Emotion and Christianity: Call for Papers from Editors of Church History

The following special journal CFP comes to us from John Corrigan, one of the editors of the journal Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, published by the American Society of Church History:

The editors of Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture invite submissions for a special issue on the topic: “Emotion and Christianity: Feelings Toward and About Jesus and the Saints.” Papers may focus on any historical period and any geographical region. Please send queries or complete manuscripts to: Ms. Tammy Heise, Senior Assistant, Church History, Church-History@admin.fsu.edu.

Simple Things You See are All Complicated: Random Reflections on the 2nd Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture

Paul Harvey

The simple things you see are all complicated
I look pretty young, but I'm just back-dated, yeah
The Who, "Substitute"

If it's a lie, then we fight, on that lie. But we gotta fight.
Slim Charles in The Wire

Elesha, Janine, and Kelly have initiated a vigorous conversation arising from one particular session at the 2^nd Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture which concluded just over a week ago. Because I had to leave just before this particular session, I don’t have much to add to it in particular, but I had a few stray thoughts on other parts of the meeting to throw up here. Today’s post will be lighter, more observations about some key phrases and indelible memories that I’ll carry from the conference. Tomorrow I hope to develop a few more serious thoughts about one session in particular, the one involving a discussion about the "bracketing" of religious belief in religious studies -- its rationale, its benefits, and its costs.

Before continuing, the last session was on "The Future of American Religion," but I was unable to be there, so am really hoping that one of ya'll out there will post on the discussion that went on there.

The first thought: a shout out to my partner in crime Philip Goff for organizing the conference in the first place, a huge undertaking of fundraising and organization. I don’ t know whether Phil got thanked at the end, but having lunch with him just before I left, he told myself and someone else present about his death struggle with the J.W. Marriott (the conference hotel) to get them to do what they had in fact been contracted to do (such as set up our room chairs in a circular pattern, put us in the room agreed to, etc.). Conference attendees don’t normally think about stuff like that, but suffice to say after threatening to call in his university lawyers and engaging in numerous conversations with the Marriott staff, the hotel at last came through with what they were contracted to come through with. That was a lot of work they had to go to just so we could sit around and talk.

All went smoothly, but not without a lot of background fighting leading up to the event. Anyway, since scholars tend to bitch and find fault with individual sessions or presenters or anything else, a shout out for those (Phil and his assistant Becky Vasko in particular) who make these things possible.

Second, I have no doubt that long after some of the substantive intellectual discussions have been forgotten, I’ll still remember some of the shorter or even “throwaway “ observations, conversations, and barroom late night jesting. Here are a few that stick with me (I had some others at the time, but they disappeared after the third martini).

One presenter, Su’ad Abdul Khabeer, discussing her research on the styles and head scarves of inner-city Muslim women, related that the women she studies refer to their scarf styles as “hood-jabs.” Her entire discussion of the phenomenon of "Muslim Cool" was the single most interesting ethnographic description I've heard in a good while, and a reminder of the tireless vitality of American religious cultures. She might have been the only person there from the discipline of Anthropology (maybe there were others, but I didn't see any), and as someone who did a minor field in Cultural Anthropology lo so many years ago I still enjoy hearing work from that perspective.

At the session on religion and market models, James Hudnut-Beumler, a scholar of religion and economics, author recently of In Pursuit of the Almighty's Dollar: A History of Money and American Protestantism, and Dean of the Div. School at Vanderbilt, related a conversation he had once with Ben Bernanke at some kind of conference or meeting. Bernanke asked him what he studied, and he replied “religion.” Bernanke answered back, “I can explain that.” Bernanke was being a little facetious, but only a little, for he went on to give an economic analysis, based on rational choice theory, on why women historically would predominate in many types of religious organizations (basically, their “wages” from this participation were equal to or greater than the discriminatory wages they would have faced – and would still face – in the secular marketplace and workplace). The idea here was both to suggest what we can learn from approaches drawn from market models of religion, as well as why we resist the hegemony of those models – the irritation we feel at the “I can explain that,” even when meant only half-seriously, is an irritation at a reductionism run amok.

And yet, reductionism is a tool that leads to significant insights (like, what's causing that e coli outbreak? and why are there more religious "nones" now than there used to be?), so it never hurts when humanists get exposed to social science scholars who use the word "data" a lot. There will always be a fair amount of cross-disciplinary carping at these kinds of conferences, a small price to pay for crossdisciplinary conversations.

