NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
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Volume 35, Number 4
Summer 2001
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MOVING INTO A NEW MILLENNIUM: THE 2001 ANNUAL MEETING AND BEYOND
The Anaheim ASR meeting was another great success. Over 230 people registered, our highest registration ever, continuing a pattern of growth that began in 1996, and now seems increasingly typical for us. The Sheraton was an attractive venue, though regrettably more distant from the ASA meetings than we would have liked. This issue of News & Announcements will summarize the major reports presented to and actions taken by Council, provide a list of our committees, as charged in the by-laws, and try to give you some sense of where we have been and where we are headed.
Highlights of the meeting included the Paul Hanly Furfey lecture by
Alejandro Frigerio, Tony Blasi’s Presidential Address, and an Authors’
Reception on the opening day that recognized the six authors-meet-critics
sessions that were also a record for the meeting—as were five joint sessions
with ASA.
Our membership seems stable, decreasing slightly this year after a
relatively dramatic increase last year. We just crossed the threshold of 800
members by the end of last year and hope we can be there again at that time in
2001 as well. Our library subscriptions also have stabilized, and this is good
news against the pattern of slippage that has characterized the last decade.
This should be a concern to us all, since these subscriptions largely are the
basis for our lack of dues increases on the one hand and a continued growth in
program and services on the other. Please do everything you can to see
that your institution has and will maintain a subscription to our journal.
Fortunately, through a foresighted investment program begun by Ted Long, we
continue to be in excellent financial health in the near term in spite of the
downturn in the national economy. But we will need to be vigilant in our funds
during this period in order to preserve the heritage that has enabled us to
advance on so many fronts in recent years.
Our Membership Committee, chaired last year by Adair Lummis and this
coming year by Peter Beyer, will continue to look at issues of graduate student
recruitment and retention, as well as our colleagues across the seas. One of the
changes we intend to introduce for 2002 is a reception the opening eve of the
meetings, following Council, so that newcomers can begin to get acquainted with
ASR leadership and ask questions about the meetings before they actually start.
Members will have noticed journal issues getting longer as a result of
collaboration between the Publications Committee and the editor. It is
important, if this is to continue, that a sufficient flow of high quality papers
comes into the editorial office. This coming year will be one in which the
Publications Committee and Nancy Nason-Clark will look at renewing her
editorship for another triennium. We will also be looking at the future of the
“Religion and the Social Order” series, as you will see in a longer
announcement later in this issue, as David Bromley will be stepping down as
editor, and the publisher will be changing.
Lori Beaman chaired the Fichter Grant Committee this year; Jim Spickard
will do so next year. Recipients of this year’s Fichter grants were Elizabeth
Beall, “Knowing ‘Feminism’ as a Practice of Power;” Carol Ann Drogus to
complete a co-authored book comparing the situations and activities of women
religious activists in the context of consolidating democracy in Brazil and
Chile; Muriel Mellow, “The Vertical and Horizontal Segregation of Female
Volunteers in Congregations”; Jen’nan Ghazal Read, for research on women’s
labor force participation among Christian and Muslim Arab Americans; and Melissa
Wilcox, “Seekers by Choice, Seekers by Force: Gender, Sexuality and Religious
Individualism.” The entire purse of $10,000 was disbursed. Next year’s purse
will be $13,000. Members of that committee in addition to Jim will be Manuel Vásquez
and Paula Nesbitt.
Your election ballots were counted, and the results were reported by
Nominations Committee chair, José Casanova. Grace Davie was
elected 2003 President. She has named Lina Molokotos-Liederman to serve as
Program Chair for the Atlanta meeting. Three council members were also elected
for three-year terms. They are Patricia Chang, John Coleman, and Manuel Vásquez.
Tony Blasi will chair the nominations committee for the coming year, serving
along with Bill D’Antonio and Mary Jo Neitz. Each year we elect a
President-elect and three Council members; persons with suggestions for nominees
should contact Tony quickly <blasi3610@cs.com>. Nominees should be
able to attend the 2002-2005 meetings. The person elected to the presidency this
year will deliver his or her Presidential Address at the San Francisco meeting
in 2004.
