http://www.aarweb.org/programs/ALHR/default.asp
American Lectures in the History of Religions
Founded in 1891 to encourage path-breaking scholarship through a lecture and book series, the American Lectures in the History of Religions flourished under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies and Columbia University from 1936. At the request of the ACLS, the American Academy of Religion assumed administrative responsibility for the series in 1994.
During the 2003 calendar year, the lecturer was Willard G. Oxtoby, University of Toronto, emeritus. Due to his unexpected death, the series for 2003 was cancelled. The History of Religions Jury is in the process of selecting another lecturer. Please contact the executive office at aar@aarweb.org or 404-727-3049 for additional information.
At the conclusion of the lectures, many of the lecturers have had their lectures published through Columbia University Press.
Some of these publications are
- Martin P. Nilsson, Greek Popular Religion (1940)
- Henri Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian Religion (1948)
- Wing-tsit Chan, Religious Trends in Modern China (1953)
- Joachim Wach, The Comparative Study of Religions (1958)
- R. M. Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity (1959)
- Robert Lawson Slater, World Religions and World Community (1963)
- Joseph M. Kitagawa, Religion in Japanese History (1966)
- Joseph L. Blau, Modern Varieties of Judaism (1966)
- Morton Smith, Palestinian Parties and Politics that Shaped the Old Testament (1971)
- Philip H. Ashby, Modern Trends in Hinduism (1974)
- Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (1978)
- Annemarie Schimmel, As Through a Veil: Mystical Poetry in Islam (1982)
- Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (1988)
- W.H. McLeod, The Sikhs: History, Religion, and Society (1989)
- Caroline Walker Bynum, Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336 (1995)
- Wendy Doniger, The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth (1998)
- Bruce Lawrence, New Faiths, Old Fears: Muslims and Other Asian Immigrants in American Religious Life (2002)
The lecture series operates under the auspices of the AAR's History of Religions Jury which is also responsible for awarding the Best First Book in the History of Religions prize.