Dear SAR Community,
Happy almost Spring and Ramadan Mubarak to those who observe! Welcome to the February 2026 edition of the Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) Newsletter. If you have announcements or updates you would like included in the next newsletter, please feel free to send them my way.
Society for the Anthropology of Religion
Section of the American Anthropological Association
February 23rd, 2026
News and Announcements
SAR Mentorship Program
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.
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 2026.
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.
If you are interested, send your 250-word pitch to Naomi Haynes (Naomi.Haynes@ed.ac.uk) and write “SAR Pitch 2026” in the subject heading. A successful pitch includes: 1) elements of a story (e.g., character, event, site, experience, etc.) and 2) their overall connection to the anthropological study of religion (broadly conceived). Pitches will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
New Books and Articles
Promise the Earth: A Safe Climate in Good Faith
Julian Allwood and Andrew Davison
January 2026
University of Cambridge Press
When Doing Good Isn’t Good Enough: How a Commitment to Justice and Solidarity Transformed Catholic Relief Services
Suzanne C. Toton
December 2025
Georgetown University Press
The Allure of Heavenly Mother, from South Korea to South Africa: Epistemological Authority at the World Mission Society Church of God
Douglas Bafford
Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 29(2):81-103
Anthropologies of Orthodox Christianity: Theology, Politics, Ethics
Candace Lukasik and Sarah Riccardi-Swartz (ed)
November 2025 (forthcoming: available for pre-order)
Fordham University Press
Call for Proposals and Opportunities
Please find below the Anthropology of Religion Unit’s call for papers and proposals for the American Academy of Religion’s annual meetings to be held in-person November 21-24 in Denver, CO as well as a separate program to be held online June 23-25.
Please note that the deadline for proposals for both conferences is Friday, March 6th 2026 at 11:59pm EST.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact either of the unit’s co-chairs: Eric Hoenes ehoenes@charlotte.edu and Brendan Thornton bjthornt@email.unc.edu
Proposals must be submitted through the AAR’s PAPERS website: http://papers.aarweb.org
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IN-PERSON NOVEMBER ANNUAL MEETING 2026
We invite proposals using anthropological theories and methods to explore diverse traditions, regions, topics, periods, and standpoints from across the discipline. The steering committee has identified the following areas to be of particular interest for individual and panel submissions in 2026:
- Critical Ethnographies of Time and Temporalities: With this year’s presidential theme being “Future/s”, we invite papers that seek to theorize, problematize, and otherwise critically examine how different religions conceive of time and its movement(-s). This might include ethnographic examinations of how time and time scales are imagined, such as “deep histories” and “deep futures”; the religious affects (hope, sorrow, etc.) that shape how people reckon with and relate to time; and/or the distinct techniques and practices that religious actors use to engage with times other than the present (e.g., memorialization, divination, prophecy, etc.)
- (Un-)Orthodoxies: This panel invites papers exploring persistence and perhaps increasing appeal of religious groups that label themselves as “orthodox.” This panel invites papers examining the seemingly contradictory appeal of Orthodox movements and theologies across Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other traditions. How do self-described orthodox religions define themselves in relation to or against other forms of fundamentalist, conservative, or illiberal theologies? What do ethnographic approaches reveal about what makes orthodoxy an appealing epistemic stance in the contemporary world? How might a comparative approach to studying orthodoxy(-ies) help us better understand religion in the contemporary world?
- Global Philosophies of Religion beyond the Text: In collaboration with the Global-Critical Philosophy of Religion Unit and the Indian and Chinese Religions in Dialogue Unit, we seek to sponsor a panel engaging with non-textual and non-Western sources for the philosophy of religion. Papers should consider forms of lived religious reasoning, argumentation, or enactment from sources other than texts, such as oral traditions, rituals, performances, arts, etc. We imagine papers that explore “philosophies from below,” including non-hegemonic and marginalized systems of knowledge, indigenous ways of knowing, conspiracy and other forms of stigmatized knowledge, peripheral epistemologies, etc., and which treat those forms of knowledge as valuable resources for cross-cultural inquiries in the philosophy of religion.
- Pre-Organized Panels. In keeping with our mission to present the strongest and most innovative work in the anthropology of religion, we also welcome proposals for fully formed panels on topics other than those outlined above. Ideally, such panels will focus on a topic of special interest to anthropologists, and be composed of scholars whose perspectives and levels of expertise complement (rather than replicate) each others’. Further, we encourage proposals that use creative and alternative formats that elevate critical dialogue.
ONLINE JUNE ANNUAL MEETING 2026
We invite proposals from the full range of anthropological theories and methods. In keeping with the format of the June sessions, the steering committee is especially interested in a panel on the following topic:
- Digital Ethnography/Virtual Ethnographic Practices: This panel invites papers that explore emerging intersections of digital religion and ethnographic practice by examining how religious life is increasingly configured across virtual and physical settings. We are especially interested in proposals that highlight methodological innovations in digital ethnography and new theoretical approaches for understanding how religious actors navigate, blend, and/or differentiate between virtual and offline worlds.