The Robert J. McNamara Award this year went to Jen’nan Ghazal Read, for
a paper entitled “In Search of Religious Differences: Islam, Christianity, and
American-American Women’s Gender Role Attitudes.” This is a designated fund
award that may be given annually to an outstanding student paper. Chair of the
McNamara Award Committee for the 2002 selection will be Marion Goldman joined by
Catherine Faver, Peter Kivisto, and David Sikkink.
From its operating budget the ASR makes funds available in the form of
Ralph A. Gallagher grants to assist graduate student members as well as foreign
scholars with meeting expenses. Recipients who attended this year were graduate
students/younger scholars Véronique Altglas (France/UK), Jocelyne Cesari
(France), Xavier Costa (Spain), Alain Durocher, Manuel Franzmann (Germany),
Matthew Immergut, Sherry Wright, and overseas senior scholars Per Hansson
(Sweden), Peter Tze Ming Ng (Hong Kong), Kathryn Rountree (New Zealand), Dedong
Wei (PRC), and Andrew T.K. Yip (UK). Council has raised the appropriation for
2002 to $10,000, of which $7,500 will be available competitively, as in the
past, while $2,500 will be made immediately available (under the same funding
rules) for use by the President and Program Chair to issue invitations to
overseas scholars as they build the program. Applications for this funding are
in any case properly directed in the first instance to the 2002 program chair,
Grace Davie.
THE WINDY CITY AGAIN
Now that this year’s meeting is over, we want to draw your attention to
the Chicago meeting, 15-17 August. This
promises to be another excellent meeting. The formal program call will be
included in the next issue of News & Announcements, but it is already
on the Web site and it’s not too early to put it on your calendar. Contact
Program Chair Grace Davie—g.r.c.davie@exeter.ac.uk —with program
suggestions and proposals. Although the Essex lacks the lustre of the hotels we
have used the past two years, it has the advantage of being immediately adjacent
to the Chicago Hilton, the ASA principal hotel, and with the lay- out of the ASA
section day, we hope to join with them again as we have in some years past for a
joint reception following our Furfey Lecture.
ASR COUNCIL MEMBERS, OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE CHAIRS, 2001-2002
Officers
President
Eileen Barker, London School of Economics (2002)
President-elect
Grace Davie, University of Exeter(2002)
Executive Officer
William H. Swatos, Jr., Holiday, Florida (2003)
Council
Past-president
Anthony J. Blasi, Tennessee State University (2002)
Editor
Nancy Nason-Clark, University of New Brunswick (2002)
Book Review Editor
Lori G. Beaman, University of Lethbridge (2002)
2002 Program Chair
Grace Davie, University of Exeter
2002 Program Chair
Lina Molokotos-Liederman, École Pratique des Hautes Études
Michael Cuneo, Fordham University (2002)
Grace Davie, University of Exeter (2002)
Christian Smith, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2002)
Penny Edgell Becker, Cornell University (2003)
Helen Berger, West Chester University (2003)
Fenggang Yang, University of Southern Maine (2003)
Patricia Chang, Boston College (2004)
John A. Coleman, Loyola Marymount University (2004)
Manuel Vásquez, University of Florida (2004)
Committees*
Development:
Lowell Livezey, University of Illinois at Chicago (chair)
Nancy Eiesland (2003), Jerome Baggett (2004)
Fichter Grant:
Jim Spickard, University of Redlands (chair)
Manuel Vásquez (2003), Paula Nesbitt (2004)
International Liaison:
Jim Richardson, University of Nevada-Reno (chair)
Luigi Tomasi (2002), Marie Friedmann Marquardt (2003), Durk Hak (2004)
McNamara Award:
Mimi Goldman, University of Oregon (chair)
Catherine Faver (2002), Peter Kivisto (2003), David Sikkink (2004)
Membership:
Peter Beyer, University of Ottawa (chair)
Wendy Griffin (2002), David Yamane (2003), Al Herzog (2004)
Nominations:
Anthony J. Blasi, Tennessee State University (chair)
Mary Jo Neitz (2002), Bill D’Antonio (2001)
Publications:
David G. Bromley, Virginia Commonwealth University (chair)
D. Paul Johnson (2002), Randal Hepner (2003), James D. Davidson (2004)
*Committee chairs serve annual terms, subject to reappointment.
