Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to the Sociology of Religion

This is an award that is to recognize a career or a long period of contribution – it is designed to consider an awardee’s corpus of work as a whole.

The primary criterion for the award is major intellectual contributions, theoretical or empirical, within the sociology of religion. While contributions to other subdisciplinary fields could be important for consideration, contributions to the sociology of religion are to be the centerpiece. A secondary criterion will be contributions to the organizational or professional thriving of the sociology of religion. This could include organizational service (such as presidencies, journal editorships, etc.) or noted mentoring and teaching.

Any member of the Association for the Sociology of Religion can nominate a candidate for the Lifetime Achievement Award by submitting to the committee listed below: 1) a letter of nomination; 2) an up-to-date curriculum vitae of the nominee; and 3) a list of six or seven names with contact information of people who might be asked to participate in a special ASR session giving a retrospective of the nominee’s work and contribution. Supporting letters from members other than the primary nominator are not encouraged, although a co-authored letter of nomination is acceptable.

• Note that while the nominator must be a member of the ASR, the candidate need not be.
• Note that once a person is nominated, that person’s candidacy remains active for five (5) years and will be considered by the Award Committee each year during that period.

Nomination letters and c.v. should be uploaded, as pdf attachments, in the online member portal. You can access the member portal by logging into your ASR account. You will find the submission form listed on the left of the screen. Nominations must be received by May 1 at 11:59 PM EST to be considered for this year’s award. The winner will be announced at the annual meeting in August. The ASR has budgeted money to assist with the winner’s conference attendance.

The Chair, in conjunction with the Executive Office and the Program Chair, may wish to organize a session for recipient that reviews and celebrates the winner’s contribution to the sociology of religion. Ideally, this session will be ready for inclusion in the program by mid-June.

For any questions, please contact the Chair of the committee. Information about the committee and the Chair is located on this website’s “Current Officers, Council Members, and Committees” page.

Past Winners:

R. Stephen Warner, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2023

Jim Richardson, University of Nevada at Reno, 2022

Nancy Nason-Clark, University of New Brunswick, 2021

Eileen Barker, Professor Emeritus, London School of Economics, 2020

N. Jay Demerath III, Emile Durkheim Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2019

Wade Clark Roof, the Rowny Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, 2018

James A. Beckford, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Warwick, UK, 2017