Religion in Southeast Asia Unit
The Religion in Southeast Asia Program Unit at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) invites proposals for individual papers, paper sessions, and roundtables. The deadline for submitting proposals is March 10, 2025. For those interested in proposing organized paper sessions, we would encourage you to consider a 90-minute session. As part of our ongoing effort to promote greater inclusiveness in the topics and participants involved in our Unit’s activities, we encourage and invite proposals from scholars of all ethnic backgrounds, genders, professional ranks, and disciplinary perspectives. We will prioritize submissions from underrepresented groups and those who have not previously presented in this Program Unit.
Keeping the AAR’s 2025 theme of 'freedom' in mind, we are also seeking papers that explore the relationship between religion, social movements, governance, and freedom. Topics of special interest for the 2025 meeting in Boston, MA (November 22–25) include:
- Multiple epistemologies in Southeast Asia
- Geography of friendship
- Liberation movements in Southeast Asia
- Environmental justice in Southeast Asia
- Intersectionality of animals, humans, and forests
- Religion, nationalism, social movements, governance, and freedom
Situated at the nexus of several civilizational influences—including Indian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern—Southeast Asia, as a region, remains understudied in terms of its relevance to the theoretical and methodological study of religion. This neglect is in part due to the tendency to reduce Southeast Asian religious systems to the named “world religions” often identified with other regions. As a result, indigenous practices are not viewed in terms of their conceptual and other linkages—and in some cases the dynamic interactions between those practices and the religious practices brought over by different classes of immigrants are frequently overlooked. However, and especially in the last fifteen years, exciting materials addressing different religious cultures in Southeast Asia have emerged. Hitherto, there has been little scholarly conversation at the AAR on Southeast Asia. And, perhaps even less commonly, are Southeast Asian religious cultures (e.g., Buddhist, Islamic, Christian, Hindu, “animist,” Chinese, and Pacific) put into conversation with one another. In light of this need in the field, we strive to provide a context for this conversation as well as to foster critical thinking about Southeast Asia as a region.
| Chair | Dates | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| David Thang Moe, Yale University | david.moe@yale.edu | - | View |
| MK Long, Dartmouth College | mklong10@gmail.com | - | View |