ANNUAL MEETING NEWS

Name Badges

Name badges are in the mail for preregistrants. Pick up a badge holder, Program Book (in the tote bag), and your tote bag onsite and head directly to sessions and exhibits. If you have not received your badge before leaving for Atlanta, you can pick one up at Registration, in the registration area of the Hyatt Regency. If you lost your name badge, a replacement costs $5 at the Name Badges booth at Registration.

Program and Session Updates

Please make sure to check out the Updates board in the Registration area for any changes since the Program Book went to press! You can also check out the online Program Book for the latest updates.

2010 Plenary Addresses and Panels

We are excited about the tremendous lineup of scholarly sessions on the program this year in Atlanta. Some of the many highlights include the following sessions:

• Bondage and Liberation: Questioning Debts to Slavery and Enslavement to Debt (A30–101)
• Frans de Waal: Morality before Religion — Empathy, Reciprocity, and Fairness in our Fellow Primates (A30–140)
• Is the God Beat Dead? (A30–301)
• Presidential Address — Ann Taves: “Religion” in the Humanities and the Humanities in the University (A30–404)
• Jonathan Z. Smith — Reading Religion: A Life in Scholarship (A31–137)
• Blogging God: On Faith at www.washingtonpost.com (A31–211)
• The Marty Forum: Elaine Pagels (A31–251)
• Templeton Lecture — Francisco José Ayala: Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion (A31–406)
• Anne Harrington: Religion and the Placebo Effect — Historical Issues, Present-Day Challenges (A1–141)

Two new sessions that we would also like to highlight are:

• Julian Bond, American University
• Shirley Franklin, Atlanta GA
• Raphael Warnock, Ebenezer Baptist Church
• Karen Jackson-Weaver, Princeton University

• Rosemary R. Hicks, Tufts University
  Immigration, Pluralism and Religion: Challenges in Muslim-American Identities and Outreach Work
• Edward Curtis, Indiana University-Purdue University
  Religion, Politics, and Race: Challenges to Islam Pedagogies
• Nathan Carlin, University of Texas Medical School
  Mourning, Memorials, and Religion
• Jeanne Halgren Kilde, University of Minnesota
  Worship Sites as Contested Spaces: Memorialization, Religion, and Politics

Access the online Program Book to read about these sessions and more!

Visit the Exhibit Hall!

A priority for anyone attending the AAR Annual Meeting is a visit to the Exhibit Hall! The Exhibit Hall features an array of the newest, latest, and greatest publications within the field. Publishers often offer deep discounts off list prices at the meeting, so check it out! An Exhibit Hall map is placed in each attendee’s tote bag at the meeting so that you can find your favorite publisher. The Exhibit Hall is located in the Grand Hall of the Hyatt Regency, two floors down from the lobby. A list of exhibiting companies can be found here.

Enter to Win! Visit the AAR Booth at the Exhibit Hall

• Book Giveaway — Win the “Books Under Discussion” at the 2010 AAR Annual Meeting — over twenty books total!
• Win the Winners — Drawing for the 2010 AAR Book Award Winners
• Free 2011 AAR Membership
• Free 2011 AAR Annual Meeting registration and housing in San Francisco!

Performances and Exhibits

The Marriott Marquis’ Imperial Ballroom will provide a venue for the display of numerous works of art throughout this year’s Annual Meeting, including panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a multimedia exhibit of the Buddhist Oxherding pictures, and pieces from two featured Atlanta artists, Guy Robinson and Keith Prossick. Robinson and Prossick will discuss their work in a session on Sunday evening, 8:30 PM–9:30 PM. Also at that time, Dwight Andrews and the Atlanta Jazz Chorus will be performing their Jazz Vespers in the Marriott Marquis, Marquis Ballroom D.

