Center for Critical Research on Religion Listserve

Critical Research on Religion 14(1), April 2026

2026-04-13T20:27:08Z

Critical Research on Religion
Volume 14 Issue 1, April 2026

Table of Contents
https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/CRR/current

Editorial:

The weaponization of antisemitism
by Warren S Goldstein

Articles:

1. Confession and grooming: A risk analysis
by Simon Schmalen and Thomas Kron

2. Conspiracy theories, fetishism, and the spiritual crisis: Marx on religion revisited
by Siyaves Azeri

3. Inclusivist discourses among contemporary Shia religious scholars about people of other faiths
by Ali Akbar and Abdullah Saeed

4. Disinformation and misinterpretation: Deconstructing the politics of denialism on social media in Pakistan through Islamic feminism
by Azam Sarwar and Muhammad Safdar

5. Gendered vengeance: Gender, agency, and retribution in the Mahabharata
by Anjitha Anil and Sushant Kishore

6. Thus spoke the stone women, Ahalya and Galatea: A comparative study of classical myths and their modern feminist retellings by Kavita Kane and Madeline Miller
by Himanshi Shinde and Mamta Anand

Book Reviews:

1. Máté-Tóth András and Povedák Kinga, Religion as Securitization in Central and Eastern Europe
Reviewed by Csaba Fazekas

2. Trupia Francesco, Islamophobia in European Cities: Solidarities, Responses and Dilemmas for Young Balkan Muslims
Reviewed by Jefry Anggara

3. Gregorio Guitián, ed., Theology of Work: New Perspectives
Reviewed by Ustadi Hamsah

Corrigendum:

Corrigendum to Japanese divine light in Kinshasa: Transcultural resonance and critique in the religiously multiple city

Obituary:

In memoriam: Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and Eduardo Mendieta

Call to contribute to a new grant on new religions.

2026-01-11T22:55:53Z

Call to Contribute to a New Grant on New Religions.

Grant title: New Religiosity and the Digital Study of Eudaimonia

Co-PIs: Stephen Christopher and Suzanne Newcombe

We are currently recruiting 200 scholars of new religions to complete a large poll called the "New Religiosity Poll" (NRP). You can see a PDF version of the poll here: The Database of Religious History. The actual poll is interactive.

We estimate it will take about 14 hours to complete. You do not answer all the questions; when you click "no" for an answer, it closes down a lot of secondary questions. Each entry will have a DOI and be published open access on the Database of Religious History (DRH), hosted at The University of British Columbia in Canada. As an honorarium, we pay 300 CAD per completed entry.

To read more about our project, please see our website:

New Religiosity and the Digital Study of Eudaimonia

To read more about the sign-in process, please see this PowerPoint: https://docs.google.com/.../1O7oZ9jhgTrRO3l.../edit....

A key aspect to his project is to get multiple entries from the same group from different regions or time frames. We want entries that are limited in scope (often limited to specific time periods or national contexts). We also want entries from three different perspectives:

1) scholars

2) "inside" members or leadership

3) "outside" critics or former members.

The poll allows for answers to either reflect orthodoxy (what the official position is) or lived experience (what members actually do).

If you're interested, please get in touch and let's set up a Zoom call in January.

Email Stephen Christopher at:

Stephen.Christopher@PROTECTED

Thanks for your time!

Critical Research on Religion, December 2025, Table of Contents

2025-12-08T17:55:11Z

Critical Research on Religion
Volume 13, Number 3 (December 2025)

Table of Contents:
https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/CRR/current

Articles:

“Rendering unto Caesar: Receptions of the Bible as a source for secularism”
Hannah M Strømmen

“Religious ideologies, legitimation, and citizenship in “second republic” Zimbabwe”
Theophilus Tinashe Nenjerama and Tavengwa Gwekwerere

“Pulpit, power, and predation: “Yahoo Men of God,” prosperity theology, and the Twin Fraud Triangles”
Suleman Lazarus, Peter Tickner and Mark Button

