Dear SAR Community,
Welcome to the March 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
March 28th, 2026
News and Announcements
SAR Mentorship Program
SAR’s new mentorship program is off to a strong start! We look forward to seeing what these relationships bring to the field. Because we have had so much interest from graduate students, we are particularly in need of senior scholars willing to participate. Through this program, 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. It is not meant to replicate the advisor experience. 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.
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 2024 or 2025. 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 2026.
Submission guidelines
If you would like your book to be considered, you must 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.
There is a submission fee of $25, which is waived for members of the SAR, scholars located at institutions outside of the global north, and contingently employed scholars.
Please direct all questions to the chair. Deadline for submission of books is:
April 15, 2026
Elayne Oliphant
Chair, 2026 Geertz Prize Committee
elayne.oliphant@nyu.edu
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
Save the date for the 2026 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, taking place November 18–22 in St. Louis, Missouri. This year’s theme, “On the Verge,” invites reflection on thresholds, uncertainty, transformation, and the possibilities emerging in moments of crisis and change. Submissions are now open through April 29th, 2026, and members are encouraged to submit papers, panels, roundtables, and other session formats.
Elayne Oliphant, Nathan Shearn, and Myungji Lee are organizing a panel at AAA 2026, entitled: Conservative Religion, Authoritarian Politics? Rethinking (Dis-)Connections in Illiberal Times. See the panel abstract below. Please submit any questions or proposed paper abstracts of no more than 300 words to Myungji Lee (myungjilee@uchicago.edu) by Friday, April 10.
Conservative Religion, Authoritarian Politics? Rethinking (Dis-)Connections in Illiberal Times
Panel Abstract
What is the relationship between conservative religion and authoritarian politics? How has the notion of an inherent tie between conservative religion and conservative politics become common sense? How, as anthropologists, can we bring into view the messy complexity of these categories and relationships? In theocratic regimes and far-right religious theologies, these relationships are often explicit and visible. In looking to the broader field of conservative religious practices around the world, however, such connections are often forged in more subtle ways, with many religious groups also articulating a desire to forgo any explicit political practice or affiliation. In this panel, we focus on affective, linguistic, and aesthetic practices that are not straightforwardly religious or political–as potential sites where relationships between conservative, authoritarian, or reactionary religion and politics are forged or refused.