History

The American Society for the Study of Religion (ASSR) was founded in 1959. Two years earlier, a symposium was sponsored by the family of Paul Carus, former secretary of the World's Parliament of Religions held in 1893. Even after the Parliament, Carus was active in Parliament business and the larger study of religion for the remainder of his life. The scholars gathered for that initial symposium included Charles Adams, Ludwig Bacchofer, Marshal G.S. Hodgson, Winston King, Edmund Perry, and D.T. Suzuki.

In the following year, the American Council of Learned Societies' Committee on the Study of Religion established the ASSR as the American branch of the International Association for the History of Religions. Early active members included Joseph Kitagawa, Kenneth Morgan, and Edmund Perry. Early past presidents have included Erwin Goodenough, Mircea Eliade, Wilfred C. Smith, Joseph Campbell, Norvin Hein, Charles J. Adams, Joseph Kitagawa, Edward A. Tiryakian, and Ninian Smart. For a full list of past presidents, see below. In 2001 the ASSR elected its first woman president, Judith Berling, of the Graduate Theological Union.

Since 1959 the ASSR has met annually at the end of April and pursued a particular theme in the study of religion over the course of three days. ASSR meetings have followed a tradition of a small number of paper presentations and a large amount of time for discussions. Its meeting topics tend to reflect the trends in the field. Recent topics have included "Religious Controversy," "The Marginalized," "Religious Identity," and "Visual Culture." For past programs, see below.

Since its inception, the ASSR has been intentionally interdisciplinary. Its members come from a variety of disciplines, including classics, philosophy, history, anthropology, philology, and art history, as well as the study of religion. In addition to scholarly pursuits, the ASSR will occasionally provide support for religion departments in need, in keeping with its history of making a case for the centrality of the study of religion within the academy.

For a fuller early history, see Wendy O'Flaherty, "On the ASSR and Joseph Kitagawa," in History of Religions, Vol. 25, No. 4, Religion and Change: ASSR Anniversary Volume (May, 1986), pp. 293-295. (JSTOR)

For a list of past programs, please see the ASSR's Meetings page.

For a list of past presidents, please see the ASSR's Officers page.

Records

The archives of the meetings and business of the ASSR are housed at Harvard Divinity School’s Andover Library. A description of the collection can be found at:

https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/12/resources/995