11/30/2022 – My trip to the AAR in Denver

If you want to know what attending the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting is like, this is my story, vlog-style. This is also TenOnReligion.

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So, I went to the 2022 AAR/SBL Annual Meeting in Denver. The AAR is the American Academy of Religion and SBL is the Society of Biblical Literature. I've been to most of the annual meetings dating back to my first one in San Diego in 2007. The annual meeting is held in a different city every year the weekend before Thanksgiving. Although from 2008-2010 the meeting was in late October or early November and most folks didn’t seem to like that so much, so it went back to the weekend before Thanksgiving.

As far as presenting a paper or being part of a panel, for those of you who don't know how this works, you submit a proposal earlier in the year in February or so based on the call for papers in a specific subfield. These can be found on the AAR or SBL websites. Presenters get notified in the spring or early summer so they can start planning their trip. I submitted a proposal and was selected to present in the Panikkar Symposium which was also a joint meeting with the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy. The Panikkar Symposium has been held for many years on the Friday of the meeting weekend, but it was announced that this would likely be the last one held at the AAR Annual Meeting, so I was excited to be a part of it. It is a group of scholars who focus on the writings of the Spanish-Hindu scholar Raimon Panikkar who passed away a little over a decade ago.

I woke up on Friday morning at 3:30 am, got a rideshare to the airport, arrived at 4:25, was through security in ten minutes and hung around until my 5:50 flight to Denver. I needed to charge a device and saw a Christmas tree and waited at my gate until I boarded. I think I slept through much of the flight, which was around 1 hour and 40 minutes. My flight arrived at a gate in the newer part of Denver's terminal 3. Here’s my plane after arrival. I started walking down to the train which shuttles people underground between the three terminals. Here’s the train. I walked through the terminal and went outside to find the train to downtown. I’m now in Colorado. It was around 12 degrees and the cold slapped me pretty hard in the face. There was a snowstorm the night before and now it was very cold. I took a very long escalator down to the train terminal, bought a ticket, and hopped on the A-train which runs between the airport and Denver's Union Station downtown. I could now see the snow as the train traveled on the outskirts of Denver into town. The train is a nice relaxing ride, with luggage racks for travelers. We pulled into Union Station, one of the grand old train stations of America. I got off and headed with the crowd inside. My late father used to take me on train trips around the country when I was younger and I've been inside Denver's Union Station many times. It's been significantly renovated since then and looks great.

I then went outside to catch the free 16th Street Mall bus to my hotel. I was staying at the Sheraton and finally arrived around 10:50 am to check in. I took a look around the hotel room for a minute to see where I’d be staying for the next few nights. After putting my luggage in my room and putting on my tie, I first walked a block over to Corner Bakery to grab some lunch. Just what I needed after traveling. I then walked 4-5 blocks over to the Colorado Convention Center which was the main location of the meeting. Some of the sessions were being held at a few of the surrounding hotels as well, which is often the case. The Colorado Convention Center is great with this famous cool giant blue bear outside staring inside. All meeting participants were asked to print their name badge at home to save time. Just pick up a badge holder and a lanyard. This year there were also different colored stickers to indicate one's sensitivity to personal space as a result of the COVID pandemic. I left and went back to the Sheraton to check out my first session. The Sheraton had these fire pits outside which were kind of interesting.

I've been interested in the Theology Without Walls group for some time now, so I stopped by their session meeting at 1:00 pm in the Director's Row, Room E. I hung out there for about an hour and a half and heard several good papers on nondualism. I then had to leave to get over to the Panikkar Symposium. I walked through the cold and snow a few blocks over to the Hyatt Regency across the street from the Convention Center. While going up the escalator I saw the dinner location for our group dinner after. I found my way upstairs to Granite Room A. The three main leaders of the Panikkar Symposium – Michiko Yusa from Western Washington University, Young-chan Ro from George Mason University, and Peter Phan from Georgetown University – always plan a dinner after the session. I never went for a variety of reasons and wasn't sure if I wanted to go tonight because I was so tired from my early start. Shortly after walking into the meeting room, Young-chan came up to me and basically told me I needed to come out to dinner with the group. I guess the decision was already made for me. This was a four-hour session with a break after about two hours. The first part were the "younger" scholars which is when I presented, and the second part were the "seasoned senior scholars." I asked someone to take a picture of me looking like I was saying something important just to prove I was there, however Michiko took some pictures of the group as well. My presentation was titled "Religious Symbols and Myths in Tillich and Panikkar." I was so grateful that a number of the participants came up and told me how much they enjoyed my presentation. It meant a lot to me. The senior scholars included Frank Clooney, whom I've episoded before, an Australian Panikkar scholar Gerald Hall, Peter Phan, Young-chan Ro, and Michiko Yusa. We then went out to dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company across the street. I was not that hungry and am allergic to shellfish so I just had a caesar salad. Michiko was retiring so there was a celebration with a cake. I was glad I went to dinner with the group as I had a great time socializing with these new friends. Next to me is a graduate student named Rita from Brazil who is doing dissertation research on Panikkar. Then Hwa Yeong Wang who studies Confucian feminism. Then Jin Park who is the current Vice President of the AAR. She is the Philosophy & Religion Department Chair at American University in Washington DC. I've met her a few times before and always feel like I have a good conversation. On the left is Andrew Thrasher who studies a number of things such as postsecularism as well as Panikkar. After dinner I was really tired so I went back to my hotel and crashed probably around 10 or so.

