Since its inception, the North American Religions book series has steadily disseminated gracefully written, pathbreaking explorations of religion in North America. Books in the series move among the discourses of ethnographic, textual, and historical analysis and across a range of topics, including sound, story, food, nature, healing, crime, and pilgrimage. In so doing they bring religion into view as a style and form of belonging, a set of tools for living with and in relations of power, a mode of cultural production and reproduction, and a vast repertory of the imagination. Whatever their focus, books in the series remain attentive to the shifting and contingent ways in which religious phenomena are named, organized, and contested. They bring fluency in the best of contemporary theoretical and historical scholarship to bear on the study of religion in North America. The series focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on religion in the United States in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The series editors welcome creative, venturesome, and challenging books that are carefully researched and compellingly written. We favor studies that start from the premise that religion itself matters even as they pay attention to the cultural, social, and political contexts of religious beliefs and practices, and to the intersections of religion and race, gender, and sexuality. We are open to a wide range of methodologies, including ethnography, historical study, and the close reading of literary and other texts.
All works submitted for consideration must be broadly construed and critically engaged, ideally blending theory seamlessly within arguments and supporting interesting contentions with clear evidence. The big-picture contribution of the work must be clear. Writing must be both accessible and engaging. Most books in the series will be single- or dual-authored by scholars situated within religious studies or closely related fields including American studies, history, anthropology, and literature.
A proposal should be at least 6–10 pages in length and should include (i) a statement of the significance, need, and organization of the work, (ii) its intended readership(s), including particular disciplines, any likely course adoption into specific types of common classes, any likely audience(s) outside the academy, and any relevant organizations whose members may be interested in the work, (iii) a brief discussion of 3–5 similar/competing works and how the proposed volume will distinguish itself, (iv) an annotated chapter outline with 1–2 paragraphs describing what each chapter will discuss, (v) ideally 2 or more sample chapters, (vi) an indication of the time line for completion and the anticipated length, and (vii) a current copy of the author’s curriculum vitae. (Note: Typical manuscripts should be roughly 80,000–90,000 words in total.) Please contact the series editors if you are interested in submitting a proposal.
