Southwest Commission on Religious Studies

2026 Call for Papers

GENERAL INFORMATION

The annual meeting will be held on March 6–8, 2026 at the Marriott Dallas Las Colinas.

Unless otherwise noted, a response to your proposal will be sent within one month of the deadline. If your proposal is accepted, you should confirm in writing your participation in the session with the program chair. In addition, you must register for the meeting through the Eventbrite site for SWCRS. All presenters and presiders must register at least one month prior to the meeting.

We encourage individuals to participate in all three sister organizations (ASSR, AAR-SW, and SBRL) at SWCRS. To avoid overlap in scheduling, please adhere to the following guidelines:

  • A person can submit the same proposal to two organizations, declaring this double-submission in your proposal. The organizations will communicate with one another to ensure that any given proposal is only accepted once.
  • A person can present up to two papers at the SWCRS conference across all participating organizations. For example, a person might present a paper to an AAR-SW session and a different paper to an ASSR session.
  • In addition to proposing papers, we encourage participants to preside over panels, roundtables, book clubs, etc. There is no limit on presiding. For example, a person might preside at an SBRL session, present a paper at a second SBRL session, and also present a paper in an ASSR session.

 

Please Note: the deadline for paper proposal for all organizations has been extended to October 15, 2025.

 

ASSR

The Association for the Scientific Study of Religion invites paper proposals on any topic
concerning the scientific study of religion, to include those dealing with the sociological,
philosophical, economic, historical, psychological, and political considerations of religion in society.

PAPER PROPOSALS: Paper proposals should be submitted to David Holcomb
(jholcom4@samford.edu) by October 15, 2025.

DUES and CONFERENCE REGISTRATION: All ASSR presenters must be members
of ASSR and must submit dues via the PayPal or Venmo information on the ASSR website. Participants must also register for the annual meeting through the SWCRS website and pay the applicable cost of registration and book with the conference hotel.  (ASSR dues are separate from and not included in any payments made in connection with the SWCRS.)

PAPER SUBMISSIONS: Papers must be submitted to jholcom4@samford.edu by Friday, February 27, 2026 to be considered for the Frank P. Forwood Award for excellence in presented research or the Harry Hale Prize for graduate and undergraduate research.  More information about the prizes can be found on the ASSR website.  Papers must be submitted to jholcom4@samford.edu by Monday, March 23, 2026 in order to be considered for inclusion in the annual Proceedings of the Association for the Scientific Study of Religion. All papers must adhere to the ASSR Style Guide for Paper Submissions located on the ASSR website.

 

AAR-SW

The Southwest region of the American Academy of Religion invites proposals for the SWCRS regional conference, March 6–8, 2026, in Irving, Texas. The submission deadline is October 15, 2025.

Please use this form to submit your proposal.

Our programming welcomes multiple forms of participation, including the following:

  • Individual proposals, fitting up to two program units
  • Specialized and/or prepopulated roundtable sessions
  • Book club sessions on books connected to our conference theme
  • Meet My Monograph: regional scholars celebrating newly published or immediately forthcoming monographs

Our theme is Religion in Practice: Context, Community, and Transformation. We also welcome proposals on all topics related to religion or theology, regardless of their connection to this year’s chosen theme. But in particular, we invite proposals related to the conference theme that might address the following questions:

