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The Winter issue of News and Announcements contains a slate of candidates who will in turn be called upon to give future leadership to the ASR. The names this year have been provided through the work of Past President Grace Davie (chair), Bob Beckley, and Nancy Eiesland. They offer hard choices, but these choices are themselves a sign of the outstanding scholarship that is to be found among our ASR colleagues. Please vote! Please also follow the voting instructions so that your vote counts.

You are reminded of our 66th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, 13-15 August, particularly in this newsletter through the book exhibit request form. We depend primarily on your responses on this form for the exhibit, and we will try to do our utmost to obtain the books you request. You should know that not all publishers are cooperative with us in regard to the book exhibit. Any word you can put in to y/our publisher(s) cannot hurt. We also offer publishers an opportunity to advertize in our program at very reasonable rates. If you want to make sure members at the meeting are aware of your book, encourage publishers to avail themselves of this opportunity. Note the deadline of 15 April on both the ballot and the request form! The Spring issue of N & A will contain the preliminary program for the meeting, hotel and travel information. Do plan on coming to the meeting. We have a large number of submissions from a wide range of colleagues.

A third VERY IMPORTANT item in this newsletter is the call for volunteers/nominees for the position of editor of Sociology of Religion. The editorship is a crucial service function both to the ASR and to our profession. We want you to think about this for yourself, if you are qualified, or to think about others, to whom you might offer a word of encouragement as a nominee. This is a demanding position. Nancy Nason-Clark will have served us well for six years, after three in presidential roles, and we need to keep up the level of quality and the publication momentum that she has achieved.

Receipt of this newsletter is confirmation that your 2004 dues have been paid. Thank you for your support of ASR. Think now about a colleague whom you might goad into joining you and us. Also think about library subscriptions. Our end-of-year memberships increased ever so slightly, but our library subscriptions took a significant hit due to the Faxon/RoweCom defalcation. These seem to be coming back as 2004 subscriptions come in, but we have a long way to go. Library subscriptions are especially critical to the ASR’s continued financial health—and reasonable prices for your dues!

It is with regret that I must report the death of Philip Murnion, a long-time ASR member, from cancer. Fr. Murnion was for many years the director of the National Catholic Parish Life Center in New York City. May he rest in peace.

Bill Swatos

Executive Officer

CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENT-ELECT

Associate Professor of Sociology, and previous chair, University of Notre Dame, where he has taught since completing his Ph.D. at Princeton University in 1983. In addition, he has been a visiting scholar at Princeton (1986-87) and Duke (1994-95). Kevin is the sole author of two books, Religious Diversity and Social Change: American Cities, 1890-1906 (Cambridge 1987) and Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Reason Before Passion (ECW [Toronto], 1994/95), and is also co-author of the text, Sociology of Religion: Contemporary Developments (AltaMira, 2002). His articles have appeared in the JSSR, Archives de sciences sociales des religions, and several collections. In the ASR, Kevin has twice served as a member of the Committee on Nominations (1984 and 1996), on the McNamara Award Committee (2001), as Chair of the Membership Committee (1994-98) and currently the Publications Committee, and as a member of the Council (1991-94). He has worked as well as a director-at-large of the RRA, as Nominations Chair (1995) and a member of the Council (1996-99) of the Sociology of Religion Section of ASA, and as a judge for the "Distinguished Book" prizes conferred both by the ASA Religion Section (2004) and SSSR (1991-92). In other academic pursuits, Kevin serves currently as President of the American Council for Québec Studies (2003-5), and is a member of the editorial boards of the American Review of Canadian Studies, Sociological Focus, and Sociological Quarterly. A current project of his compares the political uses of religious identities in the US and Canada, while another examines the roots of decline in Catholic institutions and devotion since WWII in the province of Québec.

