SAR is pleased to announce that we are piloting a new mentorship program this year. Senior scholars will be put in contact with early career scholars and graduate students in order to build connections within the association across geography and career stage. The primary goal of this program is to establish casual mentoring relationships through which people can share conference information, teaching insights, and publication tips. Mentor groups are expected to meet on a quarterly basis and will have opportunities to provide feedback on the experience. If you are interested in being placed with a mentor or mentee, please reach out to Dr. Hannah Howard at hgh17204@uga.edu and she will facilitate the connection.
Author: AAA Web Admin
SAR Biennial Conference 2025 Plenary/Keynote Videos
On June 23, 2025, the final day of the SAR biennial conference and the first day of a meeting of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, a plenary session inviting scholars from both societies was held to explore intersections of the conferences’ themes of sacred geographies and multispecies interactions. You can find here recordings of the panel presentations, which were followed by this year’s Rappaport lecture.
Prof. Yiren Lin (Taipei National University of the Arts)
Eco-Spirituality in Taiwan: An Indigenous Perspective
Prof. Greg Johnson (Director, Walter Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, & Public Life, UC Santa Barbara)
Sacred Geographies, Institutional Entanglements, and the Ironies of Empire on Mauna Kea & Beyond (How to Think with Rainbows)
Prof. Mayfair Yang (President, Society for the Anthropology of Religion SAR)
Re-Animating & Re-Sacralizing Plants & Trees: Qi and Oxygen in China and Nepal
Roy A. Rappaport Distinguished Keynote Lecture (co-sponsored by SAR, UCSB Capps Center, and ISSRNC)
Prof. Ana Mariella Bacigalupo (Anthropology, SUNY Buffalo)
Climate Crises and Postapocalyptic Futures: Visionary Landscapes in Northern Peru
Call for Travel Grants for the 2025 AAA Annual Meeting in New Orleans
The Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) will make up to four (4) awards of US $550 each to scholars of financial need, under-representation, or underemployment who will be attending the 2025 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in New Orleans 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 (4) documents to Mayfair Yang (yangm@ucsb.edu), SAR President, by October 24, 2025:
- An accepted paper abstract for a panel at the AAA annual meeting in New Orleans 2025 — paper must address religion, spirituality, or ritual
- 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 for financial need and/or under-representation (250 words maximum).
- proof of current membership in AAA and SAR
Call for New Proposals: SAR Book Series
We are delighted to announce the new editorial team of the Contemporary Anthropology of Religion book series, published by Palgrave Macmillan: Sowparnika Balaswaminathan and David Kloos are joining Hillary Kaell as co-editors.
Contemporary Anthropology of Religion is the official book series of the Society for the Anthropology of Religion, a section of the American Anthropological Association. It publishes ethnographically and theoretically rich portrayals of religion around the world. Topics of interest include lived religion, material religion, embodiment, ritual, social memory, ecology, gender, conflict and violence, politics, law and governance, globalization, technology, pluralism and diversity, among others.
The Editors are inviting new submissions! The series is open to monographs and edited volumes. It welcomes first-time authors and more senior scholars. Feel free to contact any of the editors if you have questions or want to submit a proposal. More information and the proposal form are available here.
Sowparnika Balaswaminathan, Concordia University (sowparnika.nathan@concordia.ca)
Hillary Kaell, McGill University (hillary.kaell@mcgill.ca)
David Kloos, Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (kloos@kitlv.nl)
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.