American Academy of Religion

@aarweb.bsky.social

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Our mission is to foster excellence in the academic study of religion and enhance the public understanding of religion.

2026 Recipients Donagh Coleman, University of California Berkeley Rachaell Diaz, University of Florida Anahita Hoose, International School for Jain Studies Rushnae Kabir Rev. Kendrick Kemp, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary Younghwa Kim Jessica Knippel, Claremont Graduate School Donghyung Lee, Yale University Samira Musleh, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) Vaidehi Paneri, Syracuse University Anthony Scott, University of Tokyo Mark Inigo Tallara, University of the Philippines Diliman Darig Thokmay, University of Cambridge Pablo Vazquez, Graduate Theological Union Aixin Yi, Boston University
visual graphic with text: 2026 Religion and the Arts Travel Grant winner Funded through the generosity of Diane Apostolos-Cappadona and awarded annually to a graduate student studying religion and the arts who is without institutional support to attend the November Annual Meeting. headshot of woman in black polo shirt, shoulder-length curly auburn hair Abigail Schweizer, Yale Divinity School
graphic in AAR color palette featuring same text as caption, plus price tiers, and statement beneath the pricing: "Are you a student who’s not an AAR member yet? Become one today for the price of nonmember registration and you’ll get the discounted rate — plus a year’s worth of other invaluable resources."
Visual asset with text "2026 Judith Plaskow Travel Grant Winners" and "Awarded to a student or independent scholar who is scheduled to present a paper centrally informed by and/or contributing to the feminist approaches to the study of religion at the November Annual Meeting. Headshots for Shehnaz Haqqani and Amy Allan, both dark-haired women wearing glasses.
graphic in AAR color palette featuring same text as caption, plus price tiers, and statement beneath the pricing: "Not an AAR member? The cost of registration is still less than the price of two IMAX 70 mm tickets. (And we don't run out of supply.)
Photo of Nathan Samayo (light-brown-skinned young man with dark, close-shaven hair, Pacific Islander features, wearing a tropical pattern shirt and a piece of oceanic jewelry); quote: "Thanks to an AAR Travel Grant, I was able to present my research at the 2025 AAR Annual Meeting on the co-sponsored ‘Indigenous Religious Traditions’ and ‘Religion and Ecology’ panel; connect with other scholars; and discuss future scholarly collaborations."
Photo of Amy Allocco, white-appearing woman with dark curly hair with a few grey streaks. Smiling and holding up the book that came out of an AAR international Collaborative Research Grant. Quote: Through the support of an AAR grant, we developed a set of theoretical questions that surfaced in conversations about our respective fieldwork on Hindu texts and practices in disparate cultural and linguistic regions of India. Following a call for abstracts, two targeted writing retreats and rounds of peer review with a fabulous team of 14 contributors, we’re proud of the co-edited volume we produced: Sweetening and Intensification: Currents Shaping Hindu Practices.
A collage of faces diverse in race, gender, and age; all AAR members
Photo of a white-appearing woman with blonde long hair pulled into a bony tail; brown highlights. Wearing clear frame glasses and a black button down shirt and smiling. Question: What is your area of expertise or field of study? Quote: As an ethnographer and oral historian, my research explores Native American religious traditions, the politics of recognition, and religious freedom in place. That is, I am endlessly interested in the ways that religious lives emerge with and in particular spaces and places. My research historically looked to my home region, the American West, but since moving to Charleston, South Carolina in 2020, I have worked closely with Lowcountry Tribes, such as the Edisto Natchez-Kusso.
headshot of a southeast asian man with a beard and mustache, short black hair, wearing a black shirt and blue blazer, smiling. Quote: Both my books, Defending Muhammad in Modernity (2020) and Perilous Intimacies (2023) were finalists for the AAR book award in separate categories; this recognition has been a tremendous endorsement of an approach to Islamic Studies that combines intensive theory and philology while also providing a great boost to my career as a scholar and teacher of Religion Studies.
As a prestigious institution of higher learning that seeks to produce high quality research and is committed to the liberal arts, DU has obligations beyond providing basic career preparation. We support DU’s goal of supporting current and future scholarship that can “address important scientific, sociopolitical, and cultural questions of the new century.” But DU cannot reach that goal if it eliminates the department that has at its center intercultural literacy and critical consciousness of world religious traditions.
May 6 at 2 PM ET "Religion, War, and revolution: What are we getting right and/or wrong about religion in the Early United States?" Featuring Kathleen Sands, Seth Perry, and Philippa Koch
light brown-skinned man lighting an ornate candle as part of a religious ceremony, wearing western clothing and a colorful cap
White woman in black polo shirt and glasses; short cropped grey hair White woman with shoulder-length blonde, lowlight bob wearing black blouse "Studying religion as it is actually lived on the ground enables us to understand the different ways religion can be both a force of harm and a force of justice. It forces us to question our idealizations and grapple with the complexities of gendered power."
south Asian man sitting in chair; wearing navy suit, white button down shirt, and tan/blush colored turban; same quote as used in the caption
If you are serving as department chair or in a similar leadership position in your school, you can apply for a multi-day training seminar at San José State University at the end of May 2026 — thanks to a grant, AAR can send six department chairs/leaders! Send inquiries to Claudia Schippert (cschippert@aarweb.org) by April 9
“Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining whatever happens to come to pass or to attract attention, regardless of results and specific content, could this activity be among the conditions that make men abstain from evil-doing or even actually 'condition' them against it?” Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, Volume 1