Professor of World Christianity since 1992 at Drew University, where he chaired the Ph.D. program in Religion and Society (1995-97), the Division of Church & Society in its Theological School (1997-99, 2001—), and co-chairs its Hispanic Institute of Theology (1997—), as well as its Hispanic D.Min program. He received his Ph.D., magna cum laude from the Catholic University of Louvain, and has been visiting professor at USC, Maryknoll, Union Theological Seminary, and the Universities of Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, and Louvain. Otto has over 100 articles published in a dozen languages in journals of all continents, and five books in languages other than English (one of which, Marxismo y Religión, was best essay of the year, 1977/78 in Venezuela; another, Mapas para la Fiesta, was published in the United States in 1988 after several South American editions). His books in English include Religion and Social Conflicts (Orbis 1982), and the edited volumes Judaism, Christianity and Liberation (Orbis 1991), The Future of Liberation Theology (Orbis 1989), and Expanding the View (Orbis 1990). He is associate editor of Social Compass, Cristianismo y Sociedad, Concilium, ISC, Liaisons Internationales, Maiêutica, and the Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology; and was formerly on the editorial boards of both the JAAR and the Journal of Contemporary Religion. He is a council member of PARAL, SSSR, and formerly, of ASR. In 1997 he was given the Herberg Distinguished Professor Award by the Graduate Students’ Association of Drew University, and in 2003 he gave the RRA’s Douglass Lecture. His current research centers on Latina Pentecostal congregations in Newark, New Jersey.

JOHN P. BARTKOWSKI, Associate Professor of Sociology at Mississippi State University, received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas-Austin in 1997. Much of his work examines the connections between religion, family, and social welfare. His most recent works include the books Charitable Choices: Religion, Race, and Poverty in the Post-Welfare Era (NYU 2003) and The Promise Keepers: Servants, Soldiers, and Godly Men (Rutgers 2004). He is also the author of Remaking the Godly Marriage: Gender Negotiation in Evangelical Families (Rutgers 2001). John has published articles in SoR, JSSR, RRR, and Social Forces, among others. He has served as Chair of the Membership Committee for SSSR for the past three years and is RRA Program Chair for 2004. His current projects include books on Latter-day Saint teen religiosity and on evangelical parenting, and a comparative ethnography of religious youth groups.

LORI G. BEAMAN received her Ph.D from the University of New Brunswick. She is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University, Montreal. She has published in a number of peer reviewed journals including SoR, JSSR, Canadian Journal of Law and Society, and has articles forthcoming in Nova Religio and Culture and Religion. She is Book Review Editor of SoR, a past ASR Program Chair, and for three years (including one as Chair) on the Fichter Award Committee. One stream of her current research is in the broad area of law and religion, for which she has received a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is also interested in religious experience, specifically the labyrinth as a spiritual tool. That research is supported by grants from the ASR’s Fichter fund and the RRA’s Jacquet fund.

LAUREL KEARNS is Associate Professor of Sociology of Religion and Environmental Studies at Drew Theological School and in the Religion and Society Area of the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies at Drew University. Her Ph.D. is from Emory University. She was recently a visiting fellow with the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia (thanks to ASR connections), where she continued her long-term research and writing focused on religious (predominantly Christian) ecological activism, greening the ethnography of religion, and environmental justice. An early article on these topics, "Saving the Creation" appeared in Sociological Analysis (precursor to Sociology of Religion), and she also received the McNamara award from ASR, of which she has been a member since 1985.

OMAR M. McROBERTS earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University in 2000. Currently he is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. Omar is most recently author of Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighborhood (Chicago 2003). He has been a member of ASR since 1996.

ROBERT D. WOODBERRY is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas, Austin. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In 2001 he received (with five co-authors) the ASA Sociology of Religion Outstanding Article Award for "The Measure of American Religion" in Social Forces. He has published additional sole and co-authored articles in the Annual Review of Sociology, Social Science Quarterly, and the American Sociological Review. He also served as an Associate Editor of Social Forces (1998-99).

DAVID YAMANE received his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin and is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. He is author of Student Movements for Multiculturalism (Johns Hopkins 2001), and editor of Richard Schoenherr’s Goodbye Father: The Celibate Male Priesthood and the Future of the Catholic Church (Oxford 2002). His religion research has been funded by the University of Virginia’s Center on Religion and Democracy, the Louisville Institute, SSSR, and RRA, and published in SoR, JSSR, and the RRR. Professional service includes ASR Membership Committee (2000-3) and Program Chair (2005); ASA Religion Section roundtable session organizer (2000), Student Paper Award Committee (1999-2001, chair 2000); and Student Representative to the council (1997-98); and the American Sociological Review editorial board (2002-4).

