ANNUAL MEETING NEWS

Registration and Housing

Registration and Housing for the 2010 Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA, are now open. Save by registering now — “Super Saver” registration rates expire on March 31! You must be registered to secure housing. Check your mail for the AAR Registration and Housing brochure containing all the details, and visit the AAR website to register and book housing online.

Cosponsor a Scholar from Australia/Oceania

The International Connections Committee is proud to have eleven scholars from Australia/Oceania participate in the 2010 AAR Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA from October 30–November 1. If your institution is interested in having a scholar visit before or after the annual meeting, please contact Jessica Davenport at jdavenport@aarweb.org. Visit our website for additional details and to learn more about the participating scholars. The deadline for requesting a scholar to visit your institution is March 31.

Rethinking Islamic Studies Workshop
Friday, October 29, 2:00–5:00 PM
$50

Sponsored by the Study of Islam Section and the Contemporary Islam Group, this workshop is stimulated by the imminent publication of Rethinking Islamic Studies: From Orientalism to Cosmopolitanism, edited by Carl Ernst and Richard Martin (University of South Carolina Press, May 2010). This volume of essays, written by a combination of senior scholars and emerging academics, surveys the changes that have taken place in Islamic studies in the field of religious studies over the past few decades. At the same time, it proposes new directions based on interdisciplinary connections to current debates in different fields of study. We believe this furnishes the occasion for a fruitful interaction with younger scholars in Islamic studies, who can benefit from the opportunity to discuss the theoretical implications of their research with colleagues in the field. Our goal for the workshop is not to replicate the volume, but to use it as a springboard for thinking about the agendas for research in Islamic studies in the next decade or so.

This workshop is specifically focused on the critical issues that face specialists in Islamic studies today. Building on the breakdown of topics in the volume's table of contents, a total of six panelists will address and lead breakout sessions on religion and politics, ethics, social science, gender theory, humanities and cosmopolitanism, and history and locality.

Register now through the Online Annual Meeting Registration system!

Leadership Workshop: “Cultivating Interdisciplinarity: Opportunities for Curriculum, Faculty Development, and Hiring”
Friday, October 29, 9:00 AM–3:45 PM
$100

Sponsored by the Academic Relations Committee, this workshop continues a three-year sequence of interactive, daylong workshops exploring the implications of the Teagle/AAR White Paper “The Religion Major and Liberal Education.” The workshop will focus upon the convergence of interdisciplinary opportunities that are emerging within our field and the pressures felt by departments to think about curriculum and hiring in ways that enable larger institutional outcomes. Participants will explore the interdisciplinary shift implicit in the white paper’s advocacy of moving from a seminary model to a comparative model of religious studies. Also, we will address if and how such a shift can encourage teaching and learning in ways that better serve the needs of students while advancing the institution’s core mission. Participants will be invited to examine the implications of such a shift for curriculum, faculty development, and hiring. The workshop will conclude with presentations and discussions about resources and programs that might enable departments to cultivate such interdisciplinarity in meaningful ways within their institutional contexts.

The interactive workshop will feature several speakers, panelists, and breakout sessions. A panel will explore the opportunities for curriculum, faculty development, and hiring that the cultivation of interdisciplinarity presents. A breakout session led by members of the Academic Relations Committee immediately follows, which will allow participants to discuss these issues in-depth and in relation to their own contexts. Following lunch, which is provided, panelists will share resources and programs that embody and enable such interdisciplinary approaches. Another breakout session will allow for participation from attendees. The workshop will conclude with a wrap-up plenary and discussion with Richard Carp, professor of philosophy and religion, interim chair of the department of foreign languages and literature, and past chair of the department of interdisciplinary studies at Appalachian State University.

Register now through the Online Annual Meeting Registration system!

Religion and Media Workshop: "Religion Counts: Demographic Technologies and the Politics of Surveillance"
Friday, October 29, 9:30 AM–4:00 PM
$55

This year's workshop takes its cue from the 2010 United States census. This classic procedure for enumerating and defining the national population (and, indeed, the nation itself) will be reenacted via a novel assemblage of information technologies and other media. Although the 2010 United States Census cannot include mandatory questions about religion, it nonetheless raises a set of critical questions about the relationship of religion to population, politics, state surveillance, and the media technologies that bind these together — questions that resonate well beyond the American context. The political technologies of "number;" affect religious minorities in Europe, South Asia, and elsewhere; they articulate the contours of religious populations in diaspora; and, via the circulation of religious texts and objects, they hail imagined communities and counter-publics that undermine the boundaries of the nation-state. This year's Religion and Media Workshop will foreground the question of when and how religion counts — how religion relates to the technologies of number, how religious groups become visible as enumerable "populations" and how certain kinds of religious collectives remain both uncounted and uncountable.