Tours Still Available

The following Annual Meeting tours still have space available:

• High Museum of Art, Saturday, 9:00 AM–12:00 PM
• Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, Saturday, 9:00 AM–12:00 PM
• BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Monday, 9:00 AM–12:00 PM
• William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum, Monday, 9:00 AM–12:00 PM
• Drepung Loseling Monastery, Monday, 9:30 AM–1:00 PM
• Oakland Cemetery, Monday, 1:00 PM–4:00 PM

Registration is on a first-come, first-serve basis. To sign up for a tour, log back into the online Annual Meeting registration system and add the tour(s) of your choice; fax in the form on page 17 of the Annual Meeting Program Planner, or call Experient at 1-866-229-2386. Please note that no refunds will be given on tours, except in case of cancellation of the tour. AAR reserves the right to cancel tours at its discretion.

Preconference Workshops

The following Pre-Annual Meeting Workshops still have space available:

• Leadership Workshop — Cultivating Interdisciplinarity: Opportunities for Curriculum, Faculty Development, and Hiring, Friday, 9:00 AM–4:00 PM
• Religion and Media Workshop: Religion Counts: Demographic Technologies and the Politics of Surveillance, Friday, 9:30 AM–5:00 PM
• Teaching about Food, Justice, and Sustainability, Friday, 1:30 PM–5:00 PM

The AAR is committed to fostering the public understanding of religion. Inspired by this goal, the Graduate Student Committee has established a series of public talks to be held around the city of Atlanta. Student members will present their cutting-edge research in these innovative evening sessions designed to move our discussions of religion out of the traditional academic setting of the Annual Meeting and into the community. This year’s talks and locations are outlined below.

Saturday, October 30, 6:00 PM–8:00 PM
“An Influence Among Humanity”: Internal Religious Debate over Narrative Paradigms
Shannon Montgomery, PhD student, Georgia State University
Location: The Shrine of the Black Madonna Cultural Center and Bookstore, 946 Ralph D. Abernathy Blvd SW, Atlanta, GA 30310;
404-752-6125 (Located near the Westend MARTA Station)

Sunday, October 31, 6:00 PM–8:00 PM
From Multiculturalism to Multireligiousity: Shifting Paradigms of African-American Religious Studies in a Pluralistic Age with Special Reference to Martin Luther King Jr.
Roy Whitaker, PhD student, Claremont Graduate University
Location: The Shrine of the Black Madonna Cultural Center and Bookstore, 946 Ralph D. Abernathy Blvd SW, Atlanta, GA 30310;
404-752-6125 (Located near the Westend MARTA Station)

Monday, November 1, 6:00 PM–8:00 PM
The Pursuit of Harmony in Differences between Religion and Science
Dong-Sik Park, PhD student, Claremont Graduate University
Location: Saint Mark United Methodist Church, 781 Peachtree Street NE, Atlanta, GA 30308; 404-873-2636

Women’s Mentoring Lunch

Register today for the Women’s Mentoring Luncheon at the Annual Meeting! Meet with senior women scholars in the field to ask your questions and hear how others have faced the challenges of navigating academe. Lunch is provided with your $10 registration.

Other Annual Meeting Announcements

Childcare registration for the Annual Meeting is now open! KiddieCorp childcare is a service subsidized by the AAR for members with families attending the Annual Meeting.

Need a roommate? See who else is looking to share on the AAR Roommate Finder. Or you can Look Who’s Coming to the Meeting to see if your friends and colleagues are attending.
 
Check the Annual Meeting pages frequently to see news about AAR programming, Additional Meetings, things to do in Atlanta, and much more!

2011 MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL

Please take a moment to renew your AAR membership for 2011 today. Ensure your continued access to all your member benefits, including print and online access to JAAR, online RSN, the online membership directory, and reduced registration rates at the Annual Meeting. 

Advanced registration for the 2011 Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California, begins January 2011. Please note that you must be a 2011 member to take advantage of the early-bird member rate. Renew your membership for calendar year 2011 at www.aarweb.org/Members/Dues.

