Religion in the American West Seminar Call for Papers

Did you, by chance, resolve to be more active on the conference circuit this year? Well, we've got a special treat for you this week: a different call for papers for every day of the week! Yes, 2012 is a great year. We begin with a sneak preview of the Religion in the American West Seminar Call for Papers for this fall's American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois. This will be our last seminar meeting, and we hope to make it the best yet. Here's the call:

This Seminar invites proposals for article-length papers to be precirculated for discussion at the Annual Meeting. Papers may cover any subject within the American West and should make clear how the topic enhances our understanding of religion in the American West, our conceptions of American religious history, and/or of religion in general. We provide the following themes as suggestions to think with, but we also welcome papers that challenge existing frameworks and paradigms.

• Territorialism(s)
• Religion as/and Western art
• Defining the West and defining religion
• Mexico, Canada, and the American West
• Other Wests
• The diasporic West
• The soul of the West
• Facing east from the West
• Religion and literature in the West
• Imagined landscapes of the West

On Friday this week we'll post further instructions about how and where to submit paper proposals, which are due on March 5. In the meantime, put your thinking caps on and start cogitating about the paper you want to propose!

Update (as of January 25, 2012): The deadline for submissions is now March 8.  Use your extra time wisely!