The joint annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature set an attendance record; 11,000 scholars attended the conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. Matthew Collins, director of congresses for SBL, attributed the attendance to the convenient location, 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 begin holding separate congresses—the result of a unilateral decision made by AAR in 2003 after years of contention between the two groups.
With AAR 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. Attending scholars told PW they would miss seeing their colleagues in other fields and the resulting cross-pollination of ideas.
On the convention floor, the meeting gave attendees the chance to buy books from 173 publishers at big discounts, and provided a venue for publishers to lobby for course adoptions and meet with authors. 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.
Among the speakers was 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 meeting. The AAR, AAUP, ACLU and PEN American Center filed a lawsuit on his behalf, and early last summer a federal court ruled in his favor (PW Daily, June 26). But in late September, Ramadan was again denied a visa because he contributed to aid organizations the State Department contends gave funding to Hamas, though the groups are considered legitimate charities in France. Ramadan spoke via live videoconference from Barcelona. His In the Footsteps of the Prophet is due from Oxford in February and received a starred review from PW (see p. 47).
On Saturday evening, the Association of Theological Booksellers gave the Theologos Publisher of the Year Award to Eerdmans, the sixth win for the house in the seven-year history of the awards. Harper San Francisco took 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). Best Academic Book was Philip Jenkins's The New Faces of Christianity (Oxford). Best Children's Book was To Everything There Is a Season by Jude Daly (Eerdmans).
