Anthropology of Religion Section
American Anthropological Association
1999 Annual Report
Submitted by
Thomas J. Csordas, President
The ARS 1999 spring meeting was held during April in Chicago, jointly with the Central States Anthropology Society.Elections were held for four seats on the Executive Committee. Peter Metcalf, Edith Turner, and Lesley Sharp were re-elected to two-year terms, and Tanya Luhrmann was newly elected to a two-year term.
ARS sponsored two invited sessions at the annual meetings of the AAA: “Re-Animating Religion: A Debate on the New Animism,” organized by Peter Metcalf, and “Subjectivities Across Time Regimes: Traversing the ‘Religious’ and the ‘Secular’,” organized by Katharine Wiegele. In addition, all of the other sessions that ARS forwarded were accepted by the AAA program committee. These included three created by the section program committee from volunteered papers, and two submitted as organized panels.
Plans were made for the spring ARS 2000 spring meeting to be held jointly with the American Ethnological Society in Tampa, Florida.
The Roy A. Rappaport Distinguished Lecture in the Anthropology of Religion was instituted, with the first lecture to be delivered at the 2000 spring meetings by Talal Asad.
At its November meeting, the ARS Executive Committee initiated revision of the provisional section bylaws for approval by the general membership in the June 2000 elections. The office of President-elect was instituted, and the office of Vice-president eliminated for these elections. The term of current president Thomas Csordas was extended by one year to accomodate a year as president-elect for the incoming president. Csordas agreed to chair the section’s nominating committee.
ARS membership as of the November report from AAA stood at 378, up from 242 from November 1998. This represents a very satisfying growth of 56% in the past year.
Anthropology of Religion Section Officers 1999
Thomas J. Csordas, President txc9@po.cwru.edu Stephen Glazier, Vice President SGlaz1234@aol.com Michael Winkelman, Immediate Past President michael.winkelman@asu.edu Andrew Buckser, Secretary/Treasurer bucksera@sri.soc.purdue.edu
James Dow dow@oakland.edu Jill Dubisch jill.dubisch@nau.edu Laurel Kendall lkendall@amnh.org Peter Metcalf pam5r@virginia.edu Lesley Sharp Lsharp@Barnard.edu Edith Turner elt9w@virginia.edu Richard Werbner Richard.P.Werbner@man.ac.uk Rebecca Lester (student member) Rjlester1@aol.com AAA Program Committee 1999
Laurel Kendall lkendall@amnh.org Lesley Sharp Lsharp@Barnard.edu
Deborah Shepherd, Web Site Coordinator, sheph005@tc.umn.edu, dshepherd@csbsju.edu
Sarah Caldwell, Listserv Coordinator, scaldwell@csuchico.edu
Rebecca Lester, Newsletter Coordinator, Rjlester1@aol.com