Please call Aislinn Jones at 1-404-727-8132.

You can confirm the AAR's hours of operation under "Office Hours" on the Contact Us page.

Program sessions are two-and-one-half hours or 90 minutes (if scheduled on Sunday afternoon). Although sessions may be shorter, none may be longer.

Session allotment varies from program unit to program unit for sections (4-5) and groups (1-3). Consultations and seminars each get one session. To check your program units’ session allotment, see the Program Unit Information.

Sections are allowed one additional session if they do not make scheduling requests for any of their regularly allotted sessions. Sections, groups, and consultations may also take on an additional session by cosponsoring a session with another unit. Seminars do not get an extra session.

Cosponsorship counts as both cosponsoring units’ extra session (e.g., if the Black Theology Group and Ritual Studies Group cosponsor a session, it counts as both units’ third session). If program units cosponsor more than one session, these cosponsored sessions will be counted against the regularly allotted sessions for that unit. Please contact the executive office in advance if you plan to cosponsor more than one session, so that we may advise you.

When cosponsoring a session, one of the program units should serve as the organizing unit for the session in the event that the executive office needs to contact someone regarding the session. That is, only one unit should enter session and participant information for a cosponsored session, when session information is submitted online.

Current AAR membership is required to participate (unless an exception for persons whose work is not in religion is granted by the executive director). Program unit chairs should request exceptions as soon as possible and not later than March 31. Authorization from the executive director must be secured before making such an invitation. Requests should be made to annualmeeting@aarweb.org. Scholars from developing nations are exempt from the authorization requirement, however their status must be conveyed to the Annual Meeting Team.

Non-member participants (whose participation has not been approved by the executive director) entered into the Session Entry database will be sent notification that their participation is on hold until their membership is current. It is the responsibility of the program unit chairs to ensure that all participants are current members. If you have a question regarding a member’s status, please follow these steps:

1. Check the AAR Membership Directory.
2. If you don't find the individual in the Membership Directory, she or he may not be current in AAR membership or may simply have elected to withhold contact information from the Membership Directory; if the person is not found, please contact the Annual Meeting Team to check whether the individual is an AAR member.

Participants must register for the Annual Meeting to be listed on the program. Persons not registered for the Annual Meeting by June 15 will not be listed in the program book.

In order to ensure the broadest participation of members, no individual may be on the program more than two times. Business meeting presiders may appear thrice.

The Annual Meeting program has three types of sessions: paper sessions, panel sessions, and wild card sessions. A “panel” is a session with one announced theme and a list of participants who address that theme but do not present separate formal papers. A session with a theme and separately announced paper titles/presentations is considered a “paper” session. A prearranged paper or panel proposal is a complete session (theme, presider, participants, and respondent) that is submitted to a program unit. In the Call for Papers, members submitting complete sessions were advised that they must submit all necessary materials to a program unit chair for consideration (session proposal, participant forms, and abstract[s]). At times, a single session might have two themes. If you plan to do this with any session, please notify the Annual Meeting Program Director in advance of submitting your Session Requests. A "wild card" session is a prearranged session submitted by an individual on a topic that is not covered within the program unit structure.

The limit on submissions is two. These may consist of the same proposal submitted to two different program units, or any combination of different proposals. Enforcement of this policy is understandably difficult, though easier with OP3 since we can now track who has submitted via that process and to which program units.

Each chair prepares session materials in their entirety and submits them to the executive office by the April 1 deadline through the online Session Entry database. You can see a checklist to help you organize the session materials. For each session planned, online session forms must be submitted which include: theme of session, participants, abstracts, and AV requests. Again, for those units using OP3 the session entry process will be greatly expedited. Either way, Program Book copy will be generated automatically from the materials submitted online. As always the link for the Session Entry database will be available from the Program Unit Chair Resources page in March.