On Saturday morning I woke up dragging a little bit from my 3:30 am start the previous morning, but eventually got up and got ready and headed a block over to McDonald's for a quick breakfast. For some reason, this was one of the more sketchy McDonald's I had been in, so I just got my food to go and went back up to my hotel room to eat. I then headed over to the Embassy Suites to Aspen Room B for a session on a book by historian Robert Norton on “Ernst Troeltsch, Democracy and the First World War.” I'm very familiar and conversant in Troeltsch's theology and philosophy, but the focus on the history of his political thought was new to me. I then found the book exhibit hall upstairs. The AAR/SBL has a huge book exhibit with many publishers providing discounts to scholars for all of the new and recent books in the field. I grabbed a sandwich for lunch and was lucky because shortly after a huge line developed. Yeah. I then headed over to the next session I was interested in on Derrida's interpretation of Marx in Mile High Room 4B. I ended up not being a huge fan of this topic for some reason, and left before the last presenter. I wandered around the book exhibit a little bit more before going across the street to the Hyatt and up to Mineral Hall F to attend a session on preparing religion scholars for non-academic careers. It was an interesting conversation. My last session of the day was the best of the day just down the hallway in Mineral Hall A. It was on the 90th anniversary of Tillich's book The Socialist Decision. There were some great presentations elaborating on Tillich and socialism both in his time in Germany and America. After that my plan was to go get some dinner at Noodles & Company across the street from my hotel, but after entering and waiting a few minutes, those in line were told they weren't taking any more orders for about 30 minutes until they caught up on all the orders they have. A bunch of people left, including me. I walked down the street, found some place called Taco Bell, grabbed some food to go, and headed back to my hotel room. I holed up there, ate my taco, and started to write this script. I then found on TV the old 1979 film The China Syndrome, which is a great movie about a nuclear plant disaster. After that I slept.

The next morning, I woke up early and wanted to order some breakfast to pick up. I discovered that Corner Bakery was closed on Sundays so I ordered from a local Denver breakfast chain called the Delectable Egg. I got ready and I went to pick up the order and brought it back to my hotel room. Upon closer inspection, though, I discovered my pancakes were just a little bit overcooked and burnt. I ate all but the last half a pancake because no amount of butter or syrup could save it. Outside my hotel window I saw there was still snow on the roof below. I then headed over to the Convention Center. This really is a pretty nice place. The coffee bar was a little busy. I walked down the hall and took the escalator down to find Mile High 4D this time for one of the sessions I was most anticipating this entire weekend. It was "The Concept of Home in Comparative Theology and Theology Without Walls." Many of my favorite scholars were presenting. I found the Mile High Room 4D and settled in. I saw Andrew Thrasher who spoke at the Panikkar session with me on Friday. I talked with Wesley Wildman who had written some of my favorite books on philosophical theology. This session was so good I'm going to have a separate episode just on this session coming up in a few weeks, so stay tuned.

After that session ended, I had a conversation with a new scholar from Villanova University named Stephanie Wong who was sitting behind me. She works in Christian-Confucian comparative theology and I found the description of her work quite interesting. I wish her well in her journey. I met Perry Schmidt-Leukal (previously on this channel), talked with Catherine Cornille (also on this channel), and Mark Heim, on whose work my master's thesis was based, as well as Jerry Martin, the person who started the Theology Without Walls initiative (also on this channel). Was that enough self-promotion for you? Anywho, this was easily my favorite session of the entire weekend. I'm glad I came to Denver just for this.

As I was wandering through the Convention Center heading to lunch, I found my old supervisor Elizabeth Ursic from Mesa Community College in Arizona from many years ago. It was great to say hi and see her again. We always seem to run into each other at the AAR. I took a look at the big blue bear from inside and headed out. I walked a few blocks over to a local sandwich shop called Snarf's and had a conversation in line with two friends who teach in Europe, one from Luxembourg and one from Germany. You really get the opportunity to meet people from all around the world here. I went back to the Convention Center to eat my sandwich. After lunch I did some more book browsing and ran into Marianne Moyaert, another comparative theology scholar. I've always wanted to do an episode on some of her work so I asked her about it. She has written some great research on the philosopher Paul Ricoeur and religion as well as interfaith rituals. She asked me to email her for some source material, which I plan on doing, so look out for a future episode early next year on Marianne.