  • How do people practice their religion? What impact does religious practice have on communities? How does context impact religious practice? Does context transform religious practice, or does religious practice transform community? What innovative practices have religious communities (broadly speaking) developed to respond to their circumstances, and what do these adaptive practices tell us about religious phenomena? How does practice impact religious experience?
  • Religious practice and boundaries: How/to what extent does religious practice contribute to “boundary maintenance,” whether for expansion and further inclusion or narrowing through exclusion, or as a method of indicating and categorizing insiders versus outsiders? What are the motivations or contextual circumstances that lead to practices of boundary-keeping? What are the ramifications of these types of boundaries, both for those inside and those outside? Furthermore, how do these practices impact the researcher?
  • Religious practice and politics: With particular attention to our current political context, we acknowledge the vulnerability encountered by specific communities such as people of color, differently abled people, and gender-nonconforming communities. Papers that examine and critique the religious practices exacerbating the oppression of these marginalized communities are welcome. Furthermore, papers that explore these communities’ responses to these challenging circumstances, particularly through the lens of practice, are also welcome.
  • Religion and body: How does religion in practice intersect with the body and theories of embodiment? Possible topics include gender, race, body size and fatness, illness, body art, dance, exercise, and pregnancy. How does religious practice(s) transform, expand, critique, and/or interact with medical culture, public health, elder care, definitions of “health,” pharmaceuticals, and medical narratives?
  • Religion, health, and medicine: We invite papers that examine the role of religious practice as it intersects with medicalized contexts, such as those who work in chaplaincy, as well as those who work in medical contexts or study medical contexts at the intersection of religion and bioethics, the medical industry, the biomedical ‘turn,’ and/ or the practice of making medical decisions for birth, death, and illness. Examples include chaplaincy, medical professionals, and religious scholars who are invested in religion in practice as it interacts with end-of-life care decisions, life supporting medical measures, fertility treatments—such as IVF, pregnancy termination legality and practices, amongst much more.
  • Teaching Religion in Practice: considering the various distinctive contexts in which we teach and the contemporary moment—e.g., ongoing AI challenges and opportunities, political tensions in the classroom, restrictions on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and attacks on Higher Education—what practices are you finding to be effective in the religious studies classroom? In other words, how are your teaching practices adapting to the context of our times? Proposals for this topic may follow a format similar to the AAR Teaching Religion Unit's sessions on “Teaching Tactics,” which features lightning-round presentations (5-7 minutes total) of a specific teaching technique, assignment, etc., followed by discussion. Plan to present and model the practices you engage in the classroom, explaining how you have found it helpful given context challenges.

For questions about the CFP or the conference, contact Cindy Dawson (AAR-SW Chief Regional Officer, seedawson@mac.com) or Carl Hughes (AAR-SW President, CHughes@tlu.edu). For undergraduate/Theta Alpha Kappa questions, contact Marie Olson Purcell (AAR-SW Vice President, mariep@mail.smu.edu). This information is also available on our website, AAR-SW.org.

Scholars of Biblical and Related Literature

Call for Papers for the SWCRS Annual Meeting 2026

In 2022, the Society of Biblical Literature discontinued its regional identities and meetings. Former SBL‑SW scholars decided to maintain an unincorporated identity as “Scholars of Biblical and Related Literature” (SBRL) in order to continue organizing and running sessions at the annual SWCRS conference. We identify as scholars who reside within the southwest region (Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri) and whose main focus of study is the Bible and related literature.

Please use this form to submit your proposal.

 

Items to note for our 2026 meeting:

  • The coming year’s SBRL meeting will feature the theme “Interdisciplinary conversations: give and take between biblical studies and other fields.” While we encourage proposals that creatively engage this theme, other proposals remain most welcome.
  • We invite proposals for a “Meet My Research” session—introduce us to the highlights of your recent monograph, article, or chapter in a brief (~10 minutes) and engaging presentation.
  • We will continue to solicit proposals for poster presentations. Please consider whether you or your students have work to share that can speak in a visual medium. ASOR has a helpful document on what makes a good poster: https://tinyurl.com/ASOR-poster-tips.
  • We appreciate proposers exercising courtesy and good judgment with respect to our conference participation limits. In general, presenters are limited to two total appearances on the program across all SWCRS participating societies (this does not apply to presiding). Reading the same or substantially identical paper in more than one session at the conference is not welcome. Please make a note in your abstract if you have also submitted the same proposal to AAR-SW or ASSR.
  • Address any questions to the relevant unit co-chairs, listed below, or to the SBRL coordinator Joseph McDonald (j.mcdonald@tcu.edu).

