Religious Studies News

Elizabeth O'Brien, associate professor of history at UCLA and winner of the 2024 AAR Best First Book in the History of Religions Award, speaks to Kristian Petersen about her book, ⁠⁠Surgery and Salvation: The Roots of Reproductive Injustice in Mexico, 1770–1940 (The University of North Carolina Press, 2023).

A recording of one of Leela Prasad's presidential plenaries, held at the 2025 AAR Annual Meeting in Boston. Leela Prasad, Brown University, presidingSpeakers (in order of appearance):James BowleyLarissa CarneiroKoritha Mitchell, Boston UniversityLaurie Louise PattonSummaryIn an era of faculty precarity, ideological polarization, and institutional histories of injustice, what does it mean to practice hope as an intellectual and political commitment? What strategies and choices make hope and freedom viable? This panel explores hope not as naïve optimism, but as a form of sovereignty—a declaration of intellectual and ethical autonomy as well as accountability—in the face of everyday structural constraints, implicit and explicit (and old and new) hierarchies, censorship and surveillance, and professional vulnerability.

“Jesus saves” banners at the January 6th insurrection. Evangelical elevation of President Trump as God’s elect. Claims of religious freedom used to justify discrimination. Scriptural “prooftexts” wielded to strip individuals of civil rights. Growing affection in religious communities for authoritarian models of government. Religion is playing significant roles in contemporary crises of democracy. How is it perceived in the public imagination and how can we as scholars advance public understanding of the stakes?Rachel Mikva, the Herman E. Schaalman Professor in Jewish Studies and Senior Faculty Fellow of the InterReligious Institute at Chicago Theological Seminary, moderates a discussion with Eddie Glaude, Robert Jones, and Katherine Stewart. About the PanelistsRobert Jones is the president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). He is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future (2023), as well as White Too Long: The

Max K. Strassfeld, associate professor of religion at the University of Southern California and winner of the ⁠2023 AAR Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Textual Studies⁠, speaks to Kristian Petersen about their book, ⁠Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature (University of California Press, 2023).

Karen V. Guth, associate professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross and winner of the ⁠2023 AAR Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Constructive-Reflective Studies, speaks to Kristian Petersen about her book, ⁠The Ethics of Tainted Legacies: Human Flourishing after Traumatic Pasts (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

William Robert, professor of religion at Syracuse University and winner of the 2023 AAR Book Award in Religion and the Arts, speaks to Kristian Petersen about his book, Unbridled: Studying Religion in Performance (The University of Chicago Press, 2022).

William Calvo-Quirós, associate professor of American culture at the University of Michigan and winner of the 2023 Best First Book in the History of Religions Award from AAR speaks to Kristian Petersen about his book, Undocumented Saints: The Politics of Migrating Devotions (Oxford University Press, 2022).

Mary Dunn — professor of Modern Christianity in the department of theological studies at Saint Louis University, director of the Center for Research on Global Catholicism, and winner of the 2023 AAR Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Historical Studies — discusses her book Where Paralytics Walk and the Blind See with Kristian Petersen.

American Secularism and Its Believers with Charles McCrary by American Academy of Religion

The Role of Western Universities in Modern Islamic Thought with Megan Brankley Abbas by American Academy of Religion

A Comparative Study of the Cántico Espiritual and the Rāsa Līlā with Gloria Maité Hernández by American Academy of Religion

Religious Cultures of Enslaved Women in the Lower South with Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh by American Academy of Religion

Metamodernism and the Future of Theory with Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm by American Academy of Religion

Art as Embodied Experience with Kathryn R. Barush by American Academy of Religion

2023 AAR Presidential Address - Amir Hussain by American Academy of Religion

Adam Lyons joins Kristian Petersen to discuss his award-winning book "Karma and Punishment: Prison Chaplaincy in Japan" (Harvard University Press).

Rhiannon Graybill joins Kristian Petersen to discuss her award-winning book, Texts after Terror: Rape, Sexual Violence, and the Hebrew Bible (Oxford University Press, 2021).

AAR 2022 Presidential Address - Mayra Rivera by American Academy of Religion

AAR Presidents Address - Mayra Rivera by American Academy of Religion

Women, Prayer, and Poetry in Iran with Niloofar Haeri by American Academy of Religion