In-person November Annual Meeting 2026 Program Book
The 2026 November Annual Meeting in Denver, CO: Friday, November 20 - Tuesday, November 24. All times are listed in Mountain Time Zone. For more information about the November Annual Meeting, co-hosted with the Society of Biblical Literature, click here.
Please note that this is the preliminary schedule and is subject to change. We anticipate a mostly final schedule in mid-August. If you have any questions, please contact annualmeeting@aarweb.org. For Other Events, your event is not confirmed until you received notification from AAR staff.
The Universities of Cambridge and Oxford are delighted to invite colleagues, friends, alumni and prospective graduate students to a reception at the AAR and SBL Annual Meetings in Denver. Come hear an update on developments in Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity and Oxford’s Faculty of Theology and Religion, and meet current faculty members. Prospective students are warmly welcome to come and learn about the benefits of studying in Cambridge or Oxford. Further information is available at divinity.cam.ac.uk and theology.ox.ac.uk.
The DU/Iliff Joint PhD is hosting a reception for faculty, students, alumni, prospective students, and friends from 7pm-9pm on Nov. 22 at Maggiano's Little Italy, 500 16th Street, Ste. 150, Denver. Join us for hors-d'oeuvres and drinks.
In many ways, the Modernist Controversy was fought over how to interpret the thought of John Henry Newman. Wilfrid Philip Ward (1856–1916), who was one of Newman’s principal biographers, was concerned for Newman’s reputation in the wake of Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907). This presentation investigates why Wilfrid Ward feared that Newman had been condemned and how he defended Newman’s writings against figures associated with modernism and those associated with anti-modernism. It looks at how Ward adopted, interpreted, and defended John Henry Newman’s theory of doctrinal development during the Roman Catholic modernist controversy. A theological overview of Ward’s project is provided, which is followed by a historical and theological discussion of a series of disagreements that he had with various theologians and commentators who were central to the modernist controversy.
Marie-Joseph Lagrange, OP, was a prominent Roman Catholic biblical exegete at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. A member of the Dominican order he was the founder of the École biblique in Jerusalem. He engaged with modern methods of biblical critical exegesis, but although he was under suspicion, he was never excommunicated. Alfred Loisy, who was at the heart of the modernist controversy, was another prominent Catholic exegete who was a contemporary of Lagrange. This paper will thus examine their work in critical exegesis highlighting similarities and differences between their engagement with modern critical methods.