 

Panels and cross-disciplinary proposals

In addition to individual paper presentations, we welcome fully-planned panel proposals to consider for the 2026 program. Themed panels may be proposed that fit within any of the SBRL program units, or that take up issues that run across or stretch the boundaries of one or more program units. Cross-disciplinary paper proposals are also welcome, especially given this year’s theme of interdisciplinarity; select “consider the program unit with best thematic fit” on the proposal form.

 

Program Units

Hebrew Bible / Old Testament

We invite proposals on a variety of topics related to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and the Pseudepigrapha. We are particularly interested in papers around the conference theme of interdisciplinary conversations. Proposals may focus on specific exegetical problems, biblical theology, biblical hermeneutics, methodological studies, the Dead Sea Scrolls, race, ethnicity, gender, pedagogy, and reception history. Welcome approaches include cultural studies, film studies, and other media studies. This list is intended to be suggestive rather than exhaustive.

Please address any questions to unit co-chairs Rebecca Poe Hays (R_Hays@baylor.edu) and Mark Sneed (mark.sneed@lcu.edu).

 

Second Temple and Late Antique Judaism

We invite proposals for papers on any topic related to the study of early Jewish ideas, texts, religious, social, or political practices, ranging from the Hellenistic to the Greco-Roman world and beyond. As our theme this year is interdisciplinary conversations, we are especially interested in any papers that employ new and innovative methodologies which engage other fields related to the study of texts in the Second Temple period, including feminist studies, disability studies, childhood studies, and post-colonial studies. Proposals which expand on traditional scholarship are also welcome, including social-scientific criticism, form criticism, reader response criticism, ideological criticism, cultural criticism, or film studies. We believe that these perspectives can shed new light on familiar texts and traditions, offering fresh insights into the complexities and diversity of the Second Temple period.

Please address any questions to unit co-chairs David Schones (dschones@austincollege.edu) and Deirdre Fulton (Deirdre_Fulton@baylor.edu).

 

New Testament and Early Christianity

We invite proposals for papers on any topic related to the study of the New Testament or early Christianity in its diversity of forms. Submissions may also engage with topics such as pedagogy and the reception history of biblical texts. Particularly encouraged are proposals that critically engage traditional areas of New Testament scholarship (such as biblical theology and hermeneutics) as well as those that adopt innovative critical frameworks (such as feminist, liberationist, and postcolonial/decolonial perspectives). Interdisciplinary approaches are especially welcome, encompassing fields such as homiletics, cultural studies, film studies, and other media-related disciplines. Of special interest are papers that align with the conference theme, “Interdisciplinary Conversations: Give and Take Between Biblical Studies and Other Fields.” We especially encourage submissions that integrate methodologies from disciplines beyond biblical studies, such as Classical Studies, Anthropology, Archaeology, Sociology, Psychology, and Papyrology, among others.

Please address any questions to unit co-chairs Jeehei Park (Jeehei.park@ssw.edu) and Rodney Caruthers II (rcaruthers@austinseminary.edu).

 

Christian Literature Beyond the Bible

We invite proposals for papers on any topic related to the study of early Christian literature, including the reuse of early Christian literature by later authors/artists. Papers should focus on literature from the Christian apocrypha/pseudepigrapha; or Nag Hammadi/other Gnostic codices; or Apostolic Fathers/Patristic literature; or monastic sources; or Christian magical texts/spells; or documentary/other papyri; or writing on other material objects. We encourage methodological diversity and are open to any critical approach. This year we especially welcome proposals related to or reflecting on interdisciplinarity, the theme of this year’s conference.

Please address any questions to unit co-chairs April DeConick (adeconick@rice.edu) and Matt Calhoun (R.M.CALHOUN@tcu.edu).