Author: AAA Web Admin

Call for Remote Participation at the 2025 SAR Biennial Conference

For individuals whose papers have already been accepted at the 2025 SAR Biennial Meeting yet who can no longer attend in-person in Santa Barbara, we are offering the opportunity to join their panels virtually via Zoom. Note that this option is only for individual papers that are part of already-accepted panels or that have been assigned to panels; it is not for a whole panel.

Click here to access the application.

Submission Deadline:
If you are considering this option, please submit the form no later than Sunday, June 1, 2025.

The SAR Biennial will take place June 21st-23rd 2025 in Santa Barbara CA. For those who cannot make these dates of the Biennial, there will be a later call for those whose papers were accepted for the AAA Conference in New Orleans. At that time, if your paper was accepted for the SAR Biennial, and you were not able to present, you can apply to present via an SAR Zoom meeting to be held about 2-3 weeks before the AAA.

Call for the 2025 Student Paper Prize

The Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) is pleased to announce its graduate student paper prize competition, which is aimed towards encouraging emerging scholars to write compelling ethnographies on religion. This prize is intended to foster theoretically significant, ethnographically rich work by students at an early stage of their career. 

The prize includes a cash award of $250 for the winning paper, which might be recommended for publication in Religion and Society. There will also be a $100 cash award for the runner up. SAR will continue its mentorship program that will pair select graduate student finalists with faculty mentors. Finalists will have an opportunity to meet with their mentor before or at the 2025 AAA meetings to obtain feedback on revising their papers for publication.

At the time of submission, authors must be graduate students in anthropology or a related field in a university anywhere in the world and must be a member of SAR. Finalists will be notified early in the fall semester and paired with a faculty mentor before the 2025 AAA meetings. Winners will be publicly announced at a special reception, where finalists will be invited to present their work with commentary from their mentors. Winners and finalists will also be recognized at the SAR business meeting. Interested graduate students are invited to submit their unpublished, original and polished work to Britt Halvorson (bhalvors@colby.edu) and Cymene Howe (ach1@rice.edu) by August 1, 2025. Papers must be written in English, and should be no more than 30 double-spaced pages, including abstract, bibliography, and notes, and in 12-point font. Please note that papers must not have been submitted for publication. Please write “SAR Paper Prize Submission” in the subject line of the email. Limit of one submission per person.

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

Call for Submissions: 2025 Geertz Prize

The Society for the Anthropology of Religion
A section of the American Anthropological Association

announces the 2025 juried competition for the

CLIFFORD GEERTZ PRIZE
IN THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF RELIGION

The Geertz Prize seeks to encourage excellence in the anthropology of religion by recognizing an outstanding recent book in the field. The prize is named in honor of the late Professor Clifford Geertz, in recognition of his many distinguished contributions to the anthropological study of religion. In awarding the Prize, the Society hopes to foster innovative scholarship, the integration of theory with ethnography, and the connection of the anthropology of religion to the larger world.

Eligibility

Any single-authored or co-authored book focusing on the anthropology of religion, broadly defined, is eligible for the Prize. Edited volumes, textbooks, and reference works are not eligible, nor are works in which religion is a secondary subject. The book’s author need not be an anthropologist by profession, but the work should draw on and respond to research and theory within the anthropology of religion. Books must have a publication date of 2023 or 2024. Books that have already been reviewed for the Prize will not be reconsidered.

The prize will be awarded at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in November 2025.

Submission guidelines

If you would like your book to be considered, please fill in the online form. After you have completed the form, please arrange for copies of the book to be sent to all members of the Geertz Prize Committee. Please contact Elayne Oliphant (Elayne.Oliphant@nyu.edu) to request addresses. Books must be submitted in hard copy to be considered. 

Please direct all questions to the chair. Deadline for submission of books is:
April 1, 2025

Elayne Oliphant
Chair, 2025 Geertz Prize Committee
elayne.oliphant@nyu.edu

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.

UCSB Dormitory Registration

Santa Barbara hotel accommodations are expensive, so all attendees of the SAR 2025 Biennial Conference 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)

Travel Grants to the SAR Biannual Conference in Santa Barbara

Call for Travel Grant Applications for SAR Biennial Conference
in Santa Barbara, Jun 21-23, 2025

The Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) will make up to five (5) awards of US $450 each to underrepresented and financially needy scholars and Ph.D. students who: 1) are members of AAA and SAR; 2) will be attending and presenting a paper for the 2025 SAR Biennial Conference in Santa Barbara.

