Interested in shaping the regional conference?
2026 AAR-SW Regional Conference Call for Papers
Religion in Practice: Context, Community, and Transformation
The Southwest region of the American Academy of Religion invites proposals for the SWCRS regional conference, March 6–8, 2026, in Irving, Texas. The EXTENDED submission deadline is October 15, 2025, and form can be found here. Our programming welcomes multiple forms of participation, including the following:
Individual proposals, fitting up to two program units
· Specialized and/or prepopulated roundtable sessions
· Book club sessions on books connected to our conference theme
· Meet My Monograph: regional scholars celebrating newly published or immediately forthcoming monographs
Our theme is Religion in Practice: Context, Community, and Transformation. We also welcome proposals on all topics related to religion or theology, regardless of their connection to this year’s chosen theme. But in particular, we invite proposals related to the conference theme that might address the following questions:
• How do people practice their religion? What impact does religious practice have on communities? How does context impact religious practice? Does context transform religious practice, or does religious practice transform community? What innovative practices have religious communities (broadly speaking) developed to respond to their circumstances, and what do these adaptive practices tell us about religious phenomena? How does practice impact religious experience?
• Religious practice and boundaries: How/to what extent does religious practice contribute to “boundary maintenance,” whether for expansion and further inclusion or narrowing through exclusion, or as a method of indicating and categorizing insiders versus outsiders? What are the motivations or contextual circumstances that lead to practices of boundary-keeping? What are the ramifications of these types of boundaries, both for those inside and those outside? Furthermore, how do these practices impact the researcher?
• Religious practice and politics: With particular attention to our current political context, we acknowledge the vulnerability encountered by specific communities such as people of color, differently abled people, and gender-nonconforming communities. Papers that examine and critique the religious practices exacerbating the oppression of these marginalized communities are welcome. Furthermore, papers that explore these communities’ responses to these challenging circumstances, particularly through the lens of practice, are also welcome.
• Religion and body: How does religion in practice intersect with the body and theories of embodiment? Possible topics include gender, race, body size and fatness, illness, body art, dance, exercise, and pregnancy. How does religious practice(s) transform, expand, critique, and/or interact with medical culture, public health, elder care, definitions of “health,” pharmaceuticals, and medical narratives?
• Religion, health, and medicine: We invite papers that examine the role of religious practice as it intersects with medicalized contexts, such as those who work in chaplaincy, as well as those who work in medical contexts or study medical contexts at the intersection of religion and bioethics, the medical industry, the biomedical ‘turn,’ and/ or the practice of making medical decisions for birth, death, and illness. Examples include chaplaincy, medical professionals, and religious scholars who are invested in religion in practice as it interacts with end-of-life care decisions, life supporting medical measures, fertility treatments—such as IVF, pregnancy termination legality and practices, amongst much more.
• Teaching Religion in Practice: considering the various distinctive contexts in which we teach and the contemporary moment—e.g., ongoing AI challenges and opportunities, political tensions in the classroom, restrictions on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and attacks on Higher Education—what practices are you finding to be effective in the religious studies classroom? In other words, how are your teaching practices adapting to the context of our times? Proposals for this topic may follow a format similar to the AAR Teaching Religion Unit’s sessions on “Teaching Tactics,” which features lightning-round presentations (5-7 minutes total) of a specific teaching technique, assignment, etc., followed by discussion. Plan to present and model the practices you engage in the classroom, explaining how you have found it helpful given context challenges.
For questions about the CFP or the conference, contact Cindy Dawson (AAR-SW Chief Regional Officer, seedawson@mac.com) or Carl Hughes (AAR-SW President, CHughes@tlu.edu). For undergraduate/Theta Alpha Kappa questions, contact Marie Olson Purcell (AAR-SW Vice President, mariep@mail.smu.edu).
Deadline extended: proposals due October 15, 2025.
View past conference programs here.
