Southwest Commission on Religious Studies

2025 Call for Papers

GENERAL INFORMATION

The annual meeting will be held on February 28-March 2, 2025 at the Marriott Dallas Las Colinas. Proposals should be submitted per the instructions of each organization. Please indicate if the proposal is being submitted to more than one section. Proposals may be submitted to more than one section, but in order to accommodate as many people as possible, papers may not be read more than once during the meeting. The deadline for paper proposal submission has been extended to  October 16, 2024.

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.

 

AAR-SW 2025 Conference Theme: Religion and the Power of Stories

The Southwest region of the American Academy of Religion invites proposals on the theme of “Religion and the Power of Stories,” or on any topic related to the field of Religious Studies. Proposals may be submitted using the form linked here. The submission deadline has been extended to October 16, 2024. For questions about the CFP or the conference, contact Cindy Dawson (AAR-SW Chief Regional Officer) at seedawson@mac.com or Carl Hughes (AAR-SW President-Elect) at chughes@tlu.edu

Paper, panel, or roundtable proposals related to the conference theme might address the following questions:

  • Whose stories do we privilege and why? How do we ensure that we are telling the stories of others respectfully in our research and writing? Whose stories appear in texts, rituals, or religious arts, and how do their retellings function in the larger context of a religious tradition? How do texts tell their stories? What narrative elements within stories shape those stories? How might we be more inclusive about the stories that we tell? What do we do when new stories disrupt old narratives?
  • How have we stretched our students to consider stories that differ widely from their own and to find meaning in and connection to them? How do we employ stories in our teaching? How might we incorporate the use of interviews and storytelling in our classroom assignments?
  • Presentations that explore stories that disrupt, expand, confirm, amend, and/or question traditional narratives are all welcome.
  • Presenters are also invited to draw on their own stories. What role do our stories play in our teaching and research? We invite scholars to consider sharing stories about their teaching, how they came to their particular research interests, their vocational discernment, what stories impacted them most, and more.

In addition to proposing a paper, panel, or roundtable, the submission form invites several other forms of participation:

  • Book club sessions on books connected to our conference theme
  • Specialized roundtable sessions, such as:
    • stories in pedagogy
    • stories and their intersection with scholarship in positions that are contingent, adjunct, nontraditional, etc.
    • monographs in progress or in print by scholars in our region
    • oral history in research

ASSR-SW 2025 Call for Papers

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 (dholcomb@umhb.edu) by Wednesday, October 16, 2024. This is an extension from the original deadline of October 1.

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 dholcomb@umhb.edu by Friday, February 14, 2025 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 dholcomb@umhb.edu by Monday, March 17, 2025 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.

Scholars of Biblical and Related Literature Call for Papers

Call for Papers for SWCRS Annual Meeting 2025

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 the proposal form here.

New initiatives for the 2025 meeting:

  • This year’s SBRL meeting will feature a theme of apocalypticism in order to facilitate conversations and collaborations across our disciplines and program units. Please note that while we encourage proposals that engage this theme, proposals on other topics remain most welcome. We understand apocalypticism broadly, including but not limited to apocalyptic texts and thought, revelations and other forms of visionary experience, and secret groups and the transmission of apocalyptic lore through time. New methodologies are especially welcome.
  • “Meet My Dissertation” is a new kind of opportunity tailored specifically for doctoral students in the region. We invite students working in the fields of Hebrew Bible, Ancient Judaism, New Testament, or Early Christian Studies to consult with their supervisors and submit an abstract (not more than 250 words) of a dissertation chapter that would be suitable for presentation. Upon acceptance of the proposal, the full text of the chapter (not more than 30 double-spaced pages) should be submitted by January 15, 2025, so it can be assigned to a respondent who works in a relevant field and made available to all other session participants to read before the meeting. At the meeting, the student will give a short (10 minute) summary, followed by the formal response (15 minutes) and Q&A with the audience. Proposers should select “Meet My Dissertation” on the proposal form, and address any questions to Matt Calhoun (r.m.calhoun@tcu.edu) or Lidija Novakovic (Lidija_Novakovic@baylor.edu).
  • We are also soliciting proposals for poster presentations this year. Accepted posters will be displayed in the 2nd-floor foyer on Saturday, March 1, 2025, and presenters should plan to be available to answer questions about their research during the afternoon coffee break and evening reception. Proposers should provide an abstract and select “Poster Presentation” on the proposal form. Presenters of accepted proposals should be prepared to submit a pdf of the poster by January 15th, 2025. ASOR has a helpful document on what makes a good poster: https://tinyurl.com/ASOR-poster-tips. Please address any questions to SBRL coordinator Joseph McDonald (mcdonald@tcu.edu).

Panels and cross-disciplinary proposals

In addition to individual paper presentations, we encourage and look forward to receiving your fully-planned panel proposals to consider for the 2025 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; select “consider the program unit with best thematic fit” on the proposal form. Please address any questions to the relevant co-chairs, listed below, or to the SBRL coordinator Joseph McDonald (j.mcdonald@tcu.edu).

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 apocalypticism (including issues of revelation, theophany, etc.). 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 apocalypticism, we are especially interested in any papers that employ new and innovative methodologies to analyze and interpret apocalyptic texts in the Second Temple period, including feminist studies, disability studies, childhood studies, 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 as well as apocalyptic worldviews.

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. Paper proposals may also treat such subjects as pedagogy or reception history. Particularly welcome are proposals that include critical reflection on traditional topics in New Testament studies (e.g., biblical theology, biblical hermeneutics) and/or that approach the material with new critical methodologies (e.g., feminist, liberationist, post-colonial). These approaches include, for example, cultural studies, film studies, and other media studies. We are especially interested in papers on the conference theme of apocalypticism (including but not limited to issues of revelation, theophany, resurrection, apocalyptic embodiment, etc.).

Please address any questions to unit co-chairs Lidija Novakovic (Lidija_Novakovic@baylor.edu) and Jeehei Park (Jeehei.park@ssw.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 apocalyptic themes and ideas in early Christian literature beyond the Bible.

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