia
Fadime Apaydin, University of California, Riverside, [email protected]
İhsan Çapcıoğlu, Ankara University, Turkey, [email protected]
The Religions of Asia Unit invite scholars to explore how performance, in its broadest sense, shapes and is shaped by religious, spiritual, and faith practices within the diverse traditions of Asia. We particularly seek contributions that address the dynamic and performative aspects of religious practices and their impact on individual and community life.
Topics may address, but not limited to:
- Rituals and performances in religious practices
- The role of art, music, and dance in religious expression
- Pilgrimage and religious festivals
- The performative aspect of sacred texts and storytelling
- Religious and spiritual practices in daily life
- Gender, identity, and performance in religious contexts
- Interactions between traditional and contemporary forms of religious expression
- The impact of globalization and transnationalism on religious performances
- Religion and performance in digital and media landscapes
We welcome interdisciplinary approaches and encourage scholars from various fields, including religious studies, anthropology, sociology, history, and the arts, to submit their proposals.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Fadime Apaydin by October 31, 2024.
Womanist/Pan-African
Valerie Miles-Tribble, GTU / Berkeley School of Theology, [email protected]
Sakena Young-Scaggs, Stanford University, [email protected]
This unit is a forum engaging theory, method, and theoethics. Literary author Alice Walker coined a four-part definition of Womanist which became a worldwide scholarly discipline and movement forging bonds of solidarity between all indigenous and diasporic ethnic groups of African descent. We welcome interdisciplinary scholarship, seek to engage intersectional voices, encourage interfaith dialogue, and bridging the sacred and secular in public practice, justice and policy in church and society.
Please Note: Individuals whose proposals are accepted must be dues current members of the AAR before the conference date in order to present papers. Process: Proposals are anonymous to steering committee during the review, but visible to Chairs prior to final acceptance or rejection. You will receive notification regarding the status of your proposal in December 2024.
The Unit offers two sessions:
Womanist Session: Jazzin’ into the Future: Womanist Expression, Performance, and the Dancing Mind
At this writing, a national election is ahead with the first Democratic Party nominated Black identified Woman, Vice President Kamala Harris. By the time of the March 2025 AARWR conference, the outcome of that November election and January inauguration will be decided. Whatever the outcome, the palpable magic of kindred spirits with determination among black women from all walks of life is a visible and spiritual reality to empower future generations. In the roles of creative inspiration that women embody - how do the many contributions to the literary, visual, and performing arts propel actions to enrich the theopoetic, justice, and self-care discourse? Consider current and future innovative intergenerational directions.
Please submit your 250-word proposal using Proposal Form (Word or PDF) by October 31, 2024. to Rev. Dr. Valerie Miles-Tribble ([email protected]) and to Rev. Dr. Sakena Young Scaggs ([email protected]). Questions? Contact either Co-Chair.
Pan African Session: Pioneering the Possibilities: Afrofuturism / Wakanda and Creative Imagination
In an age of human and global upheaval and the search for a sustainable future, Black creativity sustains and inspires the imagination of global proportions and possibilities. We still ask in 2025: What does it mean to “do the work your soul must have”? What can the imaginary of the soul offer to this generation and beyond?
We are excited to embark on another transforming year in Womanist and Pan African scholarship at AAR in the Western Region. We invite papers that align with the broader AARWR call while retaining a particular focus on either Womanism, Pan Africanism, or both.
Please submit your 250-word proposal using Proposal Form (Word or PDF) by October 31, 2024. to Rev. Dr. Valerie Miles-Tribble ([email protected]) and to Rev. Dr. Sakena Young Scaggs ([email protected]). Questions? Contact either Co-Chair.
Women and Religion
Emily Silverman (Interim), Graduate Theological Union, [email protected]
The Women and Religion Unit is currently accepting a wide variety of abstracts for papers that relate to the 2025 AAR/WR Conference Theme: Performance of Religion, Faith, and Spirituality and specifically within the context of Women and Religion. Our unit will give priority to those abstracts that address the theme but will also consider all proposals addressing other topics.
Submit your Proposal Form (Word or PDF) to Emily Silverman by October 31, 2024.
Last Updated: September 8, 2024