Multidisciplinary Scholars of Race and Religion (submit your abstract here!)
Annual Symposium
Chicago, IL
August 10th, 2025
In recent years, scholarship on race and religion has come to the forefront, generating fruitful discourse both within and outside of the academy. Yet, there remains a need for globally relevant, theoretically driven, and empirically rooted studies that do not just include race but also shift our understanding of each field of study and the intersections between them.
To address this gap, and in cooperation with the Religion and Public Life Center at Rice University, this symposium provides a full day of paper sessions and networking in the context of the annual meeting for the Association for the Sociology of Religion. Our goal is to continue building a network of scholars for collaboration and mutual edification in the study of race and religion.
For this year’s symposium, we invite paper proposals that cross boundaries constructed in studies of race and religion, both topically and disciplinarily. We are particularly interested in studies that break new methodological or theoretical ground and that focus on challenges to democracy and human rights as well as inequalities and injustices at the intersection of race and religion—as well as social change and solidarity movements. Papers with a geographic focus or authorship outside of North America are especially welcome.
We will engage submissions that address all aspects of religion (including non-religion) and race, broadly construed; however, papers should substantively engage with critical race/diversity studies. We also welcome multi-disciplinary approaches that include sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science, and religious studies.
Interested participants should submit an abstract of no more than 250 words here. The deadline for submissions is 11:59pm on March 25th.
Thank you and see you in Chicago!
Oneya Fennell Okuwobi (okuwobof@ucmail.uc.edu) and Rachel Schneider (rsv2@rice.edu)