I looked at many of the book publishing booths and checked out a few books on a list that I created in advance to see which ones I might be interested in buying at the conference discount rate. I then headed over to room 303 in the Convention Center for a session titled “Beyond the Academy: Pursuing Jobs Off of the Tenure Track.” This was ironic because I walked by a contingent faculty awareness sign on my way there. I went down the hall to Room 303 to find my session. One of the more interesting speakers was Robert P. Jones who was one of the co-founders of Public Religion Research Institute, a nonprofit organization which conducts public opinion polls on a variety of topics. After the session, I had a good conversation with Mary Scine, (not sure if I’m saying her name right) an MDiv student in Florida. My last session of the day was back in Mile High Room 4B. This was in the Religion and Politics Unit on Samuel Perry and Philip Gorski's book, The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy. A group of panelists provided some good insight and ideas for improvement on this sociological work. Even though it's not my main area of research, I am interested in politics a little bit, so it was good to get some exposure to current research in the field of religion and politics. My dinner was at the Noodles & Company, which did not have a long line this time like the night before. Back to the hotel for a phone call to my family, the end of a football game on TV, and then sleep.

After I woke up in the morning and got ready, I went out and I snapped a photo of the Colorado State Capitol Building outside my hotel and went to Corner Bakery for some pancakes. My family likes this place and my pancakes were much better than the ones I had the day before. I finished getting ready and packed up to head out for the day. Since I wasn't coming back to the hotel before the 11:00 am checkout time, I had to lug my backpack and suitcase around the entire day. This is a common sight on the last day of the event, on Tuesday, but not quite as common on Monday, though I did see a few other troubled travelers like me. When the session schedule came out months ago, I had two different sessions I wanted to attend at the Monday morning time slot. Then a session I had originally wanted to attend on Saturday was moved to this Monday morning time slot as well, so now I had three sessions I wanted to attend but could only choose one. I headed back to the Convention Center Room 303. I ended up selecting a session on writing for a popular audience and I'm glad I did. It was a great session. There were four authors who all had written bestselling books: Pete Enns, Randall Balmer, Kate Bowler, and Anthea Butler.

I then had a little bit of time to kill before my next session, so I bought two books that I had my eye on in the book exhibit and went back over to Snarf's for another sandwich. This time while waiting in line I met two super nice female scholars who were Old Testament professors at universities in Texas. We noticed strange Star Wars themed art on the wall. I grabbed my sandwich and went over to the Hyatt Regency and found a perch near a TV to watch part of the US men's national soccer team in their World Cup game against Wales. I ended up finishing my lunch and leaving just before they scored their goal. I went up the escalator to the meeting room area for a discussion on "What can religion departments do to support more diverse careers?" Around the same time there was another session on the SBL side with one of my favorite Hebrew Bible scholars, Israel Finkelstein (his books are great), but it was back over at the convention center across the street and I really didn't want to lug my stuff back over there.

I then went over to the Embassy Suites initially getting a bit disoriented and walking the wrong way down a city block, but I eventually found the hotel. I took the elevator upstairs and found Anna Sun to introduce myself. She's a Confucian scholar who loved the video I did on her book, "Is Confucianism a World Religion" a while back. Standing next to her was Philip Gorski whom I saw speak the day before. We chatted for a few minutes and I headed down the hall to room Aspen A. The session I wanted to attend for my last event this year was titled "Teaching Angry Christians." It had Mark Clatterbuck, a dude I had worked with over 25 years ago in a book warehouse while we were both in graduate school. We've had different journeys in academia, but it was great to hear him speak.

After the session I chatted with him and his wife along with a few other folks for probably half an hour. I now had quite a bit of time to kill before going to the airport. I starting walking down the main pedestrian street, the 16th street mall, searching for a place to grab some food. I wasn't too hungry and didn't want to spend a lot a money. Several places that looked promising were already closed for the evening. I ended up walking all the way back to Denver Union Station. I found a burger bar place right next door and ate a rather good tasting burger. I bought my ticket and hopped on the train back to the airport.

I intentionally wanted to get to the airport a little early because when I arrived in Denver back on Friday, I saw a huge line to go through security. When I walked inside the terminal, however, the line was very short. I was a little surprised since this was Thanksgiving week. I guess most folks who were flying weren't doing it until Tuesday or Wednesday. I breezed through security and got onto the terminal train. I got off at terminal C and headed up the escalators to the terminal. You can see the train station below. I wandered down the terminal to find a table with seating so I could type some more of this script. The flight back home was rather uneventful. Walked off the plane, took the escalator down, and walked outside to wait for my ride home. And that’s how a trip to the AAR Annual Meeting works. At least for me.

This was quite a different production than I normally do, so let me know in the comments what you think. Also, take a look at some of the video episodes that I’ve done and see if anything interests you. There’s a lot of good stuff there. Until next time, stay curious. If you enjoyed this, support the channel in the link below, please like and share this video and subscribe to this channel. This is TenOnReligion.