AAR-SW Friends,
As a region we would like to congratulate Tiffany Puett (Institute for Diversity and Civic Life), Chad E. Seales (University of Texas at Austin), and Jennifer Graber (University of Texas at Austin) on their receipt of a regional development grant for the 2016-2017 year. Their proposed project, “Religions Texas: Mapping Diversity,” aims to undertake “an extensive digital humanities project to map and document the religious diversity of Texas.” These Austin based scholars observe that the already populous state of Texas is one of the top three destinations for new immigrants. Texas has thus seen significant demographic shifts over the last 30 years. Texas now holds not only the largest Evangelical Protestant population, but also the largest Muslim population, and the second largest Hindu population in the United States. Tiffany Puett, Chad E. Seale, and Jennifer Graber will use the AAR regional development grant to begin the process of developing and maintaining a publicly accessible digital resource that communicates trends and trajectories in the shifting demographics of religious diversity in Texas.
The awarded grant will contribute to the first stage in the development of this digital resource through funding four roundtables designed to draw together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to begin addressing the methodological and technological planning associated with the development of such a comprehensive resource. The scholars of the “Religions Texas: Mapping Diversity” project are currently accepting proposals for these roundtables, which will be held at the University of Texas on January 26-27, 2017 [click here for the Call for Proposals].
We as a region are excited for this collaborative project and eagerly await news of the project’s development over the next few years.
