Author Archives: Ricardo M. Barrera

Deadline for Weber Best Conference Paper Award Nominations Extended to April 15, 2017

The Weber Best Conference Paper Award recognizes the best paper dealing with religion and politics presented at the previous year’s APSA Annual Meeting. The paper should address a timely and relevant topic, within the discipline and beyond, in a theoretically innovative and methodologically thorough manner. Please submit nominations to the chair of the committee. 

Deadline for nominations: 15 April 2017 – Self nominations welcome!

Prof Monica Duffy-Toft (Chair)
Professor of Government and Public Policy
Blavatnik School of Government
University of Oxford, UK
monica.toft@bsg.oxford.ac.uk

Dr David Siroky
Associate Professor of Political Science
School of Politics and Global Studies
Arizona State University, USA
david.siroky@asu.edu

Dr. Tanya B. Schwarz
Visiting Research Fellow
Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
University of Notre Dame, USA
tanyabschwarz@gmail.com

Dr Pazit Ben-Nun Bloom
Senior Lecturer
Political Science Department
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
pazit.bennun@mail.huji.ac.il

The Inaugural Ted G. Jelen Award Goes to…

By Paul A. Djupe and Angelia R. Wilson

One of the exciting features of this blog is its integration with the APSA Religion and Politics Section Journal, Politics & Religion. These are exciting times in the section and at the journal in part because of the slew of new awards the section is able to give out. One of them that we had the privilege of being involved with is The Ted G. Jelen Award for the best article published in the journal for each volume. First a word about Ted.

Ted (PhD OSU 1979) is an outstanding political scientist with a special relationship to the subfield and journal. He was a founding member of the organized section and was the co-founding editor of Politics & Religion with Sabrina Ramet in 2007, handing it over to Angie and I in great shape after five years (volumes from 2008-2011). But that scratches the surface of Ted’s service to the subfield. Ted has served on innumerable award committees, was the editor of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and has shared his expertise regularly with authors as panel discussant. There is arguably no political scientist who has helped other scholars more to move their religion and politics ideas to print than Ted.

The first volume considered covered 2016 (vol 10). We had a wealth of articles from which choose the inaugural award winner and it was difficult to settle on just one. In the end, we chose:

Gershon, Sarah Allen, Adrian D. Pantoja, and J. Benjamin Taylor. 2016. “God in the Barrio?: The Determinants of Religiosity and Civic Engagement among Latinos in the United States.” Politics & Religion 9(1): 84-110.

The piece challenges the conventional wisdom that religious engagement is tightly tied to political activity, finding that the tether weakens across the generations of Latinos in the US. The paper also demonstrates that Latinos are secularizing along with other Americans, but is able to conclude that a vibrant public sphere does not have to suffer as a result.

Also posted here.

New Section Award – Distinguished Reviewer Awards

In order recognize the important work involved in the peer review process, the Section Journal, Politics and Religion, will honor five outstanding reviewers per year. Selected by the Journal editor or editorial team, honorees will be recognized for their dedication at the annual business meeting and each will receive a $50 gift certificate from Cambridge University Press.

Press Release – Section Journal – Incoming Editors, New Plans

Incoming Editors for Politics and Religion Share New Plans for Journal

The APSA and the Organized Section on Religion and Politics announced new editors for the journal, Politics and Religion.

Elizabeth A. Oldmixon, University of North Texas, will serve as lead editor.

Mehmet Gurses, Florida Atlantic University, and Nicholas Tampio, Fordham University, will serve as editors.

Their five-year editorial term commenced January 2017.

“To raise the profile of religion and politics scholarship in the discipline, we encourage the timely publication of accessible yet rigorous scholarship,” explains Oldmixon. “In particular, the journal will now accept the submission of shorter, problem-driven manuscripts of approximately 4,500 words, in addition to the longer form pieces currently published in the journal. These would not be research notes, per se, as we would have an expectation of theoretically informed work, but a premium would be placed on strong, parsimonious writing.”

The editors also plan to develop special issues on timely topics such as the religion and the carceral state or religion and human rights."

Read much more here.

From the Chair – New Awards?

Letter from the Chair:

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to bring your attention to the various awards the section is offering this year. We have a total of five(!) different awards that will be given out at this year's annual meeting. To find out more, or to nominate someone (including yourself!) for an award, just follow this link 2017 Awards and Committees.

As an exec committee, we have also been discussing introducing additional awards that recognise:

1. Emerging Scholars
2. Lifetime Achievement
3. Service to the Scholarly community, policy and society more broadly

We would love to hear your thoughts as a membership about this and also suggestions for the criteria for such awards and for people that the awards could be named after. We would especially like to name any new awards in honour of outstanding scholars who are women and/or people of color. Rather than reply all, can you please send any thoughts and suggestions directly to me as chair e.k.wilson@rug.nl

Many thanks and best wishes,

Erin