Dear SAR Community,
Welcome to the latest edition of the Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) Newsletter! As we step into spring and look ahead to the 2025 SAR Biennial Conference—taking place June 21–23 at U.C. Santa Barbara—we’re excited to share key updates and announcements. We look forward to gathering with many of you in Santa Barbara!
Best,
Shahana Munazir
PhD Candidate in Anthropology, UW-Madison
Society for the Anthropology of Religion
Section of the American Anthropological Association
19th April 2025
News and Announcements
Clifford Geertz Prize
The Society for the Anthropology of Religion thanks all who submitted nominations for the 2025 Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion. This juried award honors an outstanding recent book that demonstrates innovation, theoretical engagement, and ethnographic richness in the anthropology of religion. Eligible books were required to be single- or co-authored (not edited volumes), published in 2023 or 2024, and focused primarily on religion. The submission deadline has now passed, and the prize will be awarded at the AAA Annual Meeting in November 2025. For any inquiries, please contact the committee chair, Elayne Oliphant, at elayne.oliphant@nyu.edu.
SAR Call for Pitches
The Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) column in Anthropology News invites short-form, public-facing essays (max 1600 words) inspired by fieldwork, media, or current events, accompanied by audio or visual elements. Accepted submissions will appear in 2025 issues centered around the themes Signal/Noise, Invisibility, and Fluidity. Anthropology News seeks vivid, story-driven writing that connects with a broad audience—think magazine-style narratives with anthropological depth. Interested contributors should send a 250-word pitch to Angie Heo at heo@uchicago.edu (subject line: “SAR Pitch 2025”). Pitches should include a clear story element and a link to the anthropological study of religion. Submissions are reviewed on a rolling basis.
New Books and Articles
Life in Language: Mission Feminists and the Emergence of a New Protestant Subject.
March 2025
Ingie Hovland
The University of Chicago Press
Enchanted Modernities: Ancestral Vitalizations in the Upper Mekong
February 2025
Micah F. Morton
University of Wisconsin Press
Death in a Foreign Land: Turkish Muslim Exiles and the Making of Theodicy
January 2025
Shively Kim
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
The Mormon Archive’s First Ten Thousand Years: Infrastructure, Materiality, Ontology, and Resurrection in Religious Transhumanism
January 2025
Jon Bialecki
Comparative Studies in History and Society, Cambridge University Press
Khidmat as Understanding: Muslim Women, Marriage, and Ethics of Care in Muslim Households
December 2024
Shahana Munazir
South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal
Muslim Women in India: Challenging Boundaries, Negotiating Spaces
December 2024
Usha Sanyal and Nazima Parveen
South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal
Religious Sounds Beyond the Global North: Senses, Media and Power
November 2024
Carola E. Lorea and Rosalind I.J. Hackett
Amsterdam University Press
To Each Their Own’: Destined Difference, (In)commensurability, and the Discursive Mediation of Christian Spiritual Warfare in Northwestern Madagascar
October 2024
Seth Palmer
Journal of Religion in Africa
Mirrors of the Past: Time and Historical Consciousness in Contemporary Western Astrology
October 2024
Omri Elisha
Comparative Studies in Society and History, Cambridge University Press
Goddess Beyond Boundaries: Worshipping the Eternal Mother at a North American Hindu Temple
September 2024
Tracy Pintchman
Oxford University Press
Speaking with the Dead: An Ethnography of Extrahuman Experience
May 2024
Matt Tomlinson
Punctum Books
Rethinking the Anthropology of Magic and Witchcraft Inherently Human
Phillips Stevens (Please contact the author pstevens@buffalo.edu, for an author’s 20% discount code)
December 2023
Call for Proposals and Opportunities
The 2025 American Anthropological Association (AAA) Annual Meeting, taking place November 19–23 in New Orleans, centers on the theme “Ghosts,” inviting anthropologists to explore how the past lingers and shapes the present, as well as the creative and immaterial aspects of human experience. This theme is highly relevant to members of the SAR, as it resonates with longstanding interests in spirits, ancestors, memory, ritual, and the ways religious communities engage with the unseen or spectral in everyday life. Registration opens on April 21st, 2025.
SAR is an active section of the AAA and regularly hosts sessions at the Annual Meeting, including panels, the Roy Rappaport Lecture, and award presentations such as the Clifford Geertz Prize and the graduate student paper prize.
Opportunities with the American Academy of Religion
Members of the Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) can engage with several American Academy of Religion (AAR) opportunities this spring and summer, as well as the major AAR Annual Meeting in the fall. Key upcoming events include:
2025 Silber-Obrecht Lecture (April 22, 2025)
Upper Midwest AAR Regional Meeting (April 25–26, 2025)
WebinAAR on Public Scholarship (April 29, 2025)
Reading Religion Mentoring Program application deadline (April 30, 2025)
PhD Career Conference (May 5–9, 2025), and the Pacific Northwest AAR Regional Meeting (May 23–24, 2025)
Looking ahead, the AAR Annual Meeting in Boston is scheduled for November 22–25, 2025. This flagship event brings together thousands of religion scholars for panels, networking, and mentoring, and includes sessions from the Anthropology of Religion Unit. Registration for the Annual Meeting is yet to open.