At the very first session, we had a great “ethnographic moment,” in an impromptu discussion between Robert Orsi and Jan Shipps, renowned scholars both but slightly separated generationally, concerning whether we can “bracket out” religious belief in our studies. In reflecting on her pioneering studies of Mormonism, Shipps noted how she always said (or implied) “for them,” as in “for them, these visions were real.” Orsi replied that the problem with the “for them” bracketing was that it could easily lead to “for them, these visions were real – and they are crazy.”

I hope to develop a fuller post on this conversation early this week, as it was the session that ultimately interested me the most, but just this brief conversation between the two raised the same kinds of issues and back-and-forth responses which Orsi and Richard Bushman discussed recently in the journal Dialogue (see Chris Jones’s post on that), and which Orsi and Stephen Prothero batted back-and-forth several years ago in a discussion that is still frequently referenced – click here for a useful summary of that. I have noted recently that a lot of folks are assigning that discussion to students in classes, because it really gets to the heart of the matter of how scholars conceive of themselves and their work in religion.

Is the “whoosh” that we get from sporting events (or from some other mass group activity that induces emotional excitement in individuals) the same as the “whoosh,” the rapid firing of neurons and physiological response, that “we” get from religion? If so, is religion some sort of minor subdiscipline of cognitive psychology and neuro-biology? This became the theme of a lively discussion between Ann Taves (whose recent work has been done in collaboration, so I gather, with neuro-psychologists and other scientists) and Tracy Fessenden, who spoke eloquently of her resistance to adopting the scientific model of study as a means of accessing the huge money and prestige that scientists win at universities, in comparison to the perpetually impoverished and denigrated state of the humanities at many (most?) institutions nowadays – especially state institutions where “productivity” is measured in grant dollars raised. I don't mean to suggest that Taves was leading that direction -- certainly not true for the President of the AAR! But we are entering a new era of discussion (beyond the "two cultures" model) of sciences and the humanities, and there's an awful lot at stake in those discussions.

Rachel Wheeler concluded one session by noting how our generation of scholars always ends up saying, in effect, “it’s complicated.” That is certainly my classroom mode, and the message one would end up with at a conference like this. Yet others in the room, especially those in the social sciences, bring more concrete questions (and therefore answers) to the table, as when Roger Finke discussed some of the findings that can be gleaned from sociological studies of religious behavior such as he has conducted in some of his well-known studies. That brings us back to the discussion that Hudnut-Beumler and Ben Bernanke had about “I can explain that.” The humanists in the room stiffen their backbones against any explanation that does not invoke complexity and some degree of unknowability; some (not all) of the social scientists naturally are drawn to projects that focus on concrete questions and answers – has religious/philanthropic giving risen or fallen over time as a percentage of people’s incomes? Has the pay of clergy risen or fallen relative to other professions over the longue duree (answer: fallen, but you already knew that)? And so on.

As a humanist at heart, naturally I gravitate towards “It’s complicated” as my answer for most important questions. For the smaller questions, we can find answers, but for the bigger questions that drew me into academic studies in the first place, our answers will be tentative at best. Therefore, my classroom pedagogy tends to be deconstructively Socratic, in the sense of proposing questions, letting students pose hypotheses, poking holes/finding problems with those hypotheses, and then commanding them to “go and research some more” at the end of the period (they probably go to toga parties instead, but at least I want to leave them with the idea of the beautiful confusion of historical research). Is that, ultimately, where I want to leave it? I don’t think that will leave the assessment committee at my university very happy, since we are supposed to be assessing concrete bits of student learning.

But that leads to a final irony: I am chair of our departmental assessment committee (that's a committee of one -- but full of self-doubt as I am, reaching consensus is surprisingly difficult), so I get to develop the instruments to test exactly what bytes of data students "learn." Since I developed them, our instruments, therefore, essentially capture the degree to which students "get" the concept "it's complicated."

Is “boring from within” the way to beat a bureaucratic system that inevitably beats down individuals? On the other hand, as a lover and scholar of The Wire, I also know that, ultimately, the institution always wins, so we shall see whether, like Slim Charles, I "fight on that lie," just because we have to fight, or whether "boring from within" is simply carving a hole in my own academic soul.

Ultimately, in this age of the privatization of public goods such as education, the game does change, while it also just gets more fierce -- as Kathryn Lofton and Sylvester Johnson reminded us in their presentations on/critiques of (respectively) neoliberalism and its influence in market models of religion, and the relationship of American religion to the American imperial state. Reflecting further on the privatization of the public good of education (as in Colorado, where state funding now represents less than 8% of the CU budget) threw some cold water on the neural "whoosh" that conferences such as this, at their best, provide. (And if, like Janine, you live in Illinois, then that water bath is even colder.)