A Program Participant Form must be completed by each participant, including presiders and respondents. It is important that the participant or the pre-arranged session convener complete the form to ensure accuracy in spelling, general information, audiovisual needs, and the signing of the taping consent. All program units who did not use OP3 must still submit hard copies of participant forms; the forms are also due by April 1. A participant form is not necessary for proposals submitted via OP3.

The planning and scheduling of audiovisual (AV) equipment at the Annual Meeting relies upon the accurate completion of both participant and session forms. Please double-check that all AV requests from the participant forms have been transferred to the session form. If there are requests that are puzzling or incomplete, please check with the participant for clarification. Unusual arrangements must be finalized with the executive office as early as possible. The executive office reserves the right to decide whether the AV can be provided, depending on costs and availability. Every attempt will be made to accommodate AV requests received before July 31. The cost of any AV needs received after that date are the responsibility of the participant or the program unit, not the AAR. More information can be found on the AV Requests page.

Due to prohibitively high costs and low demand, the AAR has been unable to secure a vendor for taping of sessions. There are no current plans to continue this service.

Each participant should have provided an e-mail address with their proposal. Please email every individual from whom you received a proposal to inform them of their acceptance or rejection by March 31. If you use OP3 this will be automated for you. Be sure to indicate how and when you should be contacted to confirm their acceptance.

Participants are responsible for providing an electronic version of their abstract to the program unit. Only electronic versions of abstracts will be accepted via the Session Entry database. You will need to “cut and paste” those abstracts, which came in with mail or fax proposals, into the Session Entry database. Panel sessions should have only a single abstract for the entire session, rather than abstracts for each panelist. Panel abstracts must be submitted with the other information for the session in the Session Entry database.

One Session Entry submission must be filled out for each session, and each session should have only one Session Entry submission even if you are dividing up the session thematically. If you plan to offer a session with two themes, please notify the Annual Meeting Team in advance for further instructions. Indicate any special needs your unit may have per each session on the Session Entry submission form including any requests for scheduling.

Sections and groups may request a specific order for their sessions by numbering them. The executive office will do everything possible to maintain this order when scheduling, but it is not always possible to accommodate scheduling requests. For your business meeting, please indicate whether is it more important that your business meeting be kept with the time slot you have selected or the session theme with which you have associated it.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to avoid all thematic conflicts in scheduling. With only ten session slots in which to schedule, there are at least 35 concurrent sessions at any one time. With that in mind, please note only one or two specific conflicts that are most important to be avoided (i.e. Buddhism’s session on "Buddhism in Japan" rather than "anything about Buddhism").

It is important to estimate your attendance as accurately as possible and to choose a seating style. This information is used to place sessions in rooms of appropriate size and layout. While every effort will be made to honor your requests, time and space constraints may well prevent us from satisfying every request.

In addition to your contributions of time and talent, we recognize the financial support that your colleges/universities provide (in the form of telephone calls, copying, and postage) to help our volunteer system work. Without such support, we would not be able to have such a large, varied, and participatory process and event. We do, however, want to be sensitive to those unit chairs who are without institutional support. Thus we have set up a fund to help defray the administrative costs of telephone calls, copying, and postage incurred in your duties as chair (up to US$200) if you have no institutional base. All requests for reimbursement of these specified costs should be sent to the Director of Meetings and Marketing, along with receipts. Only those receipted expenses not covered by your home institution are eligible for reimbursement. AAR does not offer finanical subsidy to program unit chairs for Annual Meeting expenses. If you have any questions about the reimbursement eligibility of your items or if you need an expense report form, please contact the Annual Meeting Team.

All correspondence regarding the Annual Meeting should be mailed to:

Aislinn Jones
Director of Meetings and Marketing
American Academy of Religion
825 Houston Mill RD STE 300
Atlanta, GA 30329-4205
USA
    or
ajones@aarweb.org.

You may send special requests via e-mail to annualmeeting@aarweb.org. Please use the program checklist to make sure that you have submitted everything the executive office needs to schedule your sessions properly.