“Rethinking the Christian vow of matrimonial indissolubility amidst persistent domestic violence in contemporary Nigerian marriages”
Kenechi Nnaemeka Afunugo

“From ressentiment to revengefulness: An analysis of the discourse of barāʿatī Shīʿism in Iran”
Mehdi Nourian, Hassan Chavoshian and Hamid Ebadollahi-Chanzanagh

“Theoretical perspectives on Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s constructional conceptions: Islamic tradition and modernity in the Iranian context”
Abolfazl Morshedi

Response:

“Where the poem meets the battlefield: Speaking of Palestine and Israel”
Anonymous

Book Reviews:

Udi Greenberg, The End of the Schism: Catholics, Protestants, and the Remaking of Christian Life in Europe, 1880s–1970s
Reviewed by Tobias Brandner

Md Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan and Ann Black, eds., Freedom of Religion and Religious Diversity State Accommodation of Religious Minorities
Reviewed by Amiruddin

Antoine Borrut, Ceballos Manuela, and Vacca Alison, eds., Navigating Language in the Early Islamic World: Multilingualism and Language Change in the First Centuries of Islam
Reviewed by Ahmad Solahuddin and Moh. Miftakhul Huda

M Arnez and M Budianta, Gender, Islam, and Sexuality in Contemporary Indonesia
Reviewed by M Muji Buddin SM and Mochammad Irfan Achfandhy

Method and Theory: CFP

2025-12-02T21:22:54Z

Method and Theory: CFP

CALL FOR PAPERS – FEBRUARY 2025 – METHOD AND THEORY IN THE STUDY OF RELIGION

https://naasr.com/2025/02/09/method-and-theory-cfp/

Center for Critical Research on Religion Listserve Message

2025-07-28T16:26:57Z

Critical Research on Religion
Volume: 13, Number: 2 (August 2025)
Table of Contents

https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/CRR/current

Articles:

“The Requerimiento and the Theological ‘Knot’ of European Expansionism: Jews, Muslims, and the Arawakan-speaking peoples of the Caribbean in Juan López de Palacios Rubios’s Juridical theory of Dominion (1512)”
by Rady Roldán-Figueroa

“Post-secularism as the secularism of the exit of secularism: Australia as a case study of passé secularism”
by Adam Possamai

“Spatiotemporal solidarity discourses and practices in Islam: Mobilizing identity in crisis”
by Ahlam Alharbi

“Sarnaism in the Oraon tribe of Jharkhand: An ecological-religious perspective”
by Ambrish Gautam

“Generation Z and faith: A thematic analysis of #AsburyRevival TikTok content”
by K. Macy Burkett

“Multifaceted approach of corpus analysis for characterizing Christian religious groups”
by Raymund T. Palayon, Richard Watson Todd and Sompatu Vungthong

Symposium on the Jewish Left 2025:

“Nakba denial and the future of American Judaism”
by Simone Zimmerman

“Israel’s war in Gaza and the question of genocide”
by Omer Bartov

“Personal reflections on the Israeli left (in the 1970’s and 1980’s)”
by Adam Seligman

“Palestine in the time of monsters”
by Yousef Munayyer

“Here where we live is our country: The story of the Jewish Labor Bund”
by Molly Crabapple

Book Reviews:

Sherman Jackson, The Islamic Secular
Reviewed by Jacques Berlinerblau

Shoaib Ahmed Malik, Islam and Evolution: Al-ghazālī and the Modern Evolutionary Paradigm
Reviewed by Muhammad Asad Latif

James M Dorsey, The Battle for the Soul of Islam: Defining the Muslim Faith in the 21st Century
Reviewed by Ahmad Fahrur Rozi and Jefry Anggara

Johanna Pink, Qur’an translation in Indonesia: Scriptural Politics in a Multilingual State
Reviewed by Ahmad Fahrur Rozi and Mukhammad Hubbab Nauval

Satsangi Prem Saran, Consciousness Studies in Sciences and Humanities: Eastern and Western Perspectives
Reviewed by Gurpyari Bhatnagar

