American Academy of Religion

In 1491, the king of the west central African kingdom of Kongo was baptized as a Christian by Portuguese missionaries, and in so doing, he ushered a unique and centuries-long relationship between the Kongo kingdom and European political and religious powers. Cécile Fromont, assistant professor of art history at the University of Chicago, describes the unique beliefs and material culture of Christi...

What can study of the beliefs and practices of one tradition bring to bear on another? Michelle Voss Roberts, associate professor of theology at Wake Forest University's divinity school, discusses how ethnographic study of Indian and South Asian Hindu rituals and aesthetics can bring new theological space to explore Christian practice. Using the Indian framework of "rasa," loosely defined as emoti...

The 1991 publication of Karen McCarthy Brown’s “Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn,” now in its third edition, was a watershed contribution to the field of religious studies and became a perennial favorite among assigned textbooks. Brown’s exemplary ethnographic treatment of the religious practices of a Haitian immigrant humanized the adepts of this much-maligned African diaspora religion, a...

Scholar and filmmaker Ziba Mir-Hosseini, a specialist in Islamic law, gender and development and Professorial Research Associate at the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Law, University of London, is the recipient of the 2015 Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion. At the Marty Forum, Professor Mir-Hosseini will be interviewed by Diana L. Eck, Harvard University. The Ma...

In this interview, Tariq Jaffer talks about the subject of his award-winning 2014 book, Razi: Master of Qur'anic Interpretation and Theological Reasoning. Razi (1148–1210), a post-classical scholar, solidified the rational method of interpretation and reasoning in the Islamic tradition. Jaffer's book won the 2015 American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the tex...

A 2015 article in The Atlantic by Graeme Wood - "What ISIS Really Wants" – and the controversy it has given rise to, has brought once again to the fore questions about the kind of role scholars of religion can legitimately and usefully play in ‘defining’ religion in the public square. Wood, citing heavily the work of the Princeton Scholar of religion Bernard Haykel, is of the view that ISIS is Isl...

Using the Hobby Lobby and Holt v. Hobbs Supreme Court decisions as a starting point, the panel will discuss the challenges of valuing religion in law, addressing such questions as: Do court decisions in cases such as Hobby Lobby and Holt v. Hobbs serve or undermine religious pluralism? When are religious exemptions to laws that apply generally to everyone warranted? How ought religious liberty be...

In this conversation with Kristian Petersen, scholar Winnifred Fallers Sullivan discusses how the role of chaplains in the United States developed alongside understandings of the First Amendment. Chaplaincy, she argues, provides a legal solution to the fragile problem posed by the free exercise and establishment clauses in the Constitution. Sullivan is the author of "A Ministry of Presence: Chapla...

Just over fifty years ago, on October 22, 1965, Paul Tillich died, just days after having given his final public lecture. Consideration of the theological endeavor between then and now highlights how seminal his thought has been within the field of religion. In contemporary parlance, it could be said that in many ways today’s Academy is Tillich gone viral. On this panel, leading scholars address h...

This roundtable brings together public health experts and religion scholars to ask what we can learn from the epidemic in relation to the potential of religion to help or hinder effective responses to threats like Ebola, both in and beyond Africa, and how religious studies can nuance public health understandings of African realities. Epidemics always highlight or exaggerate the power relations and...

Pressure on humanistic disciplines like religious studies is enormous in the modern academy. From budget cuts and threats of downsizing, the professionalization of students and the instrumentalization of higher ed, to the adjunctification of faculties and STEM orientations that demand ever-increasing career-oriented outcomes for graduates, religious studies departments are no longer self-justifyin...

This roundtable session features a discussion of Frans de Waal's Work on the theme of the development of "moral" practices outside of religion. Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal is one of the world’s leading primatologists, known for his work on the behavior and social intelligence of primates. His book, The Bonobo and the Atheist, examines the origins and evolution of morality and the role of religion in h...