We invite you to join a discussion of these themes with leading reporters, performers, and academics. Our unique three-part workshop includes panels, multimedia presentations, and small group discussions. Our morning program features a series of interdisciplinary panels on surveillance, demographic technologies, mapping, and governmentality across religious traditions and in a variety of geographic contexts. In the afternoon, an intensive discussion of how these themes articulate the knowledge produced by the U.S. Census will amplify the critical vocabularies developed throughout the day. As always, there will be ample time for small thematic lunch-time conversations around issues of urgent relevance to the study of religion and media.

Register now through the Online Annual Meeting Registration system!

Food, Justice, and Sustainability Workshop
Friday, October 29, 2:00–5:00 PM
$50

Sponsored by the Forum on Religion and Ecology and the Sustainability Task Force, this workshop will explore the relationships between food production and consumption, social justice, and sustainability. The environmental degradation, hunger, and social instability produced by industrial agriculture demand that we expand our ecological and religious imaginations to develop new paradigms for agricultural practice and consider its effects on human and non-human communities. This workshop will help participants to trace the relations between food, social justice, and sustainability, as well as highlight innovative local responses to these issues. Throughout the workshop, presenters and participants will focus on engaged pedagogy — how can we work to improve the sustainability of our food systems for people and the planet from our bases in colleges and universities, seminaries, and at home?

Peggy Barlett, Emory University, will open the workshop with a keynote presentation focusing especially on university and seminary responses to the challenges of food, social justice, and sustainability, bringing in both local Atlanta and national examples as appropriate. Breakout groups will discuss ways in which faculty, students, and universities/seminaries can work together to address issues raised by the focus topic. For the closing session of the workshop, each group will present a 5–10 minute report on the main ideas/solutions they came up with. Then, participants will have an opportunity to talk about any remaining issues, questions, ideas, etc. that arose during the course of the workshop.

Register now through the Online Annual Meeting Registration system!

Annual Meeting Job Center

Annual Meeting Job Center preregistration is currently open for candidates. Employer preregistration will open April 19. Preregistration will close for both candidates and employers October 11. Register early to receive full benefits. For more information, see www.aarweb.org/jump/jobcenter.

Additional Meetings

The Additional Meetings Request System is now open! Schedule your meeting, reception, or event taking place at the AAR Annual Meeting before May 1 to receive priority scheduling.

Did you miss the AAR Call of Papers? Check to see if there are any Additional Meetings seeking paper proposals in the Additional Meetings Call for Papers. Additional Meetings organizers are welcome to submit a Call for Papers when registering for a meeting; calls will be posted on the AAR website. NB: These calls are administered by parties outside the AAR executive office. Please send all questions to the contact listed in the Call for Papers.

APPLY FOR AN AAR INDIVIDUAL OR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH GRANT

Each year the AAR awards grants of up to $5,000 for individual and collaborative research projects. All applicants must apply online through the AAR website. For additional information, see www.aarweb.org/Programs/Grants/default.asp.

COMMITTEE NOMINATIONS

Each year, members of the American Academy of Religion are invited to nominate persons to fill open positions on AAR Standing Committees, Task Forces, and Juries. This year, there are openings on the following groups: Academic Relations Committee; Book Award Juries; Career Services Advisory Committee; Graduate Student Committee; History of Religions Jury; International Connections Committee; Nominations Committee; Program Committee; Public Understanding of Religion Committee; Research Grant Jury; Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession Committee; Status of Women in the Profession Committee; Teaching and Learning Committee; and Theological Education Steering Committee.

Nominations for positions on these groups must be made in writing, and must include: 1) A description of the nominee’s academic and professional interests; 2) A summary of the nominee’s activity in the AAR; 3) A statement describing the nominee’s interest or promise for a particular assignment; and 4) A current copy of the nominee’s curriculum vita. Members may nominate themselves. All nominees must be members in good standing of the AAR. Nominations must be received by May 1, 2010, and may be sent to: Jack Fitzmier, Executive Director / American Academy of Religion, Suite 300 / 825 Houston Mill Road NE / Atlanta, GA 30329 USA; or by fax: 404-727-7959; or e-mail to nominations@aarweb.org.

UPDATING YOUR MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION

We will be sending out the Annual Meeting Program Planner, name badges, and information on the Annual Meeting later this year. Help us reduce our mailing costs and make sure you get the Annual Meeting materials, JAAR, and other items, by logging onto your membership page on the AAR website and verifying that your contact information is correct. Simply log in to My AAR and select “Change Contact Information” to make your updates.

1. Annual Meeting News
2. Individual and Collaborative Research Grants
3. Committee Nominations
4. Updating Your Membership Information

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