North American Religions Unit

This Unit advances the study of religions in North America, broadly conceived (Mexico, the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, etc.), as well as the study of historical, social, and structural links between North American religions and those beyond North American boundaries. 

We are committed to sponsoring sessions that explore fundamental questions and concepts that have shaped the field of American religion. We welcome proposals for roundtables, debates, workshops, performances, pre-circulated papers, and other creative formats that foster rich discussion connecting new research to ongoing discussions in religious studies and the wider academy. Although we do not sponsor author-meets-critics sessions focused on a single book, we welcome proposals that offer reflection on two or more works of scholarship on American religion.

We encourage the submission of both individual contributions and complete paper panels and roundtables, though we may reconfigure proposed panels to place them on the conference program. We strongly encourage those who submit proposals for paper panels and roundtables to include participants who are diverse in gender, race and ethnicity, and professional status. We are especially eager to support and receive proposals from junior scholars, particularly graduate students and contingent scholars; our support includes an annual online collaboration sheet for those who wish to develop full-panel proposals. 

We also have an active goal to improve the summer session, with more offerings and sessions that are useful for those who cannot afford attending the annual meeting.

For our 2026 meetings in June and November, we welcome proposals on the following topics:

We invite papers on the following topics, many of which relate to the conference theme of “Future/s”:

• Rebellions and Revolutions: 250th Anniversary of the USA. Potential co-sponsorship with Moral Injury Unit--papers reflecting on USA’s nature, structure,

  and history as well as its ethical, religious, legal, and moral frameworks, and how may produce distinctive moral injuries; may include war, loss of social trust, marginalization, aftermath of pardons, armed rebellions, and insurrections. We separately invite reflections on Declaration of Independence, Christian nationalism, indigenous revolutions, revolutions by enslaved peoples, and others. 

• 25th Anniversary of 9/11 and the War on Terror. Reflections on event itself, its effect on the study of religion, political and cultural responses, as well as other experiences and reverberations—especially among marginalized religious groups, such as Muslims in the US and beyond, and the formation of hardline conservative movements and the Dept. of Homeland Security.
• Place and the Future of North American Religions. Visions of place and claims to place that project belonging into the future; potential topics include the American West, Oceana/ Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, outer space, settler colonialism, hope/pessimism, nation building, and futurism.
• Reflections on Visions and/or Apocalypticism in North America around 2026. Foundational examples from religious organizations as well as media, such as Y2K, Millerism on TikTok, Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, and Thea von Harbou’s Metropolis.
• Teaching and Pedagogy on Religion in North America. Considerations of our era of politically motivated restrictions—in classroom, administratively, and atmospherically.
• Migration and North American Religion. Includes efforts by religious communities to support and to resist governmental policies and practices in the past and/or present.

Please ensure that all submissions are anonymous.