Critical Research on Religion 13(1) April 2025

2025-04-14T21:35:37Z

Critical Research on Religion
Volume: 13, Number: 1 (April 2025)

Table of Contents:
https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/CRR/current

Editorial:

“Israel/Palestine: Towards a one-state solution”
bt Warren S Goldstein

Articles:

“Muslim’s perception of the United States of America: The case of Said Nursi”
by Sadettin Orhan

"‘We have suffered enough and it may even get worse if care is not taken’: Discussing the role of churches in the 2023 general election in a Nigerian town”
by Kingsley Ikechukwu Uwaegbute

“Bystander evil and upstander intervention: the stories of Job and Jesus”
by Magdalen Wing-chi Ki

“Whispers of hair: Untangling the narratives of Tenali and Bandhu in Sony SAB’s Tenali Rama”
by Prateek and Mohana Lasya Sanisetty

CRR Hong Kong 2024 Keynote Address:

“‘Religion’ in a time of qualitative change”
by Roland Boer

Symposium on Joseph Blankholm's The Secular Paradox:

“Introduction: Are we all Christian?”
by Lucas McCracken

“‘The small space of Religion’s remainder’: On the precarities of the secular”
by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd

“Three questions (and a candle): A reply to The Secular Paradox”
by James S Bielo

“Universals, difference, and ghosts: A response to Joseph Blankholm's The Secular Paradox”
by Terence Keel

“The Secular Paradox as site of possibility”
by Janet R Jakobsen

“There’s something queer about the secular paradox”
by Joseph Blankholm

Book Reviews:

Sajjad Adeliyan Tous and James T. Richardson, Managing Religion and Religious Changes in Iran: A Socio-Legal Analysis
Reviewed by Bryan S. Turner

Enrique Dussel, The Theological Metaphors of Marx
Reviewed by Reza Adeputra Tohis

Christopher Candland, The Islamic Welfare State: Muslim Charity, Human Security, and Government Legitimacy in Pakistan
Reviewed by Muhammad Ikrom Azzam, Abdul Hafiz, Wahyu Aditia, Nurul Qomarudin, and Febi Junaidi

Nayanjot Lahiri, Searching for Ashoka: Questing for a Buddhist King from India to Thailand
Reviewed by Maziar Mozaffari Falarti

Jozef Naumowicz, The Origin of the Feast of the Nativity in the Patristic
Reviewed by Yue Du

CFP: The Power of Marxist Thought, York University

2025-03-06T18:30:01Z

The Power of Marxist Thought
York University, Toronto
Friday & Saturday, 26–27 September 2025

CALL FOR PAPERS

Claims about the importance of Marxism typically and understandably focus on its historic role in analyzing political, social and economic life. This conference will assess the impact and importance of Marxism in the context of the wider intellectual realm, and how central theory is to its very existence. We seek papers by scholars from across disciplines, including but not limited to anthropology, economics, human geography, political science, social psychology, sociology and others, including Area studies and interdisciplinary fields. Their papers should demonstrate the intellectual power of Marxist thought, especially in relation to the serious problems and issues facing humanity.

The collection of the conference papers will offer a chance for interdisciplinary analyses with the goal of strengthening Marxist thought. We believe that Marxism cannot be an intellectual island and that it must be in a critical and productive dialogue with non-Marxist bodies of work. We invite participants to compare Marxist and non-Marxist approaches to a wide range of issues, and to articulate how being informed by a Marxist approach can produce a unique, important, and essential analysis of pressing political, economic, social-cultural and ecological issues that are generally missing outside of Marxism. We believe that this will serve to help clarify the power of a Marxist analytical frame.

The conference will be an in-person, two-day event. In a comradely spirit, presenters should participate in the entirety of the conference. We especially encourage young, working class, and marginalized scholars to present their research at the conference. We expect to publish many of the papers presented at the conference in the form of one or two edited books and/or special issues organized for Left journals.

