RELIGIOUS RESEARCH ASSOCIATION
CALL FOR PAPERS
2025 Annual Meeting
October 31–November 2
Religion Matters
Look around the world today and it is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt: religion matters. Religion matters, from a social scientific perspective, because we cannot truly understand how individuals and communities make meaning, understand themselves, or confront challenges without taking religion seriously as a complex, pervasive and ever-changing social phenomenon. Religion matters on a societal and individual level as well. It is linked to our deepest conflicts and also offers profound resources for healing divides. Religious institutions, infrastructures, discourses and meanings permeate our social landscape and must be navigated by individuals regardless of their personal religious commitments. For those who are religious, the specific contours of this religious landscape can offer meaning, belonging and resources, or not, depending on one’s particular position within it. Even within societies and communities where organized religion has declined, secular life takes shape in the material and symbolic mold of previously powerful religious institutions. For better or for worse, religion matters. Yet religion is no single thing, and its content and form are perpetually contested by a wide range of actors. As scholars and practitioners, we do not stand outside these contests, but are nonetheless called to grapple fairly and honestly with religion in all its complexity and document this ongoing contestation. We are called to take religion seriously, even (or especially) when we are embedded in institutions and societies that do not heed this call.
The 2025 joint SSSR+RRA call for papers encourages proposals that take religion seriously across these different levels and domains of social life, and demonstrate that for better or for worse, we cannot understand society without understanding religion. We are interested in proposals building on basic research (SSSR) that employ a range of methodologies and a range of scale as well as draw on established and novel data. We also welcome data-grounded theorizing that forward heuristic concepts and frameworks. We also seek proposals that are not only relevant for the scholarly community, but also those that have an applied research focus (RRA). And we welcome proposals on any topic within the social scientific study of religion that examines how religious denominations, groups, or traditions relate to these topics, and, for RRA, work that is especially relevant to religious leaders.
The SSSR+RRA annual meeting will feature paper sessions and book panels (formerly known as “author- meets-critics” sessions). Submit complete paper sessions—consisting of three to four presentations—or individual proposals (which the program chairs will thematically organize). Proposals for book panels should contain the author of a recent book and three to four panelists.
All submissions will be made through the online portal at www.sssreligion.org. Please indicate the type of submission (e.g., individual paper, session, discussion panel or book panel) and whether it is a better fit for SSSR or RRA. Please contact SSSR program chair, Evan Stewart (program@sssreligion.org) or RRA program chair, Audra Dugandzic at programchair@rraweb.org with any questions.
Submissions open: February 1, 2025
Submissions close: March 31, 2025
Decisions made: April 30, 2025
ANNUAL MEETING PRESENTATION FORMATS
The annual meeting will include paper sessions, book panels and discussion panels. Paper sessions comprise three to four papers and may be proposed as a complete session. Individual paper proposals are built into sessions by the program chairs. Book panels include the author(s) of a recent book and three to four panelists. Discussion panels include a discussion moderator and three to four panelists.