Get involved! A report from our first ever online annual business meeting (2/2/2025)
Dear colleagues,
I am happy to report back from our first ever online annual business meeting, the minutes of which (courtesy of our new Secretary, Chance Bonar) are included below, followed by our annual treasurer report from Jacob Latham. We were happy to see all of you who could attend.
The most important action item for you now is to get involved in one of our conference events. I will send separately a list of all SAMR CfPs for the SBL/AAR and the SCS/AIA meetings.
Additionally, we are very much looking for relatively junior colleagues who have almost publication-ready projects that they would be happy to share in a presentation on Zoom in front of a SAMR audience this spring in exchange for our input (and, needless to say, eternal wisdom). And, as always, I am still collecting syllabi, that we want to make available for colleagues for perusal to enrich the experience of teachers and students alike.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any other questions, ideas or suggestions to me (varhelyi@bu.edu), our Treasurer, Jacob Latham (spqr@utk.edu) or our Secretary, Chance Bonar (chance.bonar@tufts.edu).
Wishing a good spring to all,
Zsuzsa
Minutes from the Annual Business Meeting (Chance Bonar)
SAMR Business Meeting 2 Feb 2025
Attendees
Isabel Koster
Lora Holland
Barbette Spaeth
Michiel van Veldhuizen
Julia Judge Mulhall
Sandy Blakely
Eric Orlin
CJ Rice
Chance Bonar
Zsuzsa Varhelyi
Jeff Brodd
Introductions
Where we are
SBL/AAR 2025
· Session in honor of Prof. Brenk in Greco-Roman Religions unit
· Session on religious violence and the affective turn in Violence and Representations of Violence unit
SCS/AIA 2026
· Session in honor of Prof. Brenk
Where we’re going
· Opportunities for mentorship within SAMR
o Highlight how we function as philologists, historians, and more
· Could SAMR offer a space on Zoom for junior scholars to workshop their scholarship and/or give a presentation?
o Eric Orlin offered to take lead on organizing this
· Requests to collect syllabi on Greek and/or Roman religions
· Possibility of summer conferences in 2025 or 2026?
o Hungary (Zsuzsa)? Ocho Rios, Jamaica (Sandy/Amelia Brown)?
o “The Gods are Watching” – emphasis on surveillance, divine omniscience
o “Connective Past” – digital and quantitative analyses, with perhaps some room for papers on religion
· Do we still want to pursue affiliate status with SBL? (CJ Rice)
o This was attempted around 2023 and seemed to have fizzled out; SBL back-channels weren’t sure about why SAMR was interested in doing so & didn’t yet make a full case for how SAMR was distinct from other groups in or at SBL
o SBL back-channels said they might be able to support costs for A/V, if this is a key reason for attempting to gain affiliate status
o Could we seek out other SBL units to cooperate with, beyond the Greco-Roman religions unit?
o A main goal should be to encourage active membership from our current long-list (~130 people)
Action Items
· Zsuzsa
o Send SBL CFPs to the SAMR listserv
· Chance
o Create form to find out who is affiliated with SBL, AAR, SCS, AIA, ASOR, AAH, other
o Maybe also collect other demographic data (e.g., stage in career of members)?
o CJ offered to help with collecting & organizing this data
Treasurer’s Annual Report (Jacob Latham)
Annual Report – 2024 (February 2, 2025)
Membership
Total Members: 359
Paid Members: 142
Lifetime: 21
Annual: 78
Student/contingent/retired: 46
Unpaid Members: 217
New (I think) paid members in 2024: 28 (12 student/retired)
Due Tiers Faculty: $20/yearly
Student-Contingent Faculty-Retired: $10/yearly
Lifetime: $200.00
Financial
Account Balance 1 January 2024: $9,585.22
Account Balance 1 January 2025: $7,423.76
Balance Sheet
Deposits Total: $1,875.59
Expenses:
January St. Andrews Conference: $3185.77
Malta Conference: $592.09
February Membership Refund: $10.05
Web Hosting, etc: $300
May Membership Refund: $10.05
Web Hosting, etc: $300
July International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR): $183.11
August Web Hosting, etc: $300
Commitment to Connected Pasts: $1500 (not conveyed)