Deadlines:

• Submission of abstracts (250 words): 15 March 2025 (please submit here) (there may be a slight flexibility around this deadline)
• Abstracts acceptance decision: 15 April 2025
• Email submission of first drafts of the papers: 30 August 2025
• Conference registration opens 5 May
• Email submission of final drafts for consideration for publication: 15 November 2025

Organized by the Marxist Studies in Global and Asian Perspectives (MSGAP) Research Group at York University

Contact the Organizing Collective at msgap@PROTECTED

Sponsored by: Science & Society; Critical Sociology; Socialist Register; YorkU Global Labour Research Centre; Alternate Routes; Capital & Class; and the York University Faculty of Environment and Urban Change.

AAR Sociology of Religion Unit CFP

2025-02-22T18:19:26Z

Dear Colleagues,

The Sociology of Religion Unit of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) is happy to announce our CFP for the AAR Annual Meeting held Nov. 22-25, 2025, in Boston. Proposals are due on March 3, 2024, at 5:00 EST.

You can find our CFP below the signature line of this email, or visit our webpage here:

https://papers.aarweb.org/group/15039

Instructions for submitting proposals can be found here:

https://papers.aarweb.org/aar-login

https://papers.aarweb.org/sites/default/files/uploads/PAPERS_Instructions.pdf

We hope you’ll consider submitting a paper, panel, or roundtable proposal. You don't need to be an AAR member in order to submit a proposal. Need help submitting a proposal? Contact papers_support@PROTECTED.

In addition, we encourage you to submit proposals to the Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR) annual meeting, held Aug. 6-9 in Chicago. Session proposals are due 3/31 and paper abstracts are due 4/30.

We also encourage you to submit proposals to the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion annual meeting, held 10/31 to 11/2 in Minneapolis. Submissions are due 4/30.

Finally, we want to share an upcoming webinar sponsored by the Religious Research Association (RRA) with Davidson College's Gerardo Marti: "Anointed and Empowered: Evangelicals, Executive Orders, and the Personalist Politics of Trump's Second Term," at 2:30pm ET on 2/28. Click here to register.

Thank you for your support and we hope to see you in Boston in November!

Warmest wishes,

Dusty & Di Di

Co-Chairs of the AAR Sociology of Religion Unit

Call for Proposals

The purpose of the Sociology of Religion Unit of the American Academy of Religion is to generate cross-fertilization between the Sociology of Religion and Religious Studies. We are open to papers in all areas and therefore encourage submissions of any topic relevant to the sociology of religion. This year, we are particularly interested in the following topics:

Topics related to the AAR presidential theme of “Freedom”

Including the sociology of religion and law, social movements for freedom, religious freedom activism, theocratic and unfreedom movements, and more.

Sociology of Buddhism (Co-sponsored with the Buddhism Unit)

This possible co-sponsored session invites proposals focused on the sociology of Buddhism, including local or global studies, reflections on the state of the field, and more from scholars working across geographies, traditions, and practices. We seek original research using sociological methodologies, such as quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods, historical sociology, and theoretical approaches.

Sociology of Quakerism (Co-sponsored with the Quaker Studies Unit)

This possible co-sponsored session invites proposals focused on the sociology of Quakerism, including quantitative and qualitative studies across local, national, and global contexts.

Sociology of Ritual (Co-sponsored with the Ritual Studies Unit)

This possible co-sponsored session invites proposals that examine or employ sociological approaches to ritual. Examples include original studies of religious, spiritual, or secular rituals across a variety of contexts; reassessments of major theorists, like Émile Durkheim, Clifford Geertz, or Catherine Bell; or other topics related to the sociological study of ritual.

Religious Pluralism

Including research on religious pluralism in societies, organizations, families, and more.

2024 Elections and Religion

Including sociological research on 2024 elections and religion, including electoral shifts, the fall of incumbent parties and politicians, religio-political movements, and more; we welcome proposals discussing elections in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and North America, including local, national, and transnational perspectives.

Digital Religion

Including sociological research on digital religion, religion and social media, religion online, online religions, religious media, and more.

Class and Religion

Including sociological research on religion and economic or social class, stratification, inequality, religio-economic movements, and more.

