Theme: From Ethics to Politics

For the last 20 years, many of the most influential and dominant conversations in the anthropology of religion have focused on ethics, morality, and the subject-making processes of religious practice. These conversations pushed the study of religious traditions – especially Abrahamic ones – to the forefront of anthropological consideration and theory-building after a period at the end of the 20^th century in which religion was often seen as just an expression of economic or political forces. Defining religious practice as a subject-making force of its own, much of this work centered on people for whom religious identities had become foundational. But in focusing on subjects for whom religious subjectivities and ethical formations were impossible to ignore, not only were some of the more marginal members of religious communities left to the side, but some of the connections between religious practice and other domains of social life were at times demoted.

The 2021 SAR Spring Conference theme hopes to push back against this trend by soliciting current research on religious practices and traditions that highlight the connections linking religion and politics. How do theories of ethical subject-making help us to understand how religious subjects confront political projects? What other theoretical traditions might help to highlight how political and religious concerns interact without dissolving religion or religious practice as an object of study? How can concerns with race, gender, ethnicity, or class become more integrated into theories of ethics, morality, and religious subject-making?

In addition to research on religion broadly conceived, we are particularly interested in soliciting papers focused on the politics of ethics, religion at the margins of other domains of social life, marginal members of religious communities, religion and race/ethnicity, religion and gender, religion and class, religion and colonialism, religion and decolonization, or the religious formations of white supremacy.

To see the initial call for papers, go to http://sar.americananthro.org/sar-spring-virtual-conference-call-for-papers/

Format and location

The conference will be hosted on the American Anthropological Association website and sessions will happen in zoom meetings or webinars. Once you have registered for the conference, you can go to https://bit.ly/3c8udt6. You will be asked to log in to the AAA website and after that be taken to the conference landing page.

All panels will be 75 minutes long. In addition to standard panels with 15-minute presentations, there will be roundtables, author-meets-critics sessions, mentoring sessions, and others.

To accommodate busy schedules and participants living in many different time zones, the conference will happen in several three-hour long blocks:

US Central time 9am-noon (UTC 14:00-17:00)

US Central time 2pm-5pm (UTC 19:00-22:00)

US Central time 6pm-9pm (UTC 23:00-2:00)

Registration

Registration and access to the virtual conference will go through the American Anthropological Association website. However, in order to make the event accessible to as many people as possible, we have set up registration so that it is not necessary to be a member of the American Anthropological Association or the Society for the Anthropology of Religion to register for the conference. If you are a member of SAR, you will get a small discount on your registration as well as our great thanks for supporting the section.

Registration prices are:

SAR MEMBER

Professional - $30

Student - $15

Retired - $15

Unemployed/underemployed - $15

NON-MEMBER of SAR

Professional - $40

Student - $20

Retired - $20

Unemployed/underemployed - $20

If you are a AAA member, you will only see registration options that match your AAA membership. In other words, if you are a Student Member, you will only see the Student Member price; if you are a Professional Member, then you will only see the Professional Member price. If you are not a AAA member, we are asking that you choose whichever registration category best fits your current status. If you feel that registration fees will be a hardship, please contact me (chandman@austin.utexas.edu) to request a waiver of the registration fees.

Registration for the SAR meeting is now open here. You will need to scroll to the bottom of the page to see the link for SAR 2021 Spring Virtual Meeting and click the Register button. If you are a member of the AAA, then just go ahead and log in to the AAA site as you usually would. If you are not a member of the AAA, you may need to create an account. Please note that whatever email you use to log in or create your account will be the email you will use to access the virtual conference platform.

Mentoring sessions

We will have a number of mentoring sessions aimed at graduate students and early career PhDs. These sessions do not require any advance registration. The presenters will give brief remarks but these are meant to be relatively unscripted Q and A events. Look for these sessions when the conference schedule is announced in mid-April.

Decentering Academic Whiteness: Thriving as BIPOC Women and Non-binary Scholars in the Anthropology of Religion with N. Fadeke Castor and Jeanette Jouili

Doing collaborative ethnographic research on religion with China Scherz, George Mpanga, and Sarah Namirembe

Book publishing in anthropology of religion with SAR book series editors Don Seeman and Hillary Kaell

More information about these sessions will be forthcoming!

Small group workshops for graduate students

This year we will host a number of small group workshops during the SAR 2021 meeting. Each workshop will have room for up to four graduate students and be led by one faculty facilitator. Each graduate student will pre-circulate a short (no more than 10 pages double spaced) paper to their small group prior to the conference. During the conference, the faculty facilitator will meet privately with the small group and discuss the papers, as well as issues and concerns related to the topic more broadly. It is a great chance to have some focused attention on your work, meet other students working on the same issues, and develop your project.

Small group workshop topics and faculty facilitators:

Schisms and sects – Angie Heo, University of Chicago

Healing, health, and religion – China Scherz, University of Virginia

Deleuzian approaches to the anthropology of religion – Jon Bialecki, UCSD

Reconsidering Religious Economies – Daromir Rudnyckyj, University of Victoria

If you are interested in participating in one of these sessions, please turn in an application by April 5 that includes:

-the name of the session you are interested in

-a brief description of your research project (200 words max)

-a brief description of the short paper you would present (200 words max)

Applications are here: https://forms.gle/3EokwWrJq7aVUoEn6. You may apply to participate in up to two different sessions. Please fill out a different application for each session you are applying to.

If selected, you will need to send your paper to your facilitator by May 1.

Accessibility

The AAA has guidelines on making your presentation more accessible. You can take a look at their recommendations for accessible introductions as well as their tips on how to create accessible slides. A complete list of the AAA guidelines on accessibility is also available.

Program

The conference program will be announced here around April 15, 2021.

Contact

For any questions related to the conference, you can look at the Questions? page. For further questions, please email either Courtney Handman (chandman@austin.utexas.edu) or Daromir Rudnyckyj (daromir@uvic.ca).