MEETINGS
There will be a conference on Religion, Crime & Punishment
held September 24-25 at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando. There will be a wide
range of speakers, including ASR past president Jim Beckford. For further
information visit www.dce.ucf.edu/rcp. This site may also be entered
through the ASR Web site.
The Religious Research Association and the Society for the
Scientific Study of Religion will meet October 19-21 in Columbus, Ohio. The
SSSR theme is “Mainstreaming the Scientific Study of Religion.” The RRA
theme is “Interorganizational Relations in Religious Research.” Check out
the program on the SSSR website: www.sssrweb.org. The hotel registration
deadline is 27 September.
The BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group plans a Study Day 17
November 2001 (which does conflict with the AAR meeting in Denver), at St.
Mary’s College, Strawberry Hill, just outside of London (reachable through the
Underground). There are two streams, one on Contemporary Issues in
Catholicism and the other on Mainstream Religions—Conflicts,
Diasporas, Issues. Deadline for submissions is 15 September.
Further information, including an abstract submission form, can be obtained from
the SRSG’s website: www.socrel.org.uk. The BSA annual
conference, Religion in an Urban Context, will be held at
Birmingham, 8-11 April.
Queer Visions in the Americas: A Conference on LGBT/Queer
Studies in Religion will be held May 24-26 at the University of California
Santa Barbara. The conference will include plenary speakers and panels,
discussion sessions, an evening film presentation, and paper panels. Contact
Melissa Wilcox at wilcox@ humanitas.ubsb.edu.
ISA Research Committee 22 (sociology of religion) invites proposals for papers to
be presented at the XV ISA World Congress of Sociology, Brisbane, Australia,
7-13 July. Details of the themes and conveners of the various sessions are
posted on the ISA Congress Web site: www.ucm.ex/info/isa/ congress2002/rc/rc22.
htm. Abstracts of proposals should reach the relevant convener no later than
30 September.
POSITIONS FOR 2002
Baylor University is seeking to fill two positions, both of which include
sociology of religion in their portfolio, though each has another required
specialty. One of those is in criminology/deviance; the other is in survey
methodology. Both are to be filled at the Assistant Professor level. Contact the
chair of the search committee of whichever position interests you, c/o
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Baylor University, POB 97326, Waco, TX
76798-7326.
The University of Texas-Austin seeks to fill two positions at the
Assistant Professor level. Both require the Ph.D. and sociology of religion as a
specialization. Additional specializations that candidates bring are open.
Contact the search committee chair at the Department of Sociology, Burdine 336,
University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712-1088.
The University of Illinois at Chicago has two positions opening,
intended for the Assistant Professor level but open to appointment at the
Associate level. Areas are open, but the department has specializations in
health and medicine; work, labor markets, and organizations; race, ethnicity,
and gender; and international, comparative, and Asian societies; ideally
combined with research interests in urban sociology. The Ph.D. or equivalent is
expected. Contact ASR past president R. Stephen Warner, Chair of the Search
Committee, Department of Sociology (M/C 312), University of Illinois at Chicago,
1007 W Harrison Street, Chicago, IL 60607-7140 <rswarner@uic.edu>.
RELIGION AND THE SOCIAL ORDER: NEW DIRECTIONS?
With the publication of the tenth volume of the ASR-sponsored series
“Religion and the Social Order” sometime next year, David Bromley will step
down as series editor and JAI-Elsevier will no longer be the publisher. The
Brill firm of Leiden, Netherlands, has made Council an offer to serve as
publisher. Council is now looking among our membership for someone who has an editorial
vision for at least five years into the future to define the scope of
the series and to work as editor (or editor-in chief). Council has appointed a
ad hoc committee of John Coleman (chair) and Tony Blasi to work with the
Publications Committee, Nancy Nason-Clark, and your Executive Officer to assess
and evaluate the level of interest among the membership for taking on this
project. If you have an interest in serving as editor of this series and a
vision for what it might encompass, contact John <jcoleman@lmu.edu>
with a one-page proposal no later than 1 October. John and
Tony will evaluate these submissions and bring a recommendation to Council at a
fall meeting held at the time of the RRA/SSSR meetings, at which time Council
will decide how to proceed with the series—including whether or not to proceed
with the series at all. It is important that any proposal not duplicate, hence
conflict with, the mission of Sociology of Religion.