To apply, please fill out the form at this link by Saturday, March 15, 2025.

We need:

  • An accepted abstract for the SAR Biannual Conference
  • A personal statement outlining your current position/status, your doctoral degree date (or expected) and granting institution, your current employment, and explaining why you fit the terms of the travel grant (300 words maximum)
  • A 2-page c.v.

Workshops at the 2025 SAR Biennial Conference

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.

  1. Navigating Grants and the Job Market — Prof. Angie Heo (Univ. of Chicago) and Prof. Joe Blankholm (UC Santa Barbara)
  2. 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)
  3. Engaging with Popular Media and Publishing in Newspapers/Magazines — Prof. Hannah H. Gould (Univ. of Melbourne)

Call for Travel Grants for the 2024 AAA Annual Meeting

The Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) will make up to four (4) awards of US $500 each to scholars of color and underemployed scholars who will be attending the 2024 Annual Meeting in Tampa and will be participating in SAR-sponsored panels. Scholars from groups underrepresented in the academy and those who do not have secure employment are welcome to apply.

To apply, please email the following three (3) documents to Mayfair Yang (yangm@ucsb.edu), SAR President, by November 6, 2024:

  • An accepted abstract for an SAR-sponsored panel at the AAA annual meeting.
  • Notice of paper acceptance from the AAA.
  • A personal statement outlining your current position/status, your doctoral degree date (or expected) and granting institution, and explaining why you fit the terms of the award (250 words maximum).

SAR Call for Pitches

The Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) column in Anthropology News invites submissions inspired by fieldwork, popular media, or current events. We welcome short essays (1600 words maximum) with audio or visual supplements. Accepted submissions will be published in 2025.

Anthropology News publishes engaging anthropology for a general audience rather than inward-facing scholarly discussions. “Vivid description, captivating tales, and adventurous forms of writing are at the heart of what we do. Think short-form magazine-style stories with scientific bite—low on jargon, high on storytelling.” Below are AN’s upcoming themes in 2025. For more on these themes, see AN’s Call for Pitches.

  • Signal/Noise
  • Invisibility
  • Fluidity

If you are interested, send your 250-word pitch to Angie Heo (email: heo@uchicago.edu, write “SAR Pitch 2025” in the subject heading). A successful pitch includes: 1) elements of a story (e.g., character, event, site, experience, etc…) and 2) overall connection to the anthropological study of religion (broadly conceived). Pitches will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

Call for Submissions: 2024 Geertz Prize

The Society for the Anthropology of Religion
A section of the American Anthropological Association

announces the 2024 juried competition for the

CLIFFORD GEERTZ PRIZE
IN THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF RELIGION

The Geertz Prize seeks to encourage excellence in the anthropology of religion by recognizing an outstanding recent book in the field. The prize is named in honor of the late Professor Clifford Geertz, in recognition of his many distinguished contributions to the anthropological study of religion. In awarding the Prize, the Society hopes to foster innovative scholarship, the integration of theory with ethnography, and the connection of the anthropology of religion to the larger world.

Eligibility

Any single-authored or co-authored book focusing on the anthropology of religion, broadly defined, is eligible for the Prize. Edited volumes, textbooks, and reference works are not eligible, nor are works in which religion is a secondary subject. The book’s author need not be an anthropologist by profession, but the work should draw on and respond to research and theory within the anthropology of religion. Books must have a publication date of 2022 or 2023. Books that have already been reviewed for the Prize will not be reconsidered.

The prize will be awarded at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in November 2024.

Submission guidelines

If you would like your book to be considered, please fill in the new online form.  After you have completed the form, please arrange for copies of the book to be sent to all members of the Geertz Prize Committee. Please contact Naomi Haynes (Naomi.Haynes@ed.ac.uk) to request addresses. Books must be submitted in hard copy to be considered. The committee will not accept electronic submissions.

Please direct all questions to the chair. Deadline for submission of books is:

April 1, 2024

Naomi Haynes
Chair, 2024 Geertz Prize Committee
Naomi.Haynes@ed.ac.uk