2nd Biennial Conference on Religion and Am. Culture -- Calling all Guest Bloggers

Paul Harvey

By now, I assume those attending the 2nd Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture this coming Thurs. - Saturday in Indianapolis have made their plans, but just in case some more information posted below. The conference features an all-star lineup and is going to be good times for sure.

Kelly Baker and I will post thoughts here on the conference after it's over, or even during it depending on how much the J. W. Marriott in Indy charges for its internet connection (i.e., if it's not free, then it's not for me).

But, this post is really to invite anyone else who is going to be there, and has any thoughts on any of the sessions, to send those along to me (pharvey AT uccs DOT edu) and I'll put them up as a guest post. I'm especially interested in the latter session of the conference, including the finale on "The Future of American Religion," because thanks to American Airlines I have to leave Sat. afternoon and miss the last couple of sessions. So, consider this an open invitation to send along your thoughts. And that goes for those unknown to me presently as well as our contributors who are conference participants, as well as other contributors not on the program but attending (yeah I'm looking at you Janine, Heath, and perhaps some others).

Here's the schedule. See some of you there, and looking forward to making the acquaintance of a few others. Party on!

Graduate School Opportunities at the University of Virginia

The following comes to us from Matt Hedstrom, at the Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia:

The Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia is pleased to announce a newly redesigned graduate curriculum in American Religions, offering the MA and PhD degrees. The program focuses on the religious cultures of the United States and the Americas in both historical and contemporary contexts. As such, the program is interdisciplinary in its methodology, incorporating historical, theological, literary, and anthropological approaches, and draws on the expertise of the department's large faculty across traditions and methods. Students in this subfield are encouraged to work with faculty in various other departments at the University of Virginia, including Anthropology, Art and Architectural History, English, History, Media Studies, Politics, and Sociology. Students may also draw upon the resources of interdisciplinary programs such as the Carter G. Woodson Center for African American and African Studies, the Program in American Studies, the Program in Jewish Studies, and Studies in Women and Gender (SWAG).

For more information, please go here.

Randall Stephens: The Lion in a Norway Winter

Paul Harvey

I'm a little posted out today, so just a brief Monday detour to throw a shout out to co-blogmeister Randall Stephens, who will be traipsing around Norway next year on a Fulbright "Roving Scholars" fellowship. Here's a story about it in the Boston Globe, with Randall at the lectern in fine form (so tempting to post that photo here, but I'll just let you click to see Prof. Stephens in his element). Congratulations, Randall, hope you can teach those Euros a thing or two about the wacky world of American religious history. From an excerpt in the article, sounds like that's the plan:

“It’s quite an honor,” Stephens said. “It’s the only country in the world that has this particular program. It’s the only one that has a Fulbright program like this sponsored by the host country, so the Norwegian government pays for it as well.”

From American immigration to post-World War II pop culture; from civil rights to the Civil War, Stephen’s talks will range the full expanse of 19-20th century cultural and religious history.

“[It’s about] how Americans make sense of their history,” Stephens said. “It’s a nice coincidence that it’s the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, and how we still fight about this history that dates back 150 years or more … there is a great interest in Europe about these ideological battles that have raged throughout history.”

Second Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture

Paul Harvey

Here's the announcement for the 2nd Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture in Indianapolis, June 2-4, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture. The full program is here; it features luminaries in the field such as Robert Orsi, Ann Taves, Kathryn Lofton, Tracy Fessenden, Gerardo Marti, and many more. Blogmeister Kelly J. Baker will be there blogging away, as will I; the first of these biennial conferences got some blog play here courtesy of Linford Fisher, and the full proceedings from that conference, in 2009, can be freely downloaded here.

Announcement below; click here for registration, which includes 1/2 price rates ($75) at the new J. W. Marriott in downtown Indy.

CSRAC Hosts Second Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture

The Second Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture is slated for June 2-5, 2011, at the new JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Indianapolis.

Sponsored by the Center and by Religion & American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, the purpose of the biennial conference series is to combine the insights of those working from different perspectives to help create new and better understandings of religion’s role in American life. The first Conference on Religion and American Culture, held in Indianapolis June 4-7, 2009, laid the foundation for the series, with a focus on recognizing disciplinary boundaries and exploring how scholars within those disciplines might learn from each other. Proceedings of those sessions are available for free on this website.

The overarching theme of this second conference will be “change.” Changing understandings of both religion and culture, as well as the effects these changes have on ways of thinking about religion’s role in American culture, will be the focus. “Most crucial is the change over the past few decades toward thinking about religion as it is expressed in everyday life, religion as lived experience,” said Philip Goff, Executive Director of the CSRAC.

