News
& Announcements
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Volume 41, Number 1 Fall
2006
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FROM THE PRESIDENT: NEW YORK CITY—HERE WE COME!
Our
2007 meeting will be held August 10-12.
Meeting highlights and the location of our hotel make this meeting a “must.”
The theme of the meeting is Striving for
a Better World: Religion and Social Change. If you have a paper on
religion’s role in overcoming injustice and inequality, I urge you to submit it
to program chair Rachel Kraus. Her e-mail address and phone number are listed
in the Call for Papers on the back page of this newsletter. Of course, we also
invite papers on other topics on which you are currently working.
Given
Paul Hanly Furfey’s belief that religion could (and should) foster social
progress, I have invited Joseph Micon to give the 2007 Furfey Lecture. As the
Executive Director of the Lafayette (Indiana) Urban Ministry since 1990, Joe
has had years of first-hand experience increasing churches’ involvement in
social issues. Since 2004, Joe has been a Democratic member of the Indiana
House of Representatives. As a professional politician, he also has witnessed
churches’ involvement in public policy issues. Joe is a gifted speaker who will
share his insights on religion’s role in the public square. For more
information on Joe, go to www.in.gov/legislative/homepages/R26.
In my
Presidential Address, I will affirm studies of stratification based on “race,
class, and gender,” but I will also challenge sociologists of religion to take
the lead in studying the ways in which religion affects people’s access to
power, privilege, and prestige.
We have
additionally scheduled three sessions linking our theme with ASA’s theme “Is
Another World Possible? Sociological Perspectives on Contemporary Politics.” In
these sessions colleagues such as Nancy Ammerman, Milagros Peña, and Ram Cnaan
will deal with topics ranging from religious groups’ efforts to implement their
visions for “a better world” through politics, church-sponsored service and
advocacy programs at the grass roots, and religion’s role in overcoming
inequalities based on race, class, and gender.
Of
course, New York City is an exciting place to meet, and the Marriott Marquis Hotel puts us in the
middle of everything “the city” has to offer: the theater district, Rockefeller
Center, Carnegie Hall, the United Nations, the Empire State Building, St.
Patrick’s Cathedral, Union Seminary, the headquarters of the National Council
of Churches, Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, and—of course—Yankee Stadium.
If you have not seen the site where the former World Trade Center once stood,
you should take this opportunity to do so. It is holy ground, and visiting it
is a very spiritual experience.
I look
forward to seeing you in “the Big Apple.”
Jim
Davidson
Purdue
University
GRANTS AND AWARDS
Each
year the ASR offers three grant/award programs, all of which require ASR
membership either at the time of application or previously. The
following list details the 2007 procedures:
Robert J. McNamara Award
The
McNamara Award in the amount of $500 is given annually to recognize an
outstanding graduate student paper in the sociology of religion, although the
award committee is always free to withhold the award in the event that no
papers of distinction are received. This year’s committee members are Laura
Leming, chair, Omar McRoberts, and Robert Woodberry. Authors must be currently
enrolled students who have not defended the Ph.D. when the paper is submitted.
Submission for McNamara consideration is separate from program participation;
students who wish their papers considered for the program must submit paper
abstracts to the Program Chair following the guidelines for all standard paper
submissions. An additional $500 is available upon application from the awardee
to assist with travel expenses on a reimbursement basis. Persons whose attendance at the meeting would be possible only as a
result of reimbursement should inform the Program Chair at the time of
submission.
Submissions
must be received by 1 June 2007 to be eligible for this year’s award.
Submission should be in the form of articles with a maximum length of 40
double-spaced, single-sided pages inclusive of all material: text, titles,
notes, tables, figures, etc. The title page should include an abstract of no
more than 200 words. Text should not exceed 12,000 words, i.e., approximately
36 double-spaced pages of 12 point (or 10 cpi) type. Submissions should take
the form of a file formatted in Microsoft Word. Alternatively, a CD containing
the file may be mailed. Responsibility for the timely submission of
useable materials to the proper address rests entirely with the applicant.
Send submissions to: Prof. Laura Leming, 30 Sawmill Road, Dayton, OH 45409; leming@udayton.edu.