Race, Ethnicity, and Religion

Including sociological research on intersectional identities, religio-racial or religio-ethnic identifications, biracial or multiracial people and spaces, multiracial/multireligious social movements, and more.

Quantitative and Computational Research

Any research relying on quantitative or computational methods, including surveys, data and text mining, statistical analyses, geospatial studies, experimental methods, and original mixed-methods research. Results must be complete and analyzed by the time the annual meeting begins.

Global and Transnational Religions

Including sociological research across nation-states within continents and across continents, such as Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and more.

Statement of Purpose

The Sociology of Religion Unit of the American Academy of Religion serves as a bridge between religious studies and the subdiscipline of sociology of religion. It functions as a two-way conduit not only to import sociological research into religious studies but also to export the research of religious studies into both the subdiscipline and the broader field of sociology. Only through a cross-fertilization transgressing departmental boundaries can there be breakthroughs in research in both fields. The unit has a wide conception of sociology of religion. It is open to a multiplicity of paradigms and methodologies utilized in the subfield and sociology more broadly: theoretical as well as empirical, quantitative, qualitative, and historical. By liaising with other Program Units, the Sociology of Religion Unit is able to bring the rich diversity of critical and analytical perspectives that are housed in the American Academy of Religion into mainstream sociology of religion. Conversely, it aims to provide scholars of the study of religion with a deeper understanding of the landscape of sociology of religion.

Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity and inclusivity are core values of the Sociology of Religion Unit. For this reason, we encourage organizers of pre-formed panels to invite participants that are diverse in race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, ability, age, religion, region, discipline, methodology, professional status, and type of institution. In addition, we especially welcome proposals that focus on communities that have been historically underrepresented, including African, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, and non-Christian communities, as well as on regions outside North America and Europe. In panel and paper proposals, we also welcome a diversity of methodologies, including quantitative, qualitative, historical, and theoretical. When preparing your panel or roundtable proposal, please explain how your panel’s participants instantiate diversity.

Review Process

All proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria: a descriptive title, a clearly formulated argument, clearly identified methodology and sources, engagement with relevant secondary literature, explicit articulation of an original contribution to the field, relevance to our unit’s CFP, potential for co-sponsorships with other units. Further suggestions for AAR proposal writers can be found in Kecia Ali’s “Writing a Successful Annual Meeting Proposal.” Anonymity: Proposals are anonymous to chairs and steering committee members during initial review, but visible prior to final acceptance or rejection.

-- Dusty Hoesly, PhD

Associate Director

Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life

University of California, Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3130

https://www.cappscenter.ucsb.edu/people/dusty-hoesly

Co-chair, Sociology of Religion Unit, American Academy of Religion (AAR)

https://papers.aarweb.org/pu/sociology-religion-unit

Job Announcement: Professorship in Critical Religion Studies and Comparative Philosophy, Ghent University

2025-01-03T21:14:05Z

Dear List,

Here is a good one:

Job Announcement: Professorship in Critical Religion Studies and Comparative Philosophy, Ghent University

https://jobs.ugent.be/job/Ghent-Professor-in-Critical-Religion-Studies-&-Comparative-Philosophy-%28BOF%29-9000/810167202/

Warren S. Goldstein, PhD
Cener for Critical Research on Religion
goldstein@PROTECTED
www.criticaltheoryofreligion.org

Center for Critical Research on Religion Listserve Message

2024-12-04T19:31:07Z

Critical Research on Religion
Volume 12 Issue 3, December 2024

Special Issue:
Genders, Sexualities, and Theopastoral Imaginations in Southeast Asia

Guest Editors: Joseph N. Goh and Michael Sepidoza Campos

Table of Contents:

https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/CRR/current

Introduction:

“Coming in and finding ground: Genders, sexualities, and theopastoral imaginations in Southeast Asia”
by Joseph N. Goh and Michael Sepidoza Campos

Articles:

1. “Who am I? Whom can I love? And why me? Queer Christians and the spirituality of struggle”
by Jayeel S. Cornelio and Robbin Charles M. Dagle

