Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) Biennial Conference
To be held on the oceanside campus of the
University of California, Santa Barbara
June 21-23, 2025
Conference Theme:
Religiosities, Ecologies, and Environmentalisms in the Age of the Anthropocene
The Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) Biennial Conference will be held June 21-23, 2025 at U.C. Santa Barbara. SAR welcomes paper and panel proposals on ALL TOPICS in the Anthropology of Religion. At the same time, we do have a main Conference theme for 2025: Religiosities, Ecologies, and Environmentalisms in the Age of the Anthropocene.
Call for Late-Breaking Papers at the Society for Anthropology of Religion (SAR)
Do you have a paper that can address or throw light on global or U.S. current events? Have you just completed the fieldwork or research on an exciting topic in the Anthropology of Religion that you wish to share immediately with a community of scholars? If so, the SAR Biannual Conference may be a great place to present your paper! Please submit your paper or panel proposal no later than March 15, 2025 at this link.
Keynote Speaker: Prof. Ana Mariella Bacigalupo, Anthropology Department at SUNY Buffalo; she will speak on indigenous religious environmentalism in Peru.
For the first time, our SAR Biennial Conference will collaborate with the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture (ISSRNC) https://www.issrnc.org/. The last day of our SAR Conference (June 23, 2025) will overlap with the first day of their Conference, also to be held at UC Santa Barbara. SAR members are free to stay on and attend ISSRNC panel sessions with no extra charge.
Call for Submissions to the Society for Anthropology of Religion (SAR) Biennial Conference
In the Age of the Anthropocene, the field of Anthropology is expanding beyond the study of mere humans, for the effects of climate change and the pollution of our life-sustaining biosphere, including our air, water, and soil, is impacting all living species, which are interdependent. This conference brings into play interpretive, scientific, and religious perspectives on forms of life and their changing cultural and natural environments. It promotes new ways of inquiring into the entangled relations between humans and other beings: deities, ghosts, animals, insects, plants, and sacred natural formations such as rocks, rivers, mountains, and stars. Across the globe, how do different religious communities, doctrines, and institutions adjust themselves and their religious imaginaries to play a role in the age of the Anthropocene?
The conference hopes to bring together anthropologists of religion and scholars of environmental studies to share our research on how religious discourses and practices have already begun to address environmental degradation and climate change concerns. What are valuable gems of environmentalist thought and practice embedded in religious teachings, rituals, texts, customs, diets, and ontologies that have significant potentials to help us address our current concerns? How have different religious agents engaged with modern science and technologies to address environmental concerns? What explains how some religious traditions have a significant environmental cosmology, but they do not operationalize their valuable religious teachings and ontology? How and why do certain religious traditions also deploy their religious teachings as obstacles to environmentalist measures and the efforts to reduce climate change? How do religious agents reinterpret their doctrines and scriptures to address our current environmental crisis? How do they work with the state or capitalist forces to promote environmental efforts, and how do states or capitalist forces also deploy religious forces?
What more appropriate place to hold this conference than on the beautiful seaside campus of University of California, Santa Barbara? The huge oil spill of 1969, when black crude oil and tar coated our beaches and marine life, set in motion much of the environmentalist movement in the U.S.: the establishment of the first undergraduate Environmental Studies Department in the U.S. at UCSB in 1970; the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington D.C. in 1970; the U.S. Clean Water Act and the California Coastal Commission in 1972; and the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 1973. The world’s first Earth Day was held in Santa Barbara on April 22, 1970, and now has the participation of 190 countries.
The Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) will accept panel and paper proposals that are not about religion and environment for the Biennial Conference in 2025. However, we encourage panel and individual paper proposals in the following areas on the topic of Religiosities, Ecologies, and Environmentalism in the Age of the Anthropocene:
- Religion, Cosmology, Ethics, and the Ontological Turn
- Religio-Environmental Rituals and Practices
- Religion and Environmental Justice, Race, Colonialism, and Postcoloniality
- Indigenous Religiosities in the Age of Capitalist Extractivism and State Developmentalism
- Religion, Ecology, and Multispecies Studies
- Religion and Environment in the Media
- Religion, Economic Development, Infrastructure, and Capitalist Environmental Degradation
- Religio-Environmental and Multispecies History and Archaeology
Deadline for all submissions: Friday, January 10, 2025
Notification of Paper, Panel, or Roundtable Acceptance: Jan. 30, 2025
Workshops for Graduate Students and Junior Scholars
We are hosting three workshops designed specifically for graduate students and early-career scholars. Each workshop has a capacity of up to 24 participants (on a first-come, first-served basis), and attendees are welcome to join more than one. Please use this link to sign up for any of these events after you have registered for the conference with AAA.
- Navigating Grants and the Job Market — Prof. Angie Heo (Univ. of Chicago) and Prof. Joe Blankholm (UC Santa Barbara)
- Academic Publishing — Prof. Daromir Rudnyckyj (University of Victoria, B.C.) and Hillary Kaell (McGill Univ., editor of Contemporary Anthropology of Religion Book Series with Palgrave Macmillan Press)
- Engaging with Popular Media and Publishing in Newspapers/Magazines — Prof. Hannah H. Gould (Univ. of Melbourne)
Registration and Lodging Information
SAR Biennial Conference Registration Opens: Jan. 30, 2025
Early Bird Registration deadline: Feb. 20, 2025
All attendees at the 2025 SAR Biennial Conference must register. This registration fee covers two lunches and one dinner/reception with alcohol. It also covers our conference room and equipment rentals and Keynote speaker and Plenary Session costs.
Click here to register for the SAR Biennial Conference
Scholars without papers to present are welcome to attend the SAR Biannual Conference. However, you must register for the Conference, because SAR pays for two lunches and one dinner reception, along with the Keynote Lecturer and Plenary Session with the registration fee. The Conference dinner, Keynote, and Plenary all take place on June 23, so please be sure to stay through the night of Jun 23.
Registration Fees:
For SAR Members Early Bird Registration:
Non-Student/Professional – $160
Student – $60
International-based Professional (traveling from abroad); Contingent Employment – $30
For Non-SAR Members and Non-Early Bird SAR Members
Non-Student/Professional – $185
Student – $70
International-based Professional (traveling from abroad); Contingent Employment – $45
To join SAR or renew your membership, please go to the American Anthropological Association’s registration site and select SAR as one of your sections. (Note that membership in AAA is required to join SAR.)
UCSB Dormitory Registration
UCSB Dormitory Registration opens: Jan. 30, 2025
Santa Barbara hotel accommodations are expensive, so all are encouraged to make reservations for staying at the UC Santa Barbara Manzanita Village dormitories. Only $86/night single room; $60/night/person double room. Most rooms have ocean views and the buildings are a brief walk to the beach and the campus Lagoon with wild birds in the early morning and dusk. Meals can be taken in a nearby campus Cafeteria.
Click here to register for on-campus accommodations at UCSB
UCSB Dormitory Priority Registration closes: April 15, 2025 (after this, rooms may not be available)
SAR warmly thanks our co-sponsors:
International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture (ISSRNC)
UCSB Bren School for Environmental Sciences and Management
UCSB Department of Religious Studies
UCSB Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life
UCSB Department of East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies
UCSB Center for Taiwan Studies
UCSB Department of Anthropology