In October 2023, I hosted a webinar for the American Academy of Religion’s Academic Relations Committee (ARC), which I currently chair, devoted to the topic of department mergers (a topic well known to many in our field). My guest was Steve Berkwitz of Missouri State, former chair of their Department of Religious Studies and now head of the newly formed (and considerably larger) unit, the Department of Languages, Cultures, and Religions. It combines what many campuses would call their Department of Modern Languages with Religious Studies.

AAR Program Committee members Claudia Schippert, Whitney Bauman, and Ann Gleig reside in Florida. They share some context about the current situation in the state and resources for updates and action.

Providing students with skills they will use throughout their lives as writers should be part of graduate education, no matter what career paths they choose.

Sam Gill joins Kristian Petersen to discuss his award-winning 2021 book, The Proper Study of Religion: Building on Jonathan Z. Smith (OUP, 2020). Through the book, Gill invites the reader to build on Smith’s work by considering the significance of Smith’s tendency towards jest and play, the centrality of incongruity to Smith’s theories of religion, and how to academically evaluate the category of “experience.”

Gill's book won AAR's 2021 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the analytical-descriptive studies category. He is a professor emeritus of religion studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder.