1. Mark Juergensmeyer Best Dissertation Award

This new award recognizes an outstanding dissertation that makes an important contribution to our understanding of religion and international relations, providing new substantive contributions to this field, critically applying research techniques and approaches, making conceptual and methodological connections, and challenging orthodoxies in any social science or humanities discipline.

> Recipient Criteria

• Authors must be current members of ISA.

• Doctoral dissertations must be original works and completed within the two-year period preceding the year of the competition (i.e., submitted for the PhD in 2021, 2022 or 2023).

• Dissertations must fall into the broadly defined category of religion and international relations in approach and/or subject matter; we encourage multidisciplinary approaches to the study of religion and international relations.

• Each dissertation must be accompanied by a letter from the dissertation chair nominating the dissertation for this award and explaining why it deserves this award.

> Prize

• *The winner will receive a plaque at the awards presentations at the annual ISA Annual Convention.

• * In addition to the award for Best dissertation, the Committee may award 'Honorable Mention' to one other dissertation that, in the Committee's view, merits this distinction.

> Selection Process

• The selection committee will be comprised of three senior scholars headed by a chair of the committee who is preferably an ExCom member, or else at least a section member.
  • 2023 Committee Members:

    Anita Weiss (Chair), University of Oregon
    Mark Jurgensmeyer, University of California, Santa Barbara
    David Buckley, University of Louisville

> Nomination/Application Instructions:

• To be considered for this award, dissertations may be submitted to the selection committee by any person, including the author, and must be accompanied by a
  recommendation from the dissertation committee chair.

• Self-nominations are welcome.

• To be considered, an electronic copy of the dissertation must be sent directly to each of the three members of the selection committee.

• Dissertations must be received by October 20 for the year they are being considered.

• Decisions of the selection committee are final..

2. Emerging Scholar Award

This award recognizes an outstanding early career scholar (5 years post-PhD) from any discipline who has made a significant contribution to the field of Religion and International Relations. Adding this award reflects the younger demographics of our section. This will be offered in alternate years with the Distinguished Scholar Award.

> Details

• This award is being offered this year (2024) for the first time.

> Recipient Criteria

• Recipients must be current members of ISA and the REL section.

• Nominee must be within five years from the day the PhD was granted until the deadline for submissions (August 31).

• Nominee must have a record of publication and/or professional activity that has demonstrated their work to be significant in the religion and international relations field.

> Prize

• The winner will receive a plaque at the awards presentations at the annual ISA Annual Convention.

> Nomination/Application Instructions

• Nominations must be accompanied by a nomination letter, written by a scholar other than the nominee as well as the nominee's curriculum vitae that highlights the ways in which the nominee’s scholarship and/or professional activity makes a contribution to religion and international relations.

• All nominations should be submitted to the committee chair by October 1 for the year they are being considered.

  • Committee members:

    Jonathan Fox (Chair), Bar-Ilan University
    Ron HassnerUniversity of California, Berkeley
    Jeff Haynes, London Metropolitan University

• Decisions of the selection committee are final.

AWARDS COMMITTEE MEMBERS