“The conference will have three parts,” continued Goff. “Two opening sessions on changing definitions of religion and what this means for its study, four topical sessions where we play out this question in specific research areas, and then two sessions on what the future holds (or may hold). The 2009 conference was primarily about bringing together senior people from different disciplines to discuss the field broadly, and we succeeded. The meeting in 2011 is about bringing a similarly strong group together with much greater attention to what religion is coming to mean in America, and how this affects any effort to understand it.”

The conference will open June 2 with a reception in Osteria Pronto at the JW Marriott. The hotel, which opened in February, is Indianapolis’s newest and largest, with 1005 guest rooms in 34 stories and 104,000 square feet of meeting, banquet, and exhibit space. A special conference rate of $74.50 has been made available for a block of rooms, thanks to a grant from Lilly Endowment. Once that block of rooms is sold out, the rate will be $149 per night. (Please note that you will be asked for a credit card to guarantee your reservation. The rate of $74.50 is available to registered conference participants only, one discounted room per participant, and will not be applied until you check in at the hotel. This is so whether you make your reservation online or by phone.)

Conference registration before May 5 is recommended; registration fees increase from $85 professional and $45 student to $110 professional and $65 student after May 5. Onsite registration will be $130 professional and $80 student.

Register for the conference.

3 Year Position at Hampden-Sydney College

This post comes from our contributor Mike Utzinger, who has been named Associate Dean of the Faculty at Hampden-Sydney College; this job is a 3-year replacement for Mike. See full details below.

Colleagues,

I thought I would pass this ad for a position in the department of religion from my own institution. It is currently posted in the AAR Job Openings at aarweb.org. Please pass it on to anyone who might be interested in applying. The department and College values and supports excellence in classroom teaching and a successful program of professional development and scholarship.

Hampden-Sydney College

European or American Religious History

HAMPDEN-SYDNEY COLLEGE invites applications for a three year, non-tenure track, position in Religion at the Visiting Assistant Professor level, commencing in August 2011, with primary specialization in European or American Religious History. Ph.D. or Th.D. required; previous teaching experience preferred. Candidates should be qualified to teach introductory courses in Religion, courses beyond the introductory level in European or American Religious History, and courses in an interdisciplinary College-wide program in Western Culture. Teaching responsibilities include seven sections per academic year. Hampden-Sydney College is a selective private liberal arts college for men located in south-central Virginia and enrolling about 1050 students. (College website: www.hsc.edu) Hampden-Sydney expects and supports excellence in classroom teaching and a successful program of professional development and scholarship. Send letter of application, vita, and three letters of recommendation to Dr. Robert G. Hall (bhall@hsc.edu), Chair, Department of Religion, Hampden-Sydney College, Hampden-Sydney VA 23943. Review of applications will begin April 10, 2011. Hampden-Sydney College is an equal opportunity employer.

Religion and the Marketplace: Fall Conference in Heidelberg

Below is an announcement for a conference this fall in Heidelberg that will be of interest to many of you. Click the "call for papers" link below for further details.

Conference "Religion and the Marketplace:
New Perspectives and New Findings"

---

October 6-8, 2011, Heidelberg Center for American Studies

Call for Papers

As decided at the 2010 meeting of the European Association of American Studies in Dublin, the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA), in cooperation with the American Studies Network (ASN), will host a conference entitled “Religion and the Marketplace: New Perspectives and New Findings.” The HCA will host the conference on October 6-8, 2011, as part of Heidelberg University’s 625 anniversary celebration.

This international and interdisciplinary conference aims to investigate and explain how the conditions of the marketplace have determined, influenced, and limited American religion in the past and present. Given the prominence of the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses in the American constitution, a broad-based ‘competition for souls and purses’ has historically helped define the contours of religion in America. This conference will build upon previous insights while probing further into the complex relationship between religion and the marketplace along the lines described below.

We invite scholars in American Studies and related fields (geography, history, law, literature, media studies, political science, religious studies, theology, etc.) to submit paper abstracts for this conference. Individual paper abstracts (200-250 words) should be specifically directed at one (or more) of the panel topics included in the CFP. Abstracts must be received by March 31, 2011. Participants will be notified by May 1, 2011. All questions and submissions should be sent electronically to:djunker@hca.uni-heidelberg.de.

We especially desire participation from European scholars working in these fields, but welcome submissions from all around the world. The HCA will cover travel expenses (economy), lodging and meals for conference participants.