Joseph H. Fichter Research Grants
A total
of $20,000 is available to fund research in either of two areas, prioritized as
follows: (1) women and religion, gender issues, and feminist perspectives on
religion; (2) sociology of the parish. The allocation of the total amount is
entirely at the committee’s discretion; historically, however, the money has
been divided among several proposals. The competition is open to all categories
of members at all levels of their careers, including those seeking funding for
dissertation research, but funding for already completed research or the
publication of research is excluded. Applicants must have been members of ASR
throughout 2006. This year’s committee is composed of Barbara Denison (chair),
Darren Sherkat, and Susan Eisenhandler. Former
Fichter awardees may also apply for assistance, from a separate purse, to
present the results of their research at the annual meeting—follow the
Gallagher Award procedures detailed on the next page, indicating this
qualification in your application.
A
proposal of not more than five double-spaced pages should outline the rationale
and plan of the research. A detailed budget and vita should be attached.
Simultaneous submissions to other grant competitions are permissible only if
the applicant is explicit about which budgetary aspects the Fichter grant will
cover that do not overlap with other submissions. Send four copies of the application
packet to Barbara at POB 211, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055. Submissions must be postmarked
by 1 March 2007; awards will be announced 1 May 2007, at which time the moneys
will also begin to be available. Questions? Phone Barbara at 717-477-1257 or
e-mail bjdeni@ship.edu.
Ralph A. Gallagher Travel Grants
Gallagher
grants to assist with travel to attend the ASR annual meeting are offered
annually to graduate students and non-US/Canadian scholars whose papers are
accepted for inclusion on the program. Note that these are assistance grants, and
participation cannot be made contingent upon their receipt. A total of $3,000
is available for the 2007 meeting. Grants are normally in the amount of $500
for foreign colleagues and $300 for domestic graduate students, and may never
exceed $1,000. Application must be made to the Program Chair (Rachel Kraus),
and final grants are determined by a committee composed of the Program Chair,
President, and Executive Officer. Persons in need of travel assistance should
indicate their circumstances at the time they submit their program proposal or
abstract. This should take the form of a letter in which the applicant
indicates a specific dollar request, states the reason for the request, and
provides reasonable evidence that funds to cover the balance of the trip are in
hand.
OTHER ASSOCIATIONS’ PROGRAMS
The Religious
Research Association will make $17,000 available in the summer of 2007
through its Constant H. Jacquet Research Awards program. One-year advance RRA
membership is normally expected of applicants, but students may join at the
time they apply for a grant. An official RRA grant application form is
required. Preference is given to applied (client-centered) research, but basic
research proposals are also considered, and the majority of actual awards are
normally in this category. Individual awards are usually limited to $3,000. The
Committee especially welcomes proposals from scholars who are in the early
stages of their careers, as well as from students. Contact: Jerry Park, One
Bear Pl #97326, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798; jerry_park@baylor.edu. Also check the RRA Web site: http://rra.hartsem.
edu. Applications
must be received by 1 April 2007.
The Society
for the Scientific Study of Religion will make several thousand dollars
available in research grants, a minimum of one-fourth of which is available to
junior scholars. Membership in SSSR for one
year prior to application is required. SSSR also makes grants available to
foreign scholars and to students to participate in its annual meetings. Further
information is available on the SSSR Web site, www.sssrweb.org or from SSSR Executive Officer Art
Farnsley, afarnsleyII@comcast.net. The application
deadline for the research funds is 1 March 2007.
DUES AND CONTRIBUTIONS
Some of you will be receiving dues notices with this newsletter. Regardless of whether or not you have dues now owing, please consider a tax-deductible, year-end contribution to assist with one of the ASR’s designated funds—Fichter, Furfey, Gallagher, and McNamara. Contributions may be included with your dues, or if your dues are already paid, room has also conveniently been made on the reverse of the green directory information sheet. Please be attentive both to paying your dues on time and to keeping your directory information up to date. Each year ASR spends the better part of $1,000 collecting late dues and paying for postal address corrections, which is hardly the best use of our funds.
NECROLOGY
We
have received word of the deaths of two of our members this fall: Yves Lambert and Robert Moran. Both attended our annual meetings with some
regularity, though neither in recent years as a result of declining health. May
they rest in peace.