In-person November Annual Meeting 2026 Program Book

This session debuts the Publicly Engaged Religion Mapping Project Website, which includes a database for public scholarship projects on religion, methodological and analytical recommendations, and relevant funding sources. The website aims to generate resources and information about publicly engaged religious scholarship to foster a network of invested scholars, practitioners, and communities.

Where can religious studies scholars fit in the context of a half century long shift towards a career-minded neoliberal university? How can the skills cultivated in the study of religion contribute meaningfully to the future of the liberal arts when religious studies departments are being cut? This roundtable offers reflections on one example of a public R1 university where religious studies scholars have been central to the implementation of a new advising model integrating academic advising with liberal arts classroom teaching. Each scholar will reflect briefly upon how our disciplinary training produces an academic toolbox that allows us to perform the kind of “musical listening” and interdisciplinary pedagogy that are the hallmarks of academic advising and the first-year experience. Additionally, we will touch upon how the theoretical underpinnings, methods, and conversations in religious studies have prepared us to implement a transformative academic experience that affects thousands of undergraduate students annually.

Where can religious studies scholars fit in the context of a half century long shift towards a career-minded neoliberal university? How can the skills cultivated in the study of religion contribute meaningfully to the future of the liberal arts when religious studies departments are being cut? This roundtable offers reflections on one example of a public R1 university where religious studies scholars have been central to the implementation of a new advising model integrating academic advising with liberal arts classroom teaching. Each scholar will reflect briefly upon how our disciplinary training produces an academic toolbox that allows us to perform the kind of “musical listening” and interdisciplinary pedagogy that are the hallmarks of academic advising and the first-year experience. Additionally, we will touch upon how the theoretical underpinnings, methods, and conversations in religious studies have prepared us to implement a transformative academic experience that affects thousands of undergraduate students annually.

This roundtable discussion will consider the themes and approaches of the recent volume, The Oxford Handbook of Friedrich Schleiermacher, edited by Andrew C. Dole, Shelli M. Poe, and Kevin M. Vander Schel. This volume provides authoritative interpretations of developing trends in contemporary Schleiermacher scholarship from both German and English-speaking scholars and seeks to offer a comprehensive view of Schleiermacher’s writings and influence from a wide range of interpretive perspectives. It includes treatments of Schleiermacher’s historical, philosophical, and theological works, including lesser-known contributions that are largely overlooked in Anglophone scholarship, while also locating his work in a broader intellectual context and highlighting the ongoing constructive potential of his thought to inform contemporary avenues of scholarly research in philosophy, theology, and the study of religion.

In “Senior Scholars Review Their Early Work,” four senior scholars from diverse fields will evaluate their earliest work with responses from two junior scholars. Using the genre of the academic review, this panel will consider the afterlives of academic works and how we can marshal those afterlives in the service of the field.

The 75th anniversary of Adorno’s Minima Moralia and his “Theses Against Occultism” provide a timely occasion to assess the confluence of spirituality and politics. Panelists on this roundtable will examine how spirituality, esotericism, and the occult have been vital to political movements and actions on both the left and the right. Though Adorno was sharply critical of astrology and other New Age beliefs, this panel considers the metaphysical tradition as a whole to be neither good nor bad, just as traditions like Christianity and Islam are neither good nor bad. Instead, relying on their original empirical research, panelists will analyze the specific ways in which metaphysical beliefs and practices have guided and buttressed activity across the political spectrum. As metaphysical spirituality moves from the margins of society into mainstream and popular culture, it’s more important than ever to consider its political range and the modes to which it tends.

The 75th anniversary of Adorno’s Minima Moralia and his “Theses Against Occultism” provide a timely occasion to assess the confluence of spirituality and politics. Panelists on this roundtable will examine how spirituality, esotericism, and the occult have been vital to political movements and actions on both the left and the right. Though Adorno was sharply critical of astrology and other New Age beliefs, this panel considers the metaphysical tradition as a whole to be neither good nor bad, just as traditions like Christianity and Islam are neither good nor bad. Instead, relying on their original empirical research, panelists will analyze the specific ways in which metaphysical beliefs and practices have guided and buttressed activity across the political spectrum. As metaphysical spirituality moves from the margins of society into mainstream and popular culture, it’s more important than ever to consider its political range and the modes to which it tends.

This roundtable asks: What can the future of teaching Native American and Indigenous religious studies course look like in contrast to earlier practice? How can theories and methods from Native American and Indigenous studies offer critical interventions and adaptations to religious studies pedagogy, making any course more responsive to questions of social justice? In lieu of probing Indigenous religious traditions themselves, this roundtable argues for understanding the relationship between Indigenous religions, power, and justice. This involves interrogating the study of religion as an academic field and considering Indigenous contestations and engagements with traditional approaches. Together, the participants speak to the sacred of place, Native American and Indigenous relationality, and ethical relations between Native American and Indigenous, and non-Indigenous peoples. Altogether, this roundtable offers non-specialists who find themselves teaching content related to Native American and Indigenous religions a resource for a decolonized, future-oriented pedagogy.