SAR 2001 Annual Report

Society for the Anthropology of Religion Annual Report 2001

SAR membership as of the November, 2000 report from AAA stood at 465. This represents a stabilizing of membership levels after a period of rapid growth beginning with the section’s inauguration in 1998.

In the spring elections, Andrew Buckser was re‑elected as treasurer. Tanya Luhrmann was re‑elected to the Executive Committee; Joel Robbins, Marina Roseman, and Susan Sered were elected as new members. Members approved a bylaw amendment changing the section name to "Society for the Anthropology of Religion."

At the AAA Annual Meetings in Washington, the section’s invited and reviewed sessions were:

1) Gospel Ethnography: Predicaments of Fieldwork in the Cultures of Protestant Evangelism (invited)
2) Suffering, the Body and Religion (invited, co‑sponsored with SMA)
3) Debating Orthodoxy: Discourses on Indo‑Muslim Authority and Authenticity
4) Embodying Memory
5) The Consequences of Conversion: Case Studies from Borneo and Beyond
6) Threats to History, Selves, and Bodies as Cosmogony: Anthropology and Mormonism
7) Memory and Vernacular Memorialization of the Dead
8) Who are Your and What You Doing? The Subject Position of the Researcher in the Anthropology of Islam
9) The Phenomenology of Religious Experience
10) Reassessing the Category "Supernatural"
11) The Microprocess of Complex Religious Change
12) Is Religion a Universal Human Right? Practicing Religion in Eastern European and Asian Postsocialist Political Systems

At the AAA meeting, the SAR inaugurated a section‑sponsored book series in the anthropology of religion, to be published by Palgrave. The series is entitled "Contemporary Anthropology of Religion." Robert Hefner will serve as editor of the series for an initial five year period. The SAR Executive Committee agreed to submit a bylaw amendment for member approval in the 2002 elections, making the book series editor an ex officio non‑voting member of the board.

The section will convene its 2002 spring meeting in Cleveland on April 5‑7. We have recruited participation from colleagues in religious studies, in particular with cooperation from a newly formed Anthropology of Religion consultation within the American Academy of Religion. The conference will provide an pportunity for interaction among scholars in the two disciplines. This year’s Roy A Rappaport Distinguished Lecture in the Anthropology of Religion will be delivered by Edith Turner, with commentary by Mary Douglas. A presidential address will be given by Thomas J. Csordas, the SAR Immediate Past President. Plenary sessions will take place including "Anthropology and Religious Studies: Encounter or Stand‑Off?"; and "Religious Conflict, Sectarian Violence, and Holy Wars." The program will also feature a workshop on teaching the anthropology of religion. The organizing committee is composed of Thomas Csordas, Janice Boddy, and Stephen Glazier.

Anthropology of Religion Section Officers 2001‑02

Janice Boddy, President
Thomas J. Csordas, Immediate Past President, txc9@po.cwru.edu
Steven Glazier, Secretary
Andrew Buckser, Treasurer, bucksera@sri.soc.purdue.edu
Executive Committee 2001‑02
Jill Dubisch
Laurel Kendall, lkendall@amnh.org
Tanya Luhrmann, tluhrman@midway.uchicago.edu
Bruce Knauft, knauft@learnlink.emory.edu
Joel Robbins
Susan Sered, sered@mail.biu.ac.il
Marina Roseman, mroseman@pacifica.edu
Omri Elisha (student member)
Editor for AN column
Simon Coleman
Web site Coordinator
Deborah Shepherd, sheph005@tc.umn.edu
AAA 2002 Program Chair
Joel Robbins
SAR 2002 Spring Meeting Program Committee
Thomas J. Csordas, txc9@po.cwru.edu
Janice Boddy, boddy@scar.utoronto.ca
Steven Glazier, Secretary
Book Series Editor
Robert Hefner, rhefner@bu.edu
Nominations Committee 2002
Bruce Knauft, chair
Lesley Sharp
James Dow

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