Anya Bernstein talks to Religious Studies News about her book Religious Bodies Politic: Rituals of Sovereignty in Buryat Buddhism (University of Chicago Press), which won the American Academy of Religion’s 2014 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Analytical-Descriptive Studies. Music is Dexter Britain, "Fresh Monday"(www.dexterbritain.co.uk)

This panel session was added to the 2015 AAR program only a week before the Annual Meeting in response to the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, France. The panel of scholars, whose areas of focus range from interreligious dialogue to political Islam to French secularism to ancient Christianity. They discuss the media, Islamophobia, religious violence, geopolitics, rational actors, and activi...

In this plenary 2015 AAR president Tom Tweed addresses urgent issues we face within and beyond the academy by asking about how the study of religion is valued. First, he analyzes how it is valued—and devalued—in the public arena and discerns what that can tell us about how to refine the usual arguments for the importance of the study of religion and, thereby, help endangered programs fare better i...

This conversation focuses on one of the most enduring and difficult issues facing the Academy: what is the relationship between theology and religious studies? 2015 AAR president Tom Tweed presides over the exchange between Ann Taves, a distinguished scholar of religious studies (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Graham Ward, a distinguished scholar of theology (University of Oxford), b...

Recorded at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the AAR in Atlanta, GA. The 2015 annual meeting focused on “Valuing the Study of Religion,” which includes pondering how religion has been valued—and devalued—in public spaces. Addressing a variety of social spaces from the legislature to the streets, this panel analyzes religious responses to racial injustice. In 2015, the fiftieth anniversary of the histori...

Leela Prasad, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Duke University, was awarded an American Academy of Religion’s 2014 Individual Research Grant. She talks to Religious Studies News about her project Moved by Gandhi -- A Documentary Film. Music is Dexter Britain, “Fresh Monday” (www.dexterbritain.co.uk)

Mark Rowe, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at McMaster University, was awarded an American Academy of Religion’s 2014 Individual Research Grant. He talks to Religious Studies News about his project Female Priests in Japanese Temple Buddhism. Music is Dexter Britain, “Fresh Monday” (www.dexterbritain.co.uk)

Brian Pennington, Director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society and Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University, was awarded an American Academy of Religion’s 2014 Individual Research Grant. He talks to Religious Studies News about his project Natural Disaster and Divine Agency: Hindu Theodicies of Climate Change. Music is Dexter Britain, “Fresh Monday” (www.dexterbr...

SherAli Tareen, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College, was awarded an American Academy of Religion’s 2014 Individual Research Grant. He talks to Religious Studies News about his project Islam, Tradition, and Democracy: The Case of the Deoband Madrasa. Music is Dexter Britain, “Fresh Monday” (www.dexterbritain.co.uk)

A panel discussion with Judith Butler about her book "Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism" (Columbia University Press, 2012). November 25, 2013 Baltimore, Maryland Panelists: Claire Katz, Texas A&M University Samuel Brody, University of Cincinnati Yaniv Feller, University of Toronto Mark Lewis Taylor, Princeton Theological Seminary Saba Mahmood, University of California, Berkeley...

November 25, 2013 American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting Baltimore, Maryland Panelists: Shaun Allen Casey, Wesley Theological Seminary Ingrid Mattson, University of Western Ontario Josef Sorett, Columbia University Laurie Zoloth, Northwestern University (Presiding) (Audio File: 57 minutes)

November 25, 2013 Baltimore, Maryland Panelists: Robert P. Jones, Public Religion Research Institute E.J. Dionne, The Brookings Institution and Washington Post Kristin Heyer, Santa Clara University Manuel A. Vasquez, University of Florida William Galston, The Brookings Institution Erik Owens, Boston College (Presiding) (Audio File: 2 hours, 26 minutes)

November 24, 2013 Baltimore, Maryland Panelists: Harvey Cox, Harvard University David Little, Harvard University Ann Swidler, University of California, Berkeley Steven M. Tipton, Emory University Richard Madsen, University of California, San Diego Harlan Stelmach, Dominican University of California Philip Gorski, Yale University Anna Sun, Kenyon College Mark Juergensmeyer, U. of California, Santa...