American Academy of Religion

When humanities scholars talk about exploring and pursuing "alt-ac" and "post-ac" careers, two concerns often dominate the conversation: 1) Graduate studies in the humanities don't prepare us for or aren't relevant to non-academic career paths, and 2) We don't know where to look for or how to apply for non-academic jobs. Whether you are a scholar thinking about non-academic careers or a faculty me...

Noreen Khawaja talks to Religious Studies News about her book "The Religion of Existence: Asceticism in Philosophy from Kierkegaard to Sartre" (University of Chicago Press), which won the American Academy of Religion’s 2017 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Constructive-Reflective Studies. Music is Dexter Britain, “Fresh Monday” (www.dexterbritain.co.uk)

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University. He is chair of the Department of African American Studies, a program he first became involved with shaping as a doctoral candidate in Religion at Princeton. His books on religion and philosophy include African American Religion: A Very Short Introduction, Democracy in Black: How Ra...

Taking off from their new book, Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology (Fortress, 2016), Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow introduce their embodied theological method and explore their theological differences: Is Goddess a personal presence who cares about the world? Or is God an impersonal creative energy equally supportive of good and evil? Mary E. Hunt will moderate a...

Building upon a 2015 conference on Black Liberation Theologies of Disability at Union Theological Seminary, organized by Kendrick Kemp, this session attempts to construct liberation theologies that take seriously the experiences of blackness and disability. Panelists explore the ways that racialized and disabled embodiment offers innovative readings of text, tradition, and theological frameworks....

Over the past decade there has been an explosion of online religion writing. New publications continue to emerge and, with them, new kinds of writing and writers. There are more and more ways for scholars to share their expertise and knowledge with academic and popular audiences alike. At the same time, there are a growing number of journalists interested in covering religion well. Not only are th...

An Author-Meets-Critics Roundtable Session discussing Saba Mahmood’s recently published book, "Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report" (Princeton University Press, 2016). Bringing together both senior and junior scholars invested in questions of secularism and secularity from varied disciplinary and thematic perspectives including American religious history, the study of Sikhism,...

Michelle Alexander is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar. Alexander is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Stanford Law School. Following law school, she clerked for Justice Harry A. Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court and for Chief Judge Abner Mikva on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Prior to entering academia, Alexander served as the director o...

AM 2016: This panel provides some comparative insights on the current situation in Europe alongside experiences in the USA, exploring how religion is located within these debates, for instance as a foundation for appeals to national or civilizational identities that exclude certain groups, as well as a means for overcoming conflict and providing support and advocacy for vulnerable immigrant commun...

AAR's 2016 American Lectureship in the History of Religions was held by Iranian academic and poet Fatemeh Keshavarz, who at this session at the 2016 AAR Annual Meeting, delivers her capstone lecture. Born and raised in the city of Shiraz, completed her studies in Shiraz University, and University of London. She taught at Washington University in St. Louis for over twenty years where she chaired th...

To commemorate and celebrate the ten year anniversary of Obery Hendricks' "The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus’ Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted" (Doubleday, 2006), Hendricks is joined by a panelist of activists, academics, scholars, and pastors convene a roundtable to discuss the influential nature of this work. Panelists: - Andre E. Johnson, Univ...

Serene Jones was the 2016 president of the American Academy of Religion and the sixteenth President of the historic Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. The first woman to head the 179-year-old interdenominational seminary, Jones occupies the Johnston Family Chair for Religion and Democracy and has formed Union’s Institute for Women, Religion, and Globalization as well as the Instit...

J. Bryan Hehir was the 2016 recipient of the Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion. Hehir is the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is also the Secretary for Health Care and Social Services in the Archdiocese of Boston. His research and writing focus on ethics...

A companion to our last episode, which focused on what students can do to prepare for nonacademic careers, this podcast highlights how religious studies faculty and graduate programs can create a variety of career paths for their students. In recent years as the job market for tenure-track academic positions has tightened and the use of contingent faculty has exploded, increasing numbers of gradua...

Worried about the job market? Thinking that a career in higher ed no longer matches your interests and goals? Or just wondering about options? The panelists in this discussion hold or are working on masters and doctoral degrees in a variety of religious studies and theology programs and talk about fields including: publishing and editing; freelance writing; nonprofits and foundations; government;...

The presidential theme of the 2016 AAR Annual Meeting was "Revolutionary Love." The concept draws from various themes, traditions, and ideas. In this wildcard session, leading thinkers reflect on revolutionary love from nonviolence, queer, interreligious, and constructive theology perspectives. Karen Baker-Fletcher, Southern Methodist University, presiding Serene Jones, Union Theological Seminary,...

Bhrigupati Singh, assistant professor of anthropology at Brown University, speaks about how his examination of the Sahariyas, a tribe living in extreme poverty in Northwest India, stretches and blurs the boundaries of religion and secularity in studying how the tribespeople reflect on questions of ethics, happiness, and quality of life. His work encourages scholars of religion—particularly those e...

Cornel West argues that pragmatism is the ideal philosophical view to address the ways in which ideas like race, gender and class are produced and redescribed in history. Pragmatism is ideal because it highlights history, context and problem solving. As a quintessentially American tradition, pragmatism’s canonical figures had not sufficiently wrestled with these quandaries in a way that would make...

Julián Castro, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Barack Obama, speaks on housing, his childhood, and political action. Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado presides. This plenary session was recorded on November 21, 2016, in San Antonio, Texas, at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion.

This panel, comprised of leading theological voices working across traditions and communities, will explore manifestations of "the hatreds of our day," their origins, their relation to religious thought and practice, and varied strategies available to disrupt their power. Drawing out the connections between hatred directed towards Latinos, African Americans, and Muslims will be central. Panelists:...

Taking up the AAR's 2016 plenary theme of "Revolutionary Love," participants in this session join a conversation addressing concerns with Christian privilege in a scholarly organization dedicated to “critical approaches to the study of religion.” This panel brings together a diverse group of scholars to consider the concept of love as a public or political force. Whose conception of love prevails...

This session was organized for the 2016 AAR Annual Meeting as a roundtable discussion between authors of recent major books that address issues of religion, race, and politics. Additionally, these authors have served as frequent public commentators on the 2016 election. Drawing upon on their research and experiences during the election cycle, the panelists discuss our understanding of the role tha...

In the Zoroastrian Empire of Iran during late antiquity, what were the limits of Christian identity? Richard E. Payne, Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Ancient Near Eastern History at the University of Chicago, explains how Christians were able to navigate the Iranian political world and how their identity as Christians did not necessarily preclude political participation in a thoroughly Zor...

Francis J. Beckwith, professor of philosophy & church-state studies at Baylor University, discusses how we form complex beliefs and if the difference between the process of developing so-called religious beliefs and secular beliefs might be smaller than we think. Beckwith is the author of "Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith" (Cambridge University Press, 2015). T...

David A. Lambert talks to Religious Studies News about his book How Repentance Became Biblical: Judaism, Christianity, and the Interpretation of Scripture (Oxford University Press), which won the American Academy of Religion’s 2016 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Textual Studies. Lambert's book "considers the development of repentance as a concept around the turn of the Common Era...