Religious Studies faculty attend annual meetings in San Antonio

Members of the Religious Studies department participated in the Annual Meetings of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature in San Antonio, Texas. The meetings were held Nov. 17-21 and attracted over 7,000 scholars from around the world.

Lynn R. Huber presented a paper on “Female Seed, Metaphor, and the Woman Clothed in the Sun: A Response to Clarissa Breu” as part of the Society of Biblical Literature. Huber also helped organize a networking opportunity for LGBTQI+ scholars attending the meeting.

Andrew Monteith presented two papers. The first, offered in a section focused on Religion and Disability Studies, was titled “A Disorder of the Borderland Between Body and Soul’: Eugenics Era Epileptic Colonies, Religion, and the Medicalization of Morality.” The second paper “And To Tell the Truth I don’t See Anything Wrong With It Yet’: Three Boys’ Marriage in a 1920s Boarding School.” Both papers were based on archival work conducted recently by Monteith.

Brian K. Pennington serves on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Religion and will participate in Board deliberations during the meeting. Additionally, he will participate in two-panel discussions, one on the future of South Asian religions at the AAR and one on the recent publication of The Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Studies.

Rebecca Todd Peters was a participant on three different panels held at the meeting. The first addressed polarizing topics in public conversation, such as Christian nationalism, abortion, gender, and sexuality. The second panel reviewed a new book offering Jewish, Christian, and Muslim perspectives on abortion, and on the third Peters discussed harnassing scholarly privilege to advocate for reproductive justice.

Pamela Winfield was a respondent on a panel focused on emerging research on Japanese Religions, specifically research related to doctrine, violence, and care.