MEMBERS’ PUBLICATIONS
A number of members have had books published since our list issue went
to press, these include:
Stephen Hart, Cultural Dilemmas of
Progressive Politics: Styles of Engagement among Grassroots Activists
University of Chicago Press.
David O. Moberg has edited Aging and
Spirituality: Spiritual Dimensions of Aging Theory, Research, Practice, and
Policy, published by Haworth Press.
Robert J. Kisala and Mark R. Mullins
have edited Religion and Social Crisis: Understanding Japanese Society
through the Aum Affair, published by Palgrave.
David Yamane, Student Movements for
Multiculturalism: Challenging the Curricular Color Line in Higher Education,
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Edward Bailey’s Implicit Religion in
Contemporary Society, which went rapidly out of print in its first publication, has been
reissued by the Belgian firm of Peeters.
Eve Mullen has published The American Occupation of Tibetan
Buddhism: Tibetans and their American Hosts in New York City, with the
German publisher Waxmann.
It is likely that many more of you published books than those
represented here. If you’d like your colleagues alerted to your works as
they are published, you need to send notice of that to the
Executive Office. Please do not send notice of already published work. We get an
amazing amount of these notices from publishers of people who are not our
members and very few from publishers of those who are. Most of the books on this
issue’s list have had their notices sent via email, often with Web links.
PUBLISHING
The interdisciplinary annual series Research in the Social Scientific
Study of Religion, co-edited by David O. Moberg, is now
being published by Brill and is soliciting manuscripts for current and future
volumes. The series is also looking for potential reviewers for manuscripts. In
either case, contact, Ralph L. Piedmont, co-editor, Loyola College, 7135
Minstrel Way, Suite 302, Columbia, MD 21045.
NEWS OF MEMBERS
As one of his (better) last acts in office, President Clinton last year
awarded the National Humanities Medal to Robert Bellah,
Elliott Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of
California-Berkeley, among others.
Eugene Gallagher,
Connecticut College, is the recipient of the 2001 American Academy of Religion
Excellence in Teaching Award.
Diana Tumminia, Cal State
University-Sacramento, won the Outstanding Teaching Award for 2001 from the
university’s College of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies.
A number of colleagues received Grants and Awards from the Louisville
Institute during the past year, these include John Bartkowski, “Faith,
Hope, and Charitable Choice: Religion, Race, and Poverty Relief in the
Post-Welfare Era,” Laura Olson, “Women Clergy in
Politics,” Kelly Besecke, “Rational Enchantment:
Transcendent Meaning in the Modern World,” Rebecca Kim,
“Asian American Campus Evangelicals: Negotiating Segregation and Universalism
of Religion,” Laurel Kearns, “Saving the Creation:
Christian Ecological Activism in the U.S.,” Jim Cavendish,
“Proposals to Assess Implementation of ‘Brothers And Sisters To Us’,” Carl
S. Dudley, “Faith Communities Today: A Video Project,” Cheryl
Townsend Gilkes, “Changing Black Churches in a Changing
Society: Congregations, Networks and the Construction of New Traditions,
1975-2000,” James R. Wood, “Church Leadership Amidst
Controversy,” and Deborah Kapp, “The Performance and
Practice of Christian Worship.”
We regret to announce the death of Michael Duffy,
who died last fall, but about whose death we did not receive notice until this
spring. May he rest in peace.
EXECUTIVE OFFICER’S NOTES
The Anaheim meeting was delightful in many ways, even though some were
strange. A number of our Midwestern and East Coast “regulars” were absent,
yet we had our largest meeting ever. New faces. It’s great also to see
long-time members like Tom Imse and Loretta Morris continue to participate
faithfully. We owe Loretta a special debt for working to raise support for this
year’s Furfey Reception as well as “material culture” to supplement the
program in registration materials. We had more participation from Islamic and
Far Eastern members, though it would have been encouraging to see some of those
sessions more well attended. The Gallagher program (which is simply a line-item
in the annual budget, not a designated fund) has helped us to reach out and
bring colleagues to enrich our meetings. We need to appreciate what they offer.
Adair Lummis organized a nice dinner where some officers and overseas colleagues
could get to know each other better. We will all take home warm memories of this
time. L’ASR c’est vous. Let us make Chicago another
meeting to remember.