SBL paper proposal deadline extended to March 9!

Hello All,

just a quick update: the call for papers for the 2026 SBL Annual Meeting has been extended until 11:59 pm Eastern Time on March 9.

Looking forward to more submissions!

Here is our CfP: New Directions in Greco-Roman Religions (co-sponsored with the Greco-Roman Religions)

This session is completely open: we invite papers dealing with any aspect of Greek or Roman religion, including their interactions with Judaism, Christianity, and modern paganism. Preference will be given to paper proposals from junior scholars and to those who have not yet submitted a proposal to the Greco-Roman Religions section or to the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions.

Additionally, the Greco-Roman Religions Section invites proposals for another open session in 2026:

Encountering Religious Artifacts in Greco-Roman Religions

In recent decades scholarship has investigated dimensions of Greek and Roman religions well beyond the traditional focal points of myth and ritual, most notably through attention to material artifacts. This session conjoins the latter with consideration of the experiential dimension of religion, specifically by exploring emotional and cognitive aspects of visual or other forms of sensory engagement (touching, smelling) with religious artifacts, such as sculptures or paintings of deities, votive offerings, representations of ritual practices, and depictions in material form of religious symbols (e.g., herms, bucrania, sacred animals or plants). Viable topics also include studies focused on the experiential dimension involved in the creation of such religious artifacts.

Our Treasurer, Jacob Latham asked me to also remind you of another set of calls for papers for SBL 2026:

Religious Ruins and Reuse

This panel focuses on ancient religious ruins and their reuse during antiquity. By reimagining the factors and conditions that led to the damage, alteration, abandonment, and reuse of ancient religious buildings and monuments during Roman and late Roman times, a dynamic picture of sites emerges that more fully engages the complexities of destruction, ""spoliation"" and the altered architectural ""grammar"" of ruins. We invite papers on these and related themes. And...

Processions and Portabilia

Inspired by a chapter of the same name in Georgia Frank's book Unfinished Christians: Ritual Objects and Silent Subjects in Late Antiquity, this session explores the central role played by processions in the rituals and practices of all religions in the ancient Roman world. Portabilia, or the sacred objects carried in processions, were integral to the experience and reified civic and communal identity. We invite papers that employ processions and portabilia to humanize and materialize religion in the Roman world.

These two panels are organized by Archaeologies of Disability and Disenfranchisement co-sponsored with Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World. They have recently engaged questions of labor, disability, and disenfranchisement in the Greco-Roman world. Inspired by these conversations, our units invite papers that explore the material traces of disability and disenfranchisement and the agency of representations of poverty, healthcare, and sickness.