In-person November Annual Meeting 2026 Program Book

This paper investigates the dynamics of ritual failure in Hong Mai's twelfth-century collection Yijian zhi, situating its anecdotal narratives within the socioreligious context of the Song dynasty. Drawing on Ronald Grimes's taxonomy of ritual "infelicities" and Edward Schieffelin's distinction between procedure- and outcome-oriented failure, the study identifies two categories of failed rites. The first encompasses performance-centered breakdowns—flawed petitions, impure personnel, and procedural errors—that Grimes's framework diagnoses effectively. The second, however, resists such explanations: rituals that are correctly performed yet catastrophically rejected. To account for these cases, the paper introduces the concept of "cosmological invalidation," whereby a ritual's efficacy is nullified not by human error but by a higher moral-bureaucratic order governing karmic debts and underworld adjudication. The paper argues that narratives of inevitable retribution served a theodical function in a period of political instability, challenging the universality of performance-centered and strategic-negotiation models of ritual theory.

This paper examines ritual failure through the practice of jiaobei (珓杯, moon-block divination) in Daoist and local ritual contexts in central Hunan. Jiaobei are routinely cast there at critical moments of ritual performance to confirm divine permission for a ritual to proceed. When divinatory results fail to meet ritual expectations, it produces a publicly visible moment of uncertainty.

Rather than signalling ritual breakdown, such moments initiate a process of negotiation. Drawing on ongoing fieldwork, this paper analyses how ritual masters respond to unfavourable jiaobei results by modifying bodily techniques, e.g. mudras and mantras, and ritual pacing in order to “urge” the divination (cui gua 催卦). These practices reflect a structured compromise between gods and ritual specialists grounded in Daoist ritual logics.

I argue that jiaobei-mediated ritual failure is an anticipated and productive condition that reaffirms relational authority between gods, ritual masters, and the ritual community, rather than undermining ritual efficacy.

Drawing on late imperial steles from southern Shanxi, this study examines a form of ritual failure that emerged when the infrastructural and organizational conditions sustaining ritual life broke down. The inscriptions record recurring disruptions, including failures to enforce festival calendars and service obligations, disputes over offerings and exactions, and the appropriation of temple property, which generated missed or failed rites. This article argues that ritual efficacy depended less on divine responsiveness than on the functioning of coordination mechanisms that allowed ritual to operate across communities. Local ritual was experienced as effective not through greater splendor, but through stable, low-friction routines grounded in predictable rules, manageable costs, clear resource boundaries, and workable inter-community coordination. When these conditions collapsed, officials and local elites intervened, claiming to bring ritual back under governance through regulation and documentation, thereby reorganizing local authority in the name of repairing efficacy. Ritual failure thus provides a window onto local power dynamics.

This paper investigates the dynamics of ritual failure in Hong Mai's twelfth-century collection Yijian zhi, situating its anecdotal narratives within the socioreligious context of the Song dynasty. Drawing on Ronald Grimes's taxonomy of ritual "infelicities" and Edward Schieffelin's distinction between procedure- and outcome-oriented failure, the study identifies two categories of failed rites. The first encompasses performance-centered breakdowns—flawed petitions, impure personnel, and procedural errors—that Grimes's framework diagnoses effectively. The second, however, resists such explanations: rituals that are correctly performed yet catastrophically rejected. To account for these cases, the paper introduces the concept of "cosmological invalidation," whereby a ritual's efficacy is nullified not by human error but by a higher moral-bureaucratic order governing karmic debts and underworld adjudication. The paper argues that narratives of inevitable retribution served a theodical function in a period of political instability, challenging the universality of performance-centered and strategic-negotiation models of ritual theory.

This paper examines ritual failure through the practice of jiaobei (珓杯, moon-block divination) in Daoist and local ritual contexts in central Hunan. Jiaobei are routinely cast there at critical moments of ritual performance to confirm divine permission for a ritual to proceed. When divinatory results fail to meet ritual expectations, it produces a publicly visible moment of uncertainty.

Rather than signalling ritual breakdown, such moments initiate a process of negotiation. Drawing on ongoing fieldwork, this paper analyses how ritual masters respond to unfavourable jiaobei results by modifying bodily techniques, e.g. mudras and mantras, and ritual pacing in order to “urge” the divination (cui gua 催卦). These practices reflect a structured compromise between gods and ritual specialists grounded in Daoist ritual logics.

I argue that jiaobei-mediated ritual failure is an anticipated and productive condition that reaffirms relational authority between gods, ritual masters, and the ritual community, rather than undermining ritual efficacy.

Drawing on late imperial steles from southern Shanxi, this study examines a form of ritual failure that emerged when the infrastructural and organizational conditions sustaining ritual life broke down. The inscriptions record recurring disruptions, including failures to enforce festival calendars and service obligations, disputes over offerings and exactions, and the appropriation of temple property, which generated missed or failed rites. This article argues that ritual efficacy depended less on divine responsiveness than on the functioning of coordination mechanisms that allowed ritual to operate across communities. Local ritual was experienced as effective not through greater splendor, but through stable, low-friction routines grounded in predictable rules, manageable costs, clear resource boundaries, and workable inter-community coordination. When these conditions collapsed, officials and local elites intervened, claiming to bring ritual back under governance through regulation and documentation, thereby reorganizing local authority in the name of repairing efficacy. Ritual failure thus provides a window onto local power dynamics.