2. “Deaf beki humor: A pastoral-theological articulation of pagbabangong-dangal—resurrection”
by Kristine C. Meneses

3. “Misrecognitions and re-recognitions of Malaysian trans-modified bodies: Possibilities for theopastoral ameliorations through a hermeneutic of the risen Christ”
by Joseph N. Goh

4. “Babaylan feminist multiplicity: Reclaiming Filipino women’s history and agency”
by Lizette Pearl Galima Tapia

5. “Weh, talaga?! Camp, queer body, and the posthuman”
by Michael Sepidoza Campos

Symposium: “From coming out to coming in: Roundtable conversation among Southeast Asian queer theologians”

Participants: Michael Sepidoza Campos, Jayeel Cornelio, Erich Von Marthin Elraphoma, Joseph N. Goh, Alfred Candid “Jerlo” Jaropillo, Joshua Marasigan, Kristine C. Meneses, Irene Nainggolan, Kakay Pamarán, Lizette Tapia, Amadeo Devin Udampoh, and Wan Wei-Hsien

Book Reviews:

1. Brandner Tobias, Christians in the City of Hong Kong: Chinese Christianity in Asia’s World City
Reviewed by Kevin Ward

2. Hanafi Sari, Studying Islam in the Arab World: The Rupture Between Religion and the Social Sciences
Reviewed by In’amul Hasan

3. Tohis Reza Adeputra, Progressive Islam: A Social Study of Tan Malaka’s Islamic Thought
Reviewed by Asmara Edo Kusuma and Landy Trisna Abdurrahman

AAR Sociology of Religion, San Diego 2024

2024-11-22T02:52:06Z

Dear Colleagues,

The Sociology of Religion Unit is excited to share with you our sessions for this year’s AAR annual meeting.

We also invite you to join us for our business meeting on Sunday, Nov. 24 at 2:00-2:30, which is at the tail end of our 12:30-2:30 session. We would love to hear your ideas for next year's CFP! We also have an opening on our steering committee, so we welcome you to contact us about serving on the steering committee or participating in our unit.

Saturday, Nov. 23, 3:00-4:30

Atheist Influencers, Non-Religious Scientists, and Unaffiliated Environmentalists: Making Meaning across Global Contexts

Convention Center--Room 30A (Upper Level East)

This panel examines how religiously unaffiliated people create meaning and community online, in scientific work, and in nature. The first paper draws on interviews with atheist, agnostic, and secular humanist social media influencers to explore how they curate self-expression, community engagement, and authenticity. The second paper utilizes interviews with non-religious scientists in India, Italy, the U.K., and the U.S. to explore how they think and talk about spiritual experiences, including how such experiences can give rise to attitudinal changes. The third paper uses ethnographic research amongst Australian community gardeners and bush regeneration groups to explore how environmental movements are ripe sites to study lived nonreligion, finding that grassroots environmentalists cultivate enchantment, moral visions, and political commitments.

Sunday, Nov. 24, 12:30-2:30

Challenging Modernity and Its Contradictions: Religion in the 21st Century

Business Meeting, 2:00-2:30 — all are welcome!

Co-sponsored with Religion and the Social Sciences Unit

Convention Center--Room 6D (Upper Level West)

This roundtable panel is inspired by the late work of Rebert Bellah, especially through engaging with the new edited volume Challenging Modernity (Columbia UP, 2024), in which social theorists and scholars of religion debate the question of religion in modernity, which has been central to Bellah’s work. The theme of the panel is the seeming contradictions between the transcendent aspirations of religion and the social and political perils we now face in the global 21st century. How to deal with the tension between the transcendental, universalizing ambitions of democracy and the restricting exigencies of time, place, and function? What does transcendence mean when it is nurtured by for-profit capitalism? What is the relationship between political, religious, economic, and intellectual classes in the global Muslim communities? The panel includes two original members of the “Habits of the Heart” group as well as three leading sociologists of religion.

