E-Bulletin
March 2012
 
 
American Academy of Religion
In This Issue
 

PAPERS DEADLINE IS TONIGHT!
The AAR Call for Papers deadline is EXTENDED FOR A FEW HOURS: March 16, 2012 at 5:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time. West Coast members, this gives you until 2:00 AM to complete your proposal.

Submit your proposal for the 2012 AAR Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL through the new PAPERS System. There will be NO further extensions, so submit your proposal today!

If you have ever been an AAR member, you can log in with your AAR Member ID and last name (case-sensitive, first letter must be capitalized, with no diacritics (such as á or é). This will work even if you are not a current 2012 member, so please do not create a Guest Account.

 You may submit no more than two proposals in response to the Call for Papers. This includes submitting the same proposal to two separate Program Units or two different proposals to two different Program Units.

 

ANNUAL MEETING NEWS

ADDITIONAL MEETINGS RESERVATIONS OPEN APRIL 2
Have a reception, editorial meeting, or other business to conduct at the Annual Meeting? Get your space reserved and on the program as an Additional Meeting. The reservation system opens on April 2.

REGISTRATION AND HOUSING – NOW OPEN!
Register today to receive the best price on the Annual Meetings! The 2012 member rate is deeply discounted. Annual Meeting registration rates increase on April 17, so lock in the savings today.

 If you have not renewed your 2012 membership, now is the perfect time. Reap the savings of your AAR membership!

HOTEL RESERVATIONS ARE VERY IMPORTANT THIS YEAR!

  • ALL sessions scheduled before 6:30 pm will be held in the McCormick Place Convention Center or the Hyatt McCormick Place Hotel. Evening sessions (6:30 pm and later) will be held at the Hilton Chicago Hotel or the Palmer House Hilton Hotel.
  • The Annual Meeting hotels are a few miles from McCormick Place. (This is due to the location of McCormick Place; the Hyatt McCormick Place Hotel is the only nearby large hotel.) Shuttles will be running continuously from the Annual Meetings hotels to the convention center.
  • SHUTTLES PASSES ARE REQUIRED TO RIDE THE SHUTTLE. Attendees staying in the hotel block will receive a shuttle pass. The deadline for hotel reservations and shuttle passes is October 24. If you plan to stay elsewhere during the meeting, you can purchase a shuttle pass for $25 or use public transportation (Metra Electric Line, bus, etc.).
  • Registration is required to arrange housing.

CALL FOR RELIGION, CULTURE, AND HISTORY BOOK SERIES EDITOR

The AAR Publications Committee seeks a book editor for the Religion, Culture, and History Series, which is sponsored by the American Academy of Religion and published in cooperation with Oxford University Press. The Religion, Culture, and History Series publishes scholarly work that addresses the complex interrelationship between religious studies and cultural studies. The Series is thus open to a range of methodological approaches: historical, comparative, theological, and philosophical. By emphasizing the religious dimensions of culture and the cultural dimensions of religion, the Series promotes a widening and deepening of the study of “popular” culture and cultural theory, and attempts to decenter our academic discourse about religion by focusing on its particular embeddedness in a wide range of cultural phenomenon.

AAR Series Editors help set editorial policy, acquire manuscripts, and work with Oxford University Press in seeing manuscripts through to publication. Editors sit on the AAR Publications Committee for the duration of their term. This is a volunteer position. All applicants must be members of the American Academy of Religion. If you are interested in this position, you are highly encouraged to read further information about the position in the upcoming RSN March 2012 issue. Please e-mail inquiries, nominations (self-nominations are encouraged), and applications (a letter describing interests and qualifications, plus a current curriculum vita) by Word or PDF attachment to Kim Connor, Publications Committee Chair, connork@usfca.edu. The application deadline is June 1, 2012.

 

AAR MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

The Member Spotlight is a series of interviews with AAR members who have shaped the field of religious studies. Do you have a colleague who you think we should spotlight? Nominate them at info@aarweb.org!

 

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT GRANTS

Have you considered applying for a 2012–2013 Regional Development Grant? Regional Development Grants provide funds for special projects within the regions that promise to benefit the scholarly and professional life of AAR members and do the work of the AAR in the regions. Workshops, special programs, training events, and other innovative regional projects may be funded through this source. Where possible, projects are designed so that they may be duplicated or transported to other regions.

Applications should include a narrative description of the project detailing how the project promises to benefit the scholarly and professional lives of AAR members and the work of the region. Please include comments on how these projects or activities may be adapted to other regional groups. The application should state the time period covered by the project and provide a detailed budget (office expenses, travel expenses, honoraria, stipend, and other expenses). Institutional overhead costs should not be included in this budget. No grant will exceed $4,000.

Successful grants from prior years can be found here. Application deadline are:

  • August 1, 2012 – Grant proposals due to Regional Directors
  • September 1, 2012 – Regional Directors forward grants to Regions Committee
  • October 15, 2012 – Regional grant awards announced

NEW INITIATIVES FROM STATUS OF LGBTIQ PERSONS IN THE PROFESSION COMMITTEE

The Status of LGBTIQ Persons in the Profession Committee has two upcoming initiatives that we would like assistance from our AAR colleagues:

First, we will be starting an anonymous career advice column called "Ask the Diva," that will be published in each issue of Religious Studies News. The column will focus on issues of special concern to LGBTIQ scholars of religion and we need your help in getting it off the ground. What questions do you have about graduate school, career development, teaching, etc.?