This paper highlights the prominent role of digital technology among next-generation African diaspora Christians. From the moment one enters All Nations Church in New Jersey (ANCNJ) , the pervasive presence of digital media is unmistakable. Large, cinema-like screens evoke the immersive atmosphere of Times Square, while high-quality live-streaming reflects sophisticated, often unseen technological infrastructures. ANCNJ actively engages across multiple social media platforms, aligning its ministry with the digital habits of emerging generations. Spoken word is used as an embodied form of religious expression, and the digital space is engaged with as a cyber sanctuary.  Participants narrate their spiritual journeys, voice communal concerns, and translate doctrinal themes into embodied and culturally resonant expressions. Spoken word becomes a liturgical act and a process of identity formation, serving as a new practice of gospel proclamation. Drawing on participant observation and semi-structured interviews, this paper examines how second-generation migrants appropriate popular culture to express faith and identity. 

This paper examines religion as an affective, digital, and political practice through which young Ghanaians attempt to navigate economic precarity and global inequality. Focusing on Christian youth in Accra, ages 18-35, the study interrogates how spirituality mediates psychic life and how religious practices and spaces function as modes of survival and social networks, as places of belonging, identity, and ethical formation. As Africa’s youth population rapidly expands, this research examines youth as a social category formed through technological ambiguities, structural failures, and uncertain futures, global ecological pressures, and declining mental health. To make sense of Africa’s religious landscape, the research introduces the language of “warped intimacies” and argues that Ghanaian youth’s high religiosity reveals a reconfiguration of social relations toward religious figures and institutions. This project aims to unearth the material and affective consequences of transnational economic and theological forces on the lives of young Ghanaians.

We are living in a time of global meta-crisis marked by ecological disruption, social instability, and widespread emotional, physiological, and spiritual distress. As uncertainty deepens, the role of chaplains becomes increasingly vital. This paper explores how chaplains can expand traditional forms of spiritual accompaniment by integrating resilience, innovation, and relational skills to support organizations addressing social suffering. Drawing on my lived experience as a case study, I examine how chaplaincy skills—such as group facilitation, reflective practices, grief work, and meaning-making—can support communities beyond religious institutions. Examples of collaborations with climate nonprofits, public health departments, schools, libraries, and community initiatives demonstrate how spiritual care can address burnout, anxiety, ecological grief, and loss of meaning. I argue and present transdisciplinary thinking and creative approaches to chaplaincy are essential for meeting emerging spiritual needs and fostering collective resilience to prepare for our future(s). (AI was used to support summarizing the abstract in a concise manner) 

How is spiritual care evolving in response to human–animal relationships? This paper presents findings from a mixed-methods study that maps the emerging multifaceted field of veterinary chaplaincy, animal chaplaincy, and interspecies spiritual care. Drawing on survey and interview data from 43 chaplains and chaplaincy educators in the United States and Canada, this research foregrounds the voices of chaplains working in a wide range of human-animal contexts, including homes, veterinary practices, animal shelters, wildlife sanctuaries, ecological habitats, and religious institutions. These chaplains provide a range of spiritual care interventions, creating rituals for transitioning animals, offering grief support for caregivers, and companioning animal-care professionals experiencing occupational and moral distress. This dialogical session will focus on key insights from the findings: how practitioners prepare for the work and how they sustain their practice.

This paper agues that healthcare chaplains should become more actively involved in organized labor as part of their vocation and as a strategy for sustaining the future of chaplaincy. Drawing on Catholic social thought, feminist ethics, labor history, and ethnographic interviews with chaplains in healthcare contexts and nurses involved in the 2026 New York City nurses' strike, I develop a pragmatic account of solidarity as both moral virtue, social practice, and professional call. 

This paper examines Martin Luther King Jr.’s theology of nonviolence through a transnational Christological genealogy linking E. Stanley Jones and Mahatma Gandhi. Challenging interpretations that treat Kingian nonviolence as a derivative ethical strategy, the study argues that King articulated a transnational Christological praxis shaped by postcolonial moral imaginaries. Jones’s reconfiguration of Jesus—detached from Western ecclesial authority and imperial power—created a space in which Gandhi could appropriate Jesus as an ethical guide without abandoning his Hindu identity. Gandhi, in turn, mediated this Christology through indigenous traditions of ahimsa, embodied suffering, and disciplined moral action, a vision that deeply influenced King’s understanding of nonviolence and the beloved community. Engaging the AAR Presidential Theme FUTURE/S, the paper argues that King’s emphasis on moral agency, embodied suffering, and refusal of technocratic power offers a theological alternative to contemporary forms of dehumanization, algorithmic governance, and political abstraction.

This paper explores how Reinhold Niebuhr influenced the theological and organizational underpinnings of King’s non-violence. A major problem in the literature and public consciousness is the straight line drawn between Mahatma Gandhi and the non-violence of King and Lawson, which represents a fundamental misunderstanding of this syncretism and cultural translation. Historians question Andrew Young’s claim that King regarded nonviolence as “a Niebuhrian stratagem of power,” as King did not explicitly state this. However, if we take a closer look at what Young is saying and the theological and philosophical developmental of non-violence in the Kingian context, we see some undeniable truth in his assessment. Understanding Niebuhr’s influence on King allows scholars to disentangle the complexities and roots of King’s relationship to non-violence, liberal Christianity in America, and foreign policy.

This paper reconstructs Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of global justice by examining the political theology underlying his positions on war abolition and international boycotts. While recent scholarship emphasizes King’s political thought, this paper argues that his theological imagination remains central to understanding his approach to global justice. Against portrayals of King as merely a latecomer to war abolition, an absolute pacifist, or Christian realist, the paper situates his views within a distinct tradition of African American Protestant Liberalism and its internationalist vision for global justice. The paper reconstructs King’s account of war abolition and international boycotts and the theological commitments that shaped his arguments. It concludes with a critical assessment of the tensions, problems, and contemporary relevance of King’s political theology.