The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is pleased to announce the launch of Reverberations. This new digital forum on prayer is produced in conjunction with the SSRC’s New Directions in the Study of Prayer initiative, which aims to generate innovative research on practices of prayer and to build an interdisciplinary network of scholars engaged in the study of prayer. Through a grants program led by a multi-disciplinary advisory committee, New Directions in the Study of Prayer currently funds twenty-eight scholars and journalists conducting research on practices of prayer throughout the world. The initiative is situated within the SSRC’s program on Religion and the Public Sphere, and is supported with funding from the John Templeton Foundation.

We envision Reverberations as a digital hub for communication among participants in the New Directions in the Study of Prayer project, a platform for a broader set of academic and public engagements, and a space within which a wide range of resources and materials related to the practice of prayer will be compiled, curated, studied, and explored. You will find here detailed information about participants in the SSRC project and their funded research projects. The forum will also host a prayer blog, where a diverse group of scholars and journalists will regularly post contributions of various kinds. And we will publish original longer-form writing, interviews with researchers and journalists studying prayer, and a range of other essays and exchanges.

Last but not least, we encourage you to explore our experimental prayer “portals.” These curated collections of resources related to the study of prayer are intended to appeal to a wide range of academic and public readers. Each highly customized portal, designed and presented by one or more of our contributors, will introduce readers to a set of objects and ideas associated with a particular dimension or aspect of prayer. Visit our inaugural portal today, and check back frequently as we open new portals into an unfolding compendium of academic resources, everyday materials, and prayer paraphernalia.

Whether you are a scholar of prayer or are simply interested in the subject, please join us as we investigate a variety of new directions in the study of prayer. As you familiarize yourself with this new forum, we welcome your inquiries and suggestions at religion@ssrc.org.