Online Program Book

For many years now, campuses across North America have organized to fight for anti-caste protections. While fighting for anti-caste protections is important, it is only the first step that opens the door towards building caste competencies within North American academia, heavily entrenched in its anti-Black and white settler colonial foundations. Beyond the multicultural model, which seeks to incorporate caste as a measure of diversity, equity, and inclusion, the University of California Collective for Caste Abolition is invested in organizing for material and structural change within the UC system and beyond. In this roundtable, the UC Collective for Caste Abolition will share the history of its formation, and its current work and visions to illustrate how institutions across North America may heed the call and participate in the movement for caste abolition. might continue their activism toward caste abolition.

How do scholars teach the religious traditions of the late antique "east," broadly conceived, in undergraduate classrooms? Roundtable discussion features five scholars of diverse research areas who will share different teaching strategies that they find effective in helping undergraduate students envision the complexity of religion in late antiquity and the medieval world.

This roundtable discussion re-examines religion in the mid-twentieth century United States. Histories of this time period have traditionally emphasized a religious boom post-World War II, Cold War anxieties, suburbanization, and “tri-faith” consensus. Our conversation will begin the process of destabilizing these familiar historiographies. Each panelist brings new questions, characters and theoretical frameworks to bear on religion in the mid-twentieth century United States. Topics will include corporate media bureaucracy, Hasidic Jewish migration to the United States, theologies of family planning, disability politics, African decolonization, religion and law, and the Asian American religious left. We seek to add increased depth, detail and variety to histories of religion in the postwar period, while at the same time asking about the extent to which we still live in the Midcentury's world. With a willing and experimental presentism, panelists will think about how postwar formations persist and permutate in the 21st century.

The Status of Women and Gender Minoritized Persons in the Professions Committee and the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minoritized People in the Professions Committee will co-sponsor a mentoring lunch for women and gender-minoritized people. The luncheon is open to female-identified and gender minoritized members of AAR at any stage of their professional journey and offers space for candid conversations about the challenging issues which the participants are facing. This AAR member luncheon requires an advance purchase. Add this to your registration by MODIFYING your AAR Annual Meeting registration. Tickets not available after October 31.

The central question for this roundtable discussion is, How do we, as scholars of religion, teach about the Middle East? This question recalls the deep historical roots of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions in the region and the contemporary diversity of those communities. This question is also pressing in light of the current events and the requests for information that many of us are receiving from other scholars, students, and members of our broader communities. What pedagogical approaches should we consider for courses focusing specifically on the Middle East, for courses that can only touch briefly on the region, or for other venues in which we may be asked to teach about the Middle East? What resources are available – including textbooks, audio/visual sources, and digital tools – for teaching and understanding the region and its religious communities?