ASR News & Announcements
Rachel Kraus, Executive Officer
The theme for this year’s annual meeting is “Engaging Religion in a Contested Age.” The meeting will be held August 11-13, 2019 at the Park Central Hotel, located steps away from the ASA hotel and a few blocks from Times Square. Our President, Paula D. Nesbitt, and Program Chair, Holly Folk, have promised to make this year’s meeting unique in terms of both its intellectual content and social gatherings. We can look forward to two joint ASR-ASA sessions, and our Presidential and Furfey lectures and receptions. As usual, we will begin our meeting with an Opening Night Reception on Sunday, August 11, which will include an awards ceremony recognizing the winners of the McNamara Student Paper Award, Distinguished Article Award, and ASR’s newest recognition, the Lifetime Achievement Award. NEW THIS YEAR: Our opening night reception will be a joint reception with the ASA Religion Section.
Be sure to check the website (www.sociologyofreligion.com) for submitting sessions, paper abstracts, and meeting registration. Hotel reservations will also be available on the Annual Meeting page on the ASR website. Please consider supporting our association by staying at the ASR hotel and making your reservations as early as possible so you can secure a room at the low ASR rate (under $200 a night in NYC!).
Keep an eye out for the ASR elections. As always, we will elect our next President-Elect and three new Council members. New to our election slate will be the position of Secretary. The person elected as President-Elect will take office as President-Elect at the end of this year’s annual meeting in New York City, at which time our current President-Elect, James C. Cavendish, assumes the duties of President. The three new Council members elected will also begin their terms at the end of this year’s annual meeting and continue through the first Council meeting of 2022. Just like last year, all members of ASR are eligible and encouraged to vote in the election through the Member Portal of the website (an email will be sent when the portal is available).
ASR GRANTS AND AWARDS
Please consider applying or nominating people for any of the following grants and awards:
Joseph H. Fichter Research Grants are available to ASR members involved in promising sociological research on women in religion or on the intersection between religion and gender or religion and sexualities. For the 2019 competition, a total of $12,000 is available to be awarded. Dissertation research qualifies for funding, as does postdoctoral research by junior and senior scholars. See the Research Grants & Awards section of the website for instructions and details.
Ralph A. Gallagher Travel Grants are offered to assist faculty colleagues from outside North America and graduate students to attend the ASR annual meeting. Gallagher grants are intended to help defray the cost of participating in the conference. Gallagher grantees must be members of ASR and have had a paper accepted for presentation at the meeting. This year, awards for graduate students will be distributed in the form of comped hotel nights (up to three nights) at the ASR hotel, and awards for international faculty will be distributed in the form of comped ASR hotel nights (up to three nights) and up to $500 to be used toward airfare. See the Research Grants & Awards section of the website for instructions and details.
The Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to the Sociology of Religion is an award that recognizes a career or a long period of contribution – it is designed to consider an awardee’s corpus of work as a whole. See the Research Grants & Awards section of the website for instructions and details.
Finally, the Robert J. McNamara Student Paper Award in the amount of $500 is given annually to recognize an outstanding graduate student member’s paper in the sociology of religion. If the winner of this award agrees to attend the meeting to present the paper, s/he can receive an additional $500 toward the cost of a room at the conference hotel. See the Research Grants & Awards section of the website for instructions and details.