Religion Scholars Break Attendance Record

Special Report from the American Academy of Religion/ Society of Biblical Literature Meeting

by Lynn Garrett and Jana Riess, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 11/22/2006

The American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature held their joint annual meeting in Washington, D.C., November 18-21. The conference drew more than 11,000 scholars—up once again over last year's record breaker in Philadelphia.

Matthew Collins, director of congresses for SBL, attributed the record-breaking attendance to the location—"the largest part of our membership is within driving distance"—an expanded program, and the fact that this is the last combined meeting of the two organizations on the East Coast. Next year's joint meeting will be held in San Diego, but beginning in 2008, the two organizations will hold separate congresses, AAR in Chicago (Oct. 25-28) and SBL in Boston (Nov. 22-25)—the result of a controversial decision by AAR in 2003 after years of contention between the two groups.

With AAR now under the leadership of a new executive director, many exhibitors hope the “Great Divorce” can be reversed. Said Eerdmans editor-in-chief Jon Pott, “We publish broadly enough that we’ll have to do both meetings,” a financial and scheduling burden. Some attending scholars also told PW they would miss seeing their colleagues in other fields and the resulting cross-pollination of ideas.

It's About the Books

Conference attendees thronged the exhibit hall in the Washington Convention Center to buy books from 173 publishers at 30-70% discounts. The meeting also provides a venue for publishers to lobby for course adoptions, meet with authors and look for new projects. With the rise in recent years of the bestselling scholar-author, houses like Doubleday and Harper San Francisco find the gathering more important than ever for scouting talent. This year, books on religion and politics as well as pop culture were plentiful, continuing a trend that has been strong for the past three years.

One distinct product trend seems to be forthcoming responses to Richard Dawkins's controversial bestseller The God Delusion. Dawkins's trenchant atheism hasn't sat well with many people of faith, and at least two religion publishers will put out critiques in the spring. InterVarsity Press offers its Dawkins corrective with Alister McGrath's The Dawkins Delusion, scheduled for release in the spring of 2007. "McGrath came out of an atheist background himself, so he's able to give a kind of intellectual and personal critique," said IVP publisher Bob Fryling. Meanwhile, Templeton Foundation Press, which has a deep backlist of books exploring the intersection of religion and science, takes on Dawkins's thesis in Something There: The Biology of the Human Spirit, due out in March.

Strong Traffic and Sales

Publishers reported stronger-than-usual traffic and book sales at this year's meeting, probably due to its location. David Dobson, director of product management for Westminster John Knox Press, said the first day's sales had been record breaking for the Louisville-based house, and that they had sold out of several titles. "People are buying four or five books at a time, instead of just looking for one book," he said.

At the Baker booth, as attendees pressed in to examine key Brazos Press and Baker Academic titles, sales and marketing director Dave Lewis said that the house will have to bring a bigger booth next year. "You can hardly move for all the people," he said. "As we develop the breadth of academic markets and religious traditions to whom we publish, we're going to have to make it easier for people to shop."

Paraclete Press already made that switch this year, swelling beyond the traditional eight-by-ten space it has had the last few years. "We just got too big for that space," said Laura McKendree, director of trade sales. "The titles we are able to offer at AAR/SBL expanded, and people have received us more each year. I can already tell that more people are coming into the booth now because we have this bigger space."

High-Profile Speakers

Saturday's keynote address, "Religion after September 11," was delivered by Karen Armstrong. Other speakers included Oxford University professor Tariq Ramadan, whose visa revocation by the U.S. because of statements critical of the Bush Administration caused a firestorm of protest at the 2004 annual meeting. The AAR, AAUP, ACLU and PEN American Center filed a lawsuit on his behalf; a federal court ruled in his favor (PW Daily, June 26). But in late September Ramadan was once again denied a visa, ostensibly because of contributions he made to French and Swiss aid organizations the State Department contends gave funding to Hamas, though the groups are considered legitimate charities in France. Ramadan spoke on Sunday evening via live videoconference from Barcelona. His latest book, In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad (Oxford, Feb.) received a starred review from PW (Nov. 27).

Appropriately for a meeting held in the nation's capital, many of the sessions revolved around religion and politics, with Georgetown University professor and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright speaking at a Monday session on the topics covered in her latest book, The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (HarperCollins, 2006).

Award Winners

On Saturday evening, the Association of Theological Booksellers awarded this year's Theologos Publisher of the Year Award to Eerdmans, the sixth win for the independent house in the seven-year history of the awards (it shared honors in 2004 with Baker's Brazos Press imprint). Harper San Francisco took two awards, for Book of the Year—N.T. Wright's Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense—and Best General Interest Book—Barbara Brown Taylor's Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith. Best Academic Book was Philip Jenkins's The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford). The award for Best Children's Book went to To Everything There Is a Season, written and illustrated by Jude Daly (Eerdmans).