AAR ELECTIONS

We have successfully concluded our elections for AAR Vice President. John Esposito has been elected Vice President. Please join the Board and the Executive Staff in congratulating this friend and in thanking John (Jack) Stratton Hawley for his willingness to stand for election.

NOTICE OF AAR BYLAWS CHANGES

COALITION ON THE ACADEMIC WORKFORCE (CAW)

The AAR is a member of the Coalition on the Academic Workforce (CAW), a group of higher education associations, disciplinary associations, and faculty organizations committed to addressing issues associated with faculty working conditions and their effect on college and university students in the United States. 

Recently the CAW has been focusing on contingent, adjunct, and part-time teachers and researchers. These are colleagues who are off the tenure-track, including faculty members employed either full- or part-time, graduate students remunerated as teaching assistants or employed in other roles, and researchers and post-doctoral fellows. 

As a part of its advocacy effort, the CAW has developed a survey regarding course assignments, salaries, benefits, and general working conditions of contingent faculty members and instructors. We invite all AAR members employed off the tenure-track to take the survey, which will be available until November 30. CAW’s website, featuring a link to the survey, is located here.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR FIVE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT GRANT WINNERS

We had a record number of grant proposals this year and it was difficult to limit the grants to only five applicants. Look for the winning proposals on the AAR website in the near future. The Regional Development Grants were awarded to:

• Michael T. Bradley and Jason Flato, Georgia Perimeter College, “Workshop for Instructors of Religion at Two-Year Institutions”
• Anthony Tyrus Gaines Cirelli, St. John’s University, for hosting two sessions at the AAR-MAR meeting in 2011 highlighting the work of the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession Committee (REM)
• Andrew Fort, Texas Christian University, “Teaching Contemplative Traditions: A Workshop”
• Rosalind I. J. Hackett, University of Tennessee, “Religion in the Workplace and the World: A Training Seminar for East Tennessee Professionals”
• Rebecca Moore, San Diego State University, “Immigration Reform: Linking the Academy to Activism”

MARTIN E. MARTY PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF RELIGION AWARD

To nominate someone for the AAR’s Martin E. Marty Award, which recognizes extraordinary contributions to the public understanding of religion by those whose work speaks to the public as well as to scholars, please click here. The deadline for nominations is January 25, 2011.

AAR SEEKS ACADEMY SERIES BOOK EDITOR

The AAR Publications Committee seeks a book editor for the Academy Series, which is sponsored by the American Academy of Religion and published in cooperation with Oxford University Press. The Academy Series is unique among the book series. Several features distinguish the series, among them the fact that it is the only series devoted to publishing books that originate as dissertations. The AAR takes seriously its role in promoting the development of emerging talent and has set aside the Academy Series to feature the best and most original work emerging from graduate programs in religion. Since the only criteria for consideration is that a work excels in scholarship that originates as a recently defended dissertation, the range of topics eligible for Academy Series recognition is very broad and inclusive of the diversity and vitality of religious studies.

AAR Series Editors help set editorial policy, acquire manuscripts, and work with Oxford University Press in seeing manuscripts through to publication. Editors sit on the AAR Publications Committee for the duration of their term. This is a volunteer position. All applicants must be members of the American Academy of Religion.

If you are interested in this position, you are highly encouraged to read further information about the position in the recent RSN October 2010 issue. Please e-mail inquiries, nominations (self-nominations are encouraged), and applications (a letter describing interests and qualifications, plus a current curriculum vita) by Word or PDF attachment to Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, Publications Committee Chair, cduggan@shawu.edu. The application deadline is April 15, 2011.

1. Annual Meeting News
2. 2011 Membership Renewal
3. AAR Elections
4. Notice of AAR Bylaws Changes
5. Coalition on the Academic Workforce
6. Regional Development Grant Award Winners
7. Martin E. Marty Public Understanding of Religion Award Solicitation
8. AAR/OUP Academy Series Editor Search

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