Monday, Nov. 25, 9:00-11:00

Shifts in Latinx/a/o Religiosity

Co-sponsored with Religion in the Latina/o Americas Unit

Convention Center--Room 25A (Upper Level East)

Latinx religion in the world is shifting in response to the proliferation of what Ann Swidler once called "unsettled lives." In this co-sponsored session of the Sociology of Religion and Religion in the Latina/o Americas, panelists will explore the dimensions of this unsettling of Latinx religion across the U.S., its borderlands, Latin America and Europe. Panelists will interrogate the literary tradition of Santa Muerte, how faith-based actors engage with Latin American queer refugees in Spain and the U.S., and how Latino Christians have integrated into the New Apostolic Reformation and its Christian nationalist support for Donald Trump.

Monday, Nov. 25, 12:30-2:30

The Long and Shifting Shadow of "Negro" Religion: A Critical Reappraisal of E. Franklin Frazier's The Negro Church in Americaon Its 60th Anniversary

Co-sponsored with Afro-American Religious History Unit

Convention Center--Room 3 (Upper Level West)

E. Franklin Frazier’s The Negro Church in America is a foundational text in African American religious studies, examining the intersection of religion, sociality, and politics. Published in 1964 amid the Civil Rights Movement, it analyzes the historical trajectory of African Americans, from the transatlantic slave trade to the Great Migration. This roundtable reevaluates Frazier’s work, assessing its enduring significance and offering contemporary insights. Presenters delve into specific chapters, discussing themes such as the impact of slavery on religious practices, the development of independent Black churches, and their roles post-Emancipation. Panelists critique Frazier’s theories on assimilation and gender dynamics, reflecting on their implications today. With diverse perspectives from scholars of various backgrounds, the roundtable aims to deepen our understanding of African American religious history. The discussion seeks to engage multiple audiences, highlighting Frazier's enduring legacy and the ongoing relevance of his scholarship in contemporary discourse.

Monday, Nov. 25, 5:00-6:30

Gender and Religion in Global and Local Contexts: Exploring Women's Participation, Sexual Misconduct, and Reproductive Trauma

Hilton Bayfront--Aqua 314 (Third Level)

This panel explores gender and religion in a variety of contexts using diverse methods. The first paper relies on a global survey of Christian churches to explore women’s participation and gendered dynamics in church life, with comparisons across countries. The second paper uses a field experiment to explore whether an applicant’s acknowledgement of past sexual misconduct affects opportunities for pastoral employment in Protestant churches, with surprising findings. Using qualitative interviews, the third paper examines how religious involvement can be a potent resource for Black mothers embedded in a rural, predominantly Black community as they navigate a fragmented maternal health care system and reproductive trauma. The fourth paper employs ethnographic fieldwork in India, Canada, and the U.S. among Hindu Adhiparasakthi communities to investigate the role of women’s leadership in sustaining religious communities locally in a transnational context.

Tuesday, Nov. 26, 8:30-10:00

What Christians Talk About When They Talk About Marriage: A Roundtable on Courtney Ann Irby's Guiding God's Marriage

Convention Center--Room 24A (Upper Level East)

How do Christians understand the question, “What makes a good marriage?” How do evangelicals and Catholics alike frame this question and how do they answer it in our contemporary moment, when Christians are concerned that the institution of marriage is on life support? And, what does studying these questions reveal about how Christians navigate gender, sexuality, and intimacy as they practice their lived religion? Courtney Ann Irby’s insightful new book Guiding God’s Marriage: Faith and Social Change in Premarital Counseling (New York University Press, May 2024) answers these questions and more through rich qualitative analysis. This roundtable panel gathers sociologists of religion and historians of religion, gender, and sexuality to amplify its important contributions to the sociology of religion specifically and the study of religion more broadly.

We hope to see you in San Diego!

Warmest regards,

Dusty & Di Di

Co-chairs, AAR Sociology of Religion Unit

Dusty Hosely, PhD

Associate Director

Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life

University of California, Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3130

https://www.cappscenter.ucsb.edu/people/dusty-hoesly

Co-chair, Sociology of Religion Unit, American Academy of Religion (AAR)

https://papers.aarweb.org/pu/sociology-religion-unit