CALL FOR PAPERS

88th ANNUAL MEETING OF THE

ASSOCIATION FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

Theme: Religion and Justice: Inequality, Repair, and the Moral Imagination

Location: Chicago, IL, USA | Hotel: Hyatt Centric Chicago Magnificent Mile, 633 North St. Clair Street, Chicago, IL60611

Dates: August 7-9, 2027

ASR President: Korie Little, PhD, The Ohio State University

Program Chair: Jelani Ince, PhD, University of Washington

The Association for the Sociology of Religion is pleased to announce a call for papers for its  2027 annual conference. The theme, “Religion and Justice: Inequality, Repair, and the Moral  Imagination,” invites scholars to engage how religion shapes justice, confronts injustice, and  imagines pathways toward a more equitable world, whether in this world or beyond.  

Across the globe and throughout history, religious actors have stood at the center of movements  for justice. From Martin Luther King Jr.’s prophetic vision of racial equality to Desmond Tutu’s  leadership in dismantling apartheid, from Betty Shabazz’s faith-rooted advocacy for health  equity to Leymah Gbowee’s commitment to nonviolent resistance religion has provided the  moral language, organizational grounding, and spiritual conviction that have equipped leaders to  confront injustice. 

Religious traditions offer powerful moral frameworks for confronting suffering and inequality  while imagining the possibility of transformation. They engage justice across both worldly and  otherworldly realms, with some emphasizing justice in the present—through social action and  institutional change—and others locating it beyond this life, or both. At the same time, religion does not merely define justice; it contests injustice directly, shaping how harm is named, how  repair is pursued, and how responsibility is claimed and contested. 

At stake are questions that have long been at the heart of both religion and sociology: 

• What does it mean to live justly, and how do competing frameworks contend?

• How are injustices produced, sustained, and dismantled? 

• How do ideologies, theologies, and social systems shape and motivate visions of justice  and social action? 

We invite submissions across a range of topics, including but not limited to: 

• Religion and injustice and inequality across race, gender, sexuality, migration, or/and  class

• Moral narratives and visions of (in) justices around inequity, suffering, fairness, and  worthiness 

• Religion and social movements for justice and liberation 

• Religion and environmental justice 

• Everyday religious practices and responses to injustice (e.g., repair, reconciliation,  reparation; redistribution) 

• Worldly and otherworldly visions of justice 

• Global and comparative perspectives on religion and justice 

Deadlines: 

Full-day symposium proposals: March 10, 2027 

Session proposals: March 17, 2027 

Paper abstracts: March 31, 2027 

Registration: June 1, 2027 

Submissions open January 31, 2027

ASR membership is required for participation. 

For questions, please contact: Program Chair, Jelani Ince (jince@uw.edu), President, Korie Little  (little.794@osu.edu) or the ASR Executive Office (asreo@sociologyofreligion.org).

All registration cancellations must be submitted in writing to asreo@sociologyofreligion.org, and the email date will serve as the official cancellation date. Requests must include the reason for cancellation. Cancellations submitted within 48 hours of registration are eligible for a full refund; after 48 hours, approved cancellations will receive a 50% refund. Cancellation requests received after July 8, 2026, are not eligible for a refund. Approved refunds will be processed within 45 days following the event and returned to the original payment method. If a card refund is declined, the cardholder is responsible for resolving the issue directly with their bank. Registration substitutions are permitted for individuals within the same organization before the event or on-site, provided the original registrant has not yet picked up their badge. Once a substitution is made, the original registration becomes invalid, and substitutions are not permitted after badge pickup.