North American Religions Unit

This Unit advances the study of religions in North America, broadly conceived (Mexico, the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, etc.), as well as the study of historical, social, and structural links between North American religions and those beyond North American boundaries. We are committed to sponsoring sessions that explore fundamental questions that have shaped the field in the past or should shape it in the future.

The Unit sponsors roundtables, debates, workshops, performances, pre-circulated papers, and other creative formats. As always, this program unit also welcomes proposals for keyword panels based on important concepts in the field. We encourage the submission of both individual contributions and complete panels, though we may reconfigure proposed panels to place them on the conference program. For panel proposals, diversity of rank (including graduate student, post-doctorate, contingent faculty, and junior and senior participants), and gender, race, and ethnicity are strongly encouraged. We especially seek proposals from junior and contingent scholars. Presenters in any format should expect to give short presentations that maximize time for audience questions and comments. All presenters should explicitly relate research to ongoing discussions in the field and the wider academy. Please ensure that all submissions are anonymous.

In addition to the above, we seek proposals on the following topics for our 2023 meeting in San Antonio:

• In keeping with the presidential theme of La Labor de Nuestras Manos, we are interested in the work we do as scholars of religion and therefore welcome papers on the techniques, impacts, responsibilities, and risks of public scholarship, broadly conceived –– be that through the public-facing sharing of our research (e.g. podcasting in American Religion and other forms of media engagement), or through ground-up work that is co-created with different publics and/or towards normative change (e.g. community-engaged research and scholar-activist methodologies).
• Thinking about religion and hands, we are also interested in submissions focusing on religion and material culture, including making in/of American religion, the creation of material religion, and the use of material culture in the study of religion; on religion and labor, with the latter category conceived broadly; and feeling religion, including attention to affect and the senses.
• We welcome proposals assessing the state of the field: What do we mean when we say “North American Religion?” How salient is that category in our disparate institutional and professional locations? How do we think of the field in light of the 50th anniversary of Sydney Ahlstrom’s A Religious History of the American People and the 25th anniversaries of Thomas Tweed’s Retelling U.S. Religious History and David Hall’s Lived Religion in America?
• For a possible co-sponsorship with the Afro-American Religious History Unit; In light of the 50th anniversary of Roe, the repeal of Roe, and our location in Texas, we welcome panels on Religion and Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Justice, for a possible co-sponsored session with Afro-American Religious History.

• Religion and healing in the "North Pacific Intersystem": Roundtable discussion of Justin Stein's Alternate Currents (co-sponsored session between the Japanese Religions, Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society, North American Religions, and New Religious Movements Units)