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SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION EDITORSHIP

The ASR Publications Committee has been charged by the Council with the responsibility of bringing to its August 2004 meeting the name of a suitable candidate to serve as Editor of Sociology of Religion for the years 2007-2009. This person would begin work sometime in 2005. The position is expected to carry an honorarium of $3,900 per year, paid in the three actual years of publication only. A smaller honorarium is provided for a book review editor, who is named by the editor, and some funding is provided for hiring part-time staff. The candidate’s institution is expected to provide released time. The term is renewable. The ideal candidate will (a) have a knowledge of the journal publication process through some combination of a personal publication history in peer reviewed journals and service as a reader/editorial board member of one or more journals; (b) have demonstrated the ability to self-manage time, evidenced by letters of reference that provide concrete illustrations of this talent; (c) have a working knowledge of the ASR and its membership; (d) secure a letter of commitment from his or her institution indicating the specific forms that its support will assume. Persons who are interested in this position should contact Publications Committee Chair, Kevin J. Christiano, as soon as possible, and no later than 1 May 2004 (kevin.j.christiano.1@nd.edu). Nominations for this position are also welcome. These should include evidence that the candidate has consented to having his or her name put forward. For more information on the editor’s position see www.sociologyofreligion.com/editor.htm

The British Sociological Association Sociology of Religion Study Group’s 2004 annual conference will be held 29 March - 1 April at Clifton Hill House, University of Bristol. Several previous meetings have been held at this site, and it is an attractive venue. The theme is A Sociology of Spirituality. The BSASRSG’s Web site is www.socrel.org.uk. Abstracts (150 words) will be received through 1 March, sent directly to kieran.flanagan@bristol.ac.uk.

Exploring Consciousness, an interdisciplinary conference co-sponsored by the Sophia Centre of Bath Spa University College and Psychonaut UK will be held 24-26 June at the Forum in Bath. For further information: www.bathspa.ac.uk/schools/historical-and-cultural-studies/sophia/conferences.

The Journal of Business Ethics will begin to publish in 2004 a yearly special issue designed to advance specific issues of theory and research in the area of social responsibility and business ethics. The theme for 2004 is Interdisciplinary Theory and Research in Business Ethics and Social Responsibility. Potential articles are due 1 August. Contact editor Robert Giacalone at rgiacal@email.uncc.edu for further information.

The Religious Research Association and Society for the Scientific Study of Religion will meet 22-24 October in Kansas City. The RRA theme is Linking Social Action and Religious Research, and will feature Nancy Nason-Clark’s Presidential Address. The SSSR theme is Overcoming Boundaries in the Scientific Study of Religion, with the Presidential Address by Rodney Stark. Submission deadline for papers for either program is 15 March. For RRA contact bartkowski@soc.msstate.edu; for SSSR, swatos @microd.com. (Where have I heard that before?)

Positions open with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) office in Louisville and with the National Mental Health Association in Alexandria, Virginia, are listed on our Web site.

The Religion and Media Interest Group of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication is seeking papers for sessions at its annual meeting in Toronto, 4-7 August. Awards of $100 are available to one paper each by a student and by a faculty member. Contact gormly@unt.edu. The Group is also looking for paper reviewers (same contact).

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Members are invited to request books, whether their own or by others, to be included in the ASR-sponsored joint book exhibit at the annual meeting. You may request as many books as you like, as long as they are in print and you supply the necessary information. There are no guarantees that they will be exhibited, as we are dependent upon publisher cooperation.

You do not have to vote in order to submit this exhibit form, nor do you need to complete this form in order to vote, but the 15 April postmark deadline applies to both! If you prefer, you may submit preprinted materials about a book or books, but make sure all the information indicated here is included. Specifically, we must have the publisher's full mailing address to process your request. You may alterna-tively reproduce this form to list additional books. You may also fax the book request form—but not the ballot!—to the Executive Office at 727-844-7332.

For each book supply:

Author(s): ________________________________________________ (last names are sufficient)

Main title: ___________________________________________________________________________

Publisher: ___________________________________________________________________________

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