ASR News & Announcements
Rachel Kraus, Executive Officer
Thank you to everyone who attended our 79th annual meeting in Montreal and helped make it a great success. I hope you all found intellectually engaging conversations, met some new people, and enjoyed Montreal sites. Highlights of this year’s meeting included Michael Emerson’s Presidential Address, “Soul of the City: The Depth of How ‘Urban’ Matters in the Sociology of Religion,” Mark Juergensmeyer’s Furfey Lecture, “Thinking Sociologically about Religion and Violence,” sixteen Author Meets Critics sessions, and four ASR/ASA Joint Sessions. The annual meeting also featured three professionalization workshops focusing on graduate student experiences, teaching sociology of religion, and Louisville Institute research funding opportunities for social scientific studies of religion. Along with our McNamara and Distinguished Article Awards, we also presented our inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award. Congratulations to our award winners: Landon Schnabel (McNamara Award), Jessica Barron (Distinguished Sociology of Religion Article Award), and James A. Beckford (Lifetime Achievement Award). Further details about these and other aspects of the annual meeting are available on the ASR website at www.sociologyofreligion.com.
The results of ASR’s 2017 election were also announced at this year’s meeting. Every year we elect a President-elect and three Council members from our membership. Paula Nesbitt was elected to the position of President-elect, which means that she will succeed ASR’s current incoming president, Daniel V.A. Olson. The three new Council members, who will serve for three year terms, are Elisabeth Arweck, Jualynne E. Dodson, and Solange Lefebvre. Congratulations to all those elected, and thanks to all of the nominees for their willingness to let their names go forward in the election. Michael O. Emerson, our past-president, will be the Chair of the Nominations Committee for our 2018 election.