What the Foucault (Do We Know)?: FSU's Grad Symposium Redux

Kelly J. Baker

As I am still recovering from a whirlwind weekend at Florida State University's Tenth Annual Graduate Symposium, I wanted to note how much I enjoyed my time this weekend and what a boon this conference is to religious studies graduate students. What you all should know from the outset is that I am not a neutral observer. I love this conference, and Mike Pasquier and I even organized it long, long ago. (Hat tip to our own contributor Emily Clark was the organizational guru this year).

Now, I did not attend every panel nor did I attempt to, so I encourage readers and participants who attended other panels to send their reflections along. What I was able to do was to talk to graduate students of alma mater and other institutions about their own work and mine as well. The paper presenters swung for the fences, and I enjoyed their energy, evidence, and historiographical strategies. Grads in American religious history presented on papers ranging from Emily Post to Christian manhood to the Holy Land Experience to body studies to Burning Man to border saints to the problems of "lived religion" to beards and shaving. The brilliance of this symposium is that it allows a welcoming and encouraging environment for grads to present their work with feedback from the likes of John Corrigan, Amy Koehlinger, Amanda Porterfield, Kathryn Lofton, and Sylvester Johnson to name only the Americanists. (Any graduate student in religious studies writ large should plan to go next year.)

The keynote with the best title ever was "What the Foucault Do We Do Now?" with Matthew Day, Sylvester Johnson, Matthew Kapstein and Katie Lofton interrogated the place of power in the study of religion, the institution of the academy, and the genealogy of religious studies. The panel paired scholars of ranging interests from methods and theory to Buddhism to American religious history and posed the question of how power (read Foucault) functions both for our subjects of study but also for our positions as scholars. For the interest of RIAH readers, Day, Johnson and Lofton proved to engage exactly what is at stake in religious studies from very different positions. Johnson prodded the strange bifurcation between the academy and the "real" world, and he argued compellingly that just because the origins of religious studies are bound to colonial endeavor does not mean we (religious studies scholars) should burden ourselves solely with origins. Instead, our knowledge and expertise applies to the "real" world because the academy, despite various attempts, is still bound to our contemporary moments. We are experts, we have power, and we should use it.

Lofton employed IBM advertisements to discuss the merger of power and subjectivity. She suggested that these particular ads did not uplift individuals but rather created a powerless collective at the whim of power grids, bad traffic, and other mundane problems of contemporary life. Each of us faces the similar hum drum, and the ads questioned our agency even in how companies market products not to me or you, but some amorphous us. From ads to religion, Lofton noted that perhaps religion is best understood as repository in which things, ideas, and brands collect. My sense was that religion was archive, hodge podge, even bricolage in this analogy. To understand religion is to understand the pile-up.

In my assessment, Day's contribution offered the opposite of Lofton--religion as empty. Day was troubled by the category of religion, the discipline of religious studies. Building upon Bruce Lincoln and Russell McCutcheon, Day argued that religious studies scholars don't problematize religion, so that as a category religion is valueless because of its infinitude. He asked can it be art or sports? Moreover, he wants religious studies scholars to question the reliance upon "experience" as a measure of religion. What does it mean? Or more importantly, what is at stake when we gesture to experience? Day's critique suggested a need for a critical edge about what is religion and what we study when we assert religion as our subject matter. Moreover, does the gesture to experience limit our subject matter?

During Q&A, I asked Lofton and Day to compare their stances about religion as repository or as empty. What is at stake in empty or full? Their answers are theirs, but I couldn't help but wonder what my own assessment of this was. Part of me wants to claim the middle path of "can't it be both?", but that is terribly unsatisfying. The power of religion as a category is what is at stake in their assertions, and I wonder how often religious studies scholars interrogate what exactly religion is in our own work. Is it empty or full? Is it value-free or value-filled? Do we craft our own categories of religion as experience, belief, practice, etc? Do we use the categories of those we study? In my own work, I confront the strange yet different assumptions about "good religion"(read helpful and therapeutic) versus "bad religion" (read harmful or malicious) because I work on the "bad." The commentary usually moves something like "bad religion" is not religion at all. What is religion becomes, then, essential to how to approach the Klan, the hate movement, or even my newer fascination with apocalypticism. How I make the case that this is actually religious becomes significant. I point to the pile-up: theology, ritual, practice, and belief that all show the Protestant nature of the Klan. Yet, I could also point to the emptiness (malleability) of Protestant as a label, of religion as a construct, yet I don't. I could though. Empty or full?

Graduate students, if these kinds of questions are interesting to you, plan on attending next year's symposium at FSU. If they aren't, plan on attending or presenting anyway because you can't beat the encouraging environment, the weather, or the chance to ask, "What the Foucault do we do now?"

2nd Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture

