Important Update DATE CHANGE: the conference will take place February 27-March 1, 2026 – this is a change from the original dates!
Call for Regional Leadership Nominations:
The AAR-Southeast region is accepting nominations for two regional leadership positions: Chief Regional Officer and Vice President. Find more information here.
The Call for Papers for the 2026 meeting has closed. Stay tuned for word from the section chairs about acceptances!
Access the full CFP here: Call for Papers AAR 2026
Conference Theme: Shifting Identities and Fractured Communities
AAR-SE is excited to announce that our 2026 meeting will take place at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina from February 27-March 1, 2026. The conference theme is “Shifting Identities and Fractured Communities”.
The Call for Papers for the 2026 meeting has closed. Stay tuned for word from the section chairs about acceptances!
Call for Papers: View the 2026 CFP now!
Information on accommodations and registration will be available close to the conference dates.
Theme: Shifting Identities and Fractured Communities
Greenville rose to prominence as a medium sized textile manufacturing city, prosperous into the late 20th century. After two decades of economic decline, the 21st century has seen tremendous growth in population, cultural diversity, and economic opportunity. Underneath the “New South” glitter, however, there are still the wounds of racism and class oppression as well as the cultural gravity of religious fundamentalism — a situation evidenced throughout the South. Fractures created by these cultural shifts have become even more visible and consequential in recent years and months. This is a time in which the academic study of religion should take into account its physical and social location in this region, and consider how our subject matter, and the ways in which we study it, might help us understand and adapt to the shifting ground under our feet.
Graduate Student Award: Graduate students who wish to be considered for this award should submit a paper of no more than 12 pages to RELSERegion@gmail.com, no later than January 15, 2026. Please include Graduate Student Award in the subject line of the email.
Undergraduate Student Award: All undergraduate papers emailed to RELSERegion@gmail.com by the December 15, 2025 deadline are eligible for the undergraduate award. See full instructions below.
AAR-SE Mission:
AAR fosters its mission through energetic cultivation of accessible regional intellectual networks and identities to serve members where they live and work, and to respond to local publics and concerns.
Regional meetings of the Academy often incorporate patterns of organization and presentation similar to those followed at the Academy-wide meetings: section meetings, giving and responding to papers, plenary speeches. Regional meetings, however, offer unique and distinct opportunities for members. Regions have developed a distinct character of their own, providing the following opportunities:
- Greater personal contact among members than is possible at the AAR Annual Meeting.
- Greater local accessibility for members.
- More opportunity for academic exchange across sub-field specializations.
- Occasions for cooperative research projects.
- Flexible and accessible programming.
- Experimentation within annual meeting programming, as well as programming for regionally specific issues.
- Leadership cultivation.
- Higher local visibility of professional development efforts through mentoring, workshops, and programs to enhance teaching skills.
- Ready access to graduate students for presentation of their work.
- Contact for job opportunities opening late in the academic year.
- Networks for sharing of research among local scholars.
Commitment to Biblical Studies
For several years, the America Academy of Religion (AAR) had met and partnered with Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) for a southeast regional conference. The partnership of the two groups created a dynamic exchange of scholarship and a community of support in the region. The leadership of this regional meeting was constituted by shared responsibility between the two groups in an executive committee.
In the summer of 2022, SBL ceased their support of the formal regional meetings. For those involved in the southeast region, this was seen as a great loss to the network of local scholarship in the region. In response to this decision, the Southeast regional gathering of the AAR has committed to providing a space for biblical scholars in their regional meeting. The inclusion of biblical scholars in this regional meeting will continue to create a rich academic exchange and mark the Southeast regional gathering as hub of creative scholarship, professional development, and academic fellowship.
To this end, the Southeast Region of the AAR has made the following commitments to the inclusion of biblical scholarship in the region:
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- the continuation of groups on biblical studies including Hebrew Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, and Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha;
- the incorporation of biblical studies leadership into the formal structure of the AAR regional meeting;
- the on-going support and encouragement of scholars in biblical studies throughout the Southeast region.
We believe our academic community is stronger with the inclusion of biblical scholars and we look forward to many more years of mutual support and exchange in the future.
RELSE.org is the website for the meeting of the AAR Southeast Region. We are operating as a committee of the AAR/SE LLC.