The second initiative is an effort to gather stories of people's experiences (good and bad) as LGBTIQ scholars of religion. We would be deeply appreciative if you could send in narratives. Your identity will be kept confidential unless you specify that your name should be used in relation to your narrative, and you are welcome to send your narrative from an anonymous e-mail address if you wish.

Please send both your questions and your narratives to the Chair of the Committee, Melissa Wilcox, at wilcoxmm@whitman.edu.

 

ACADEMIC ABBY: Professional Advice from Your Colleagues

Do you have a question about life in academe that you are at a loss to answer by yourself but don't feel you can approach your colleagues with it? Ask Academic Abby! Academic Abby is able to answer questions large and small, from dealing with faculty dilemmas, to tenure issues, to work/life balance troubles. Questions can be submitted anonymously through an online form. Members of the AAR Status of Women in the Profession Committee will respond to each question received. The question and answer will be posted on the Status of Women in the Profession web page and issues of Religious Studies News.

 

OTHER NEWS

Attention Community College Faculty! The Newberry Library invites applications from teams of faculty members with sponsoring administrators from community colleges to participate in "Out of Many: Religious Pluralism in America," an NEH Bridging Cultures at Community Colleges program that focuses on collaborative research for curriculum development. Participating faculty will conduct research in the Newberry's collections and partake in discussions with prominent scholars to gain a better understating of key moments in America's past when the nation's ideal of religious freedom was challenged. The application deadline is March 23.

ALCS Public Fellows Grants
Solicitation for the second ACLS Public Fellows program is underway. The program was launched last spring to demonstrate the value of employing skilled and accomplished young scholars in a variety of capacities, thereby broadening the academy's conventional ideas of the PhD career path. The deadline for applications is March 21.

 

AAR MEMBER NOTES

Books and Major Publications
Jon Armajani, College of St. Benedict and St. John's University
Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics, Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, January 2012, ISBN: 9781405117425

Vincent F. Biondo III and Richard D. Hecht, California State University, Fresno
Religion and Culture: Contemporary Practices and Perspectives, Fortress Press, February 2012 release date.

Kent L. Brintnall, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Ecce Homo: The Male-Body-in-Pain as Redemptive Figure. University of Chicago Press, 2011. ISBN 0226074706.

Valerie C. Cooper, University of Virginia
Word, Like Fire: Maria Stewart, the Bible, and the Rights of African Americans, The University of Virginia Press, January 2012, ISBN-10: 0813931886 , ISBN-13: 978-0813931883

Pankaj Jain, University of North Texas
Dharma and Ecology of Hindu Communities: Sustenance and Sustainability (Ashgate, 2011) ISBN-13: 978-1409405917

David Kyuman Kim, Connecticut College
Race, Religion, and Late Democracy, a special issue of the ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, John L. Jackson and David Kyuman Kim, editors, Sage, September 2011, ISBN: 9781452218267

David Kyuman Kim, Connecticut College
The Post-Secular in Question (eds., Philip Gorski, David Kyuman Kim, John Torpey, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen), New York University Press, March 2012, ISBN: 9780814738726

David L. McMahan, Franklin & Marshall College
Buddhism in the Modern World, New York and London: Routledge, 2012.

Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Vanderbilt University
Christian Theology in Practice: Discovering a Discipline (Eerdmans, 2012)

Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Vanderbilt University
Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)

Debra J. Mumford, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Exploring Prosperity Preaching: Biblical Health, Wealth, and Wisdom. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press. April 2012 release date. ISBN: 9780817017088

David Palmer, Hong Kong University, and Xun Liu, Rutgers University
Daoism in the Twentieth Century: Between Eternity and Modernity, GAIA/UC Press, 2012 http://escholarship.org/uc/item/13w4k8d4

Christopher D. Rodkey, Lebanon Valley College
The Synaptic Gospel: Teaching the Brain to Worship (University Press of America, 2012, ISBN 978-0-76185786-0).

Rebecca Sachs Norris, Merrimack College
David Cave & Rebecca Sachs Norris (Eds.). Religion and the Body: Modern Science and the Construction of Religious Meaning. Numen Book Series vol. 138. Leiden, Boston: Brill. March, 2012. ISBN13: 9789004221116

Nimi Wariboko, Andover Newton Theological School
The Pentecostal Principle: Ethical Methodology in New Spirit. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, January 2012. ISBN: 978-0-8028-6697-4

Matthew Lon Weaver, College of St Scholastica
Religious Internationalism: The Ethics of War and Peace in the Thought of Paul Tillich Publ: Mercer University Press Released: 2010 ISBN-13: 978-0-88146-188-6

Steven Engler, Mount Royal University and Michael Stausberg, University of Bergen
The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion ISBN 978-0-415-55920-1 Published November 16th 2011.

Career Transitions
Steve A. Wiggins, Routledge
Steve Wiggins is now North American religioneditor with Routledge.

Career Achievement

Elisabetta Porcu, University of Leipzig
Founded a new academic journal dedicated to Japanese religions, the Journal of Religion in Japan (Brill). Editors: Elisabetta Porcu and Paul B. Watt. The first issue of JRJ is focused on Religion and the Secular in Japan and will be published in March 2012.

Let your AAR colleagues know about your professional milestones! Submit your Member Note online.
 
Table of Contents
  1. Call for Papers Deadline
  2. Annual Meeting News
  3. Call for AAR Editor
  4. Member Spotlight
  5. Regional Grants
  6. LGBTIQ Initiatives
  7. Academic Abby
  8. Other News
  9. AAR Member Notes
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