Dear Members,
Happy New Year! As we step into 2025, I am thrilled to reconnect with all of you in the Society for Anthropology of Religion (SAR) community. I hope you had a restful holiday season filled with inspiration, reflection, and rejuvenation.
This year promises to be an exciting one for SAR. Mark your calendars for our upcoming biennial conference at U.C Santa Barbara between June 21-23 2025, where we will explore the theme of Religiosities, Ecologies, and Environmentalisms in the Age of the Anthropocene.
As always, if you have any questions, suggestions, or contributions for future newsletters, please feel free to reach out. Thank you for your ongoing support, and I look forward to connecting with you at our upcoming events and activities.
Best,
Shahana Munazir
PhD Candidate in Anthropology, UW-Madison
Society for the Anthropology of Religion
Section of the American Anthropological Association
26th January 2025
News and Announcements
SAR Biennial Conference June 2025
The SAR Biennial Conference 2025 will be held from June 21–23, 2025, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, focusing on the theme Religiosities, Ecologies, and Environmentalisms in the Age of the Anthropocene. The deadline for all submissions was January 10th, 2025. Notifications of outcome will be sent out on January 30th, 2025. Stay tuned!
A keynote lecture by Prof. Ana Mariella Bacigalupo (SUNY Buffalo) will explore indigenous religious environmentalism in Peru. Early bird rates are available until February 20. Limited dormitory accommodations at UCSB will be available starting February 20, with priority closing on April 15. For more details or to submit proposals, please see the flyer attached with this email.
New Books and Articles
Balancing Acts of Care from Kitchen to Cosmos
January 2025
Shahana Munazir
Anthropology News, Current Issue on “Care”
Religious Sounds Beyond the Global North: Senses, Media and Power
November 2024
Carola E. Lorea and Rosalind I.J. Hackett
Amsterdam University Press
Goodbye Religion: The Causes and Consequences of Secularization
October 2024
Ryan T. Cragun and Jesse M. Smith
NYU Press
The Service of Faith: An Ethnography of Mennonites and Development
September 2024 (forthcoming)
Phillip Fountain
McGill-Queen’s University Press
Goddess Beyond Boundaries: Worshipping the Eternal Mother at a North American Hindu Temple
September 2024
Tracy Pintchman
Oxford University Press
Ana Mariella Bacigalupo and Fabien Le Bonniec. 2024. “Queering the Spirit of the Law: Mapuche Shamanic Justice in Judge Karen Atala’s LGBT child custody case against the Chilean state.” Journal of Anthropological Research 80(2): 143-176
Call for Proposals and Opportunities
1) The Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) column in Anthropology News invites submissions that convey short stories about religion inspired by fieldwork, popular media, or current events. Accepted submissions will be published in 2024 and 2025.