The Publicly Engaged Religion Mapping Project is a collaborative initiative of the AAR with the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), supported by the Henry Luce Foundation, to document and analyze the landscape of publicly engaged scholarship on religion in North America. participating partner organizations include the Institute for Diversity and Civic Life and the National Humanities Alliance. This project seeks to address persistent barriers to the connectivity, sustainability, and visibility of public-facing work by mapping the landscape of public scholarship.
Call for Participation: Help AAR Understand Public Scholarship in Religion
AAR invites scholars, practitioners, and community partners to contribute to the Publicly Engaged Religion Mapping Project, a collaborative initiative with the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) supported by the Henry Luce Foundation to document and analyze the landscape of publicly engaged scholarship on religion in North America. This project seeks to address persistent barriers to the connectivity, sustainability, and visibility of public-facing work by mapping the landscape of public scholarship.
AAR has identified and published a general list of the types of public scholarship in the Guidelines for Supporting and Evaluating Public Scholarship in Religion. These guidelines are designed to enhance the quality and impact of public scholarship; to support scholars of religion in their multifaceted approaches to research, teaching, and public engagements; and to integrate with existing policies and missions in a variety of institutions. The forms and content of public scholarship in religion are dynamic and expansive, encompassing a wide range of interactions among academic and non-academic individuals and groups that produce knowledge; they include but are not limited to:
(1) Traditional Scholarship Presented in Public Venues, such as lectures at libraries, civic groups, and humanities festivals;
(2) Scholarship Written for a Public Audience, such as publications in trade books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs;
(3) Scholarship for Specific Contexts, such as environmental reports, cultural heritage documentation, infographics, policy briefs, government consulting, and expert testimony;
(4) Multimedia and Digital Scholarship for the Public, such as museum, library, and online exhibitions, websites and web apps, databases, data visualizations, films and podcasts;
(5) Collaborative Research, such as the co-production of knowledge with public, community, and other non-academic partners.
We invite you to take this survey as part of our efforts to represent the various projects relating to Public Scholarship on Religion. The survey responses will be analyzed and compiled into a searchable database with a visual interface, making this information easily accessible to researchers, practitioners, and the broader public. The survey may take between 15-20 minutes to complete. If you are working on multiple projects related to Public Scholarship and Religion, we kindly request that you submit separate surveys for each project.
The database will be complemented by in-depth essays and interviews that highlight diverse models of engagement and approaches to measuring impact. By sharing information about your work, you will help build an accessible resource for scholars, funders, and communities alike, advancing shared frameworks for ethical engagement, fostering connections across disciplines and contexts, and strengthening the presence of religious studies within broader national conversations on public scholarship.