Religion, Affect, and Emotion Unit
The Religion, Affect, and Emotion Unit invites proposals for panels and individual presenters that explore the affective, noncognitive, and passional dimensions of religion. We actively invite presentation formats that reimagine the space of the academic conference.
For the 2025 annual meeting, we are particularly interested in proposals that address either of two themes.
Presidential Theme: Freedom
Drawing on the 2025 presidential theme, we invite proposals that explore intersections of freedom, religion, and affect. In line with our commitment to engaging diverse fields, we encourage broad interpretations of each of these concepts. Some viable ideas include the affective and religious dynamics of:
- freeing and being freed
- revolution
- academic freedom
- bodily autonomy
- desiring freedom
- misappropriating the language of freedom
Shadow Conference 2025: Organizing in and around the Academy
In 2023 and 2024, Religion, Affect, and Emotion held "shadow conference" sessions in which presenters and attendees explored the topics that are often discussed only in the times and spaces in between formal AAR sessions. In 2023, our shadow conference sessions focused on the experiences of exhaustion and debility that accompany us in our academic institutional lives. In 2024, these conversations continued, but two themes emerged as particularly energizing: the affective labor of organizing and the possibilities of parainstitutional practices.
In 2025, then, we invite proposals that move us past narration and analysis of the troubles of our academic institutional lives, toward constructive and imaginative explorations of the ways in which we might transform or find breathing room within those lives.
What is involved in organizing our individual and collective lives in ways that are responsive to the experiences of exhaustion and debility that so many of us share in common?
As always, in our "shadow conference" we welcome the playful bending of usual presentation norms and forms. Given the past two years' lively conversation, we are once again interested in constructing a "lightning session" of 8-10 minute presentations. Please indicate in your proposal if you are open to being included for consideration in this format.
This Unit provides space for theoretically-informed discussion of the relationship between religion, affect, and emotion. The Unit serves as a meeting point for conversations on the affective, noncognitive, and passional dimensions of religion coming from diverse fields, including anthropology, comparative religion, psychology, decolonial theory, gender and sexuality studies, cultural studies, philosophy, and theology. Proposals drawing on these theoretical resources to examine specific religious traditions, shifting historical understandings of religion and affect/emotion, comparative work that looks at affective forms across traditions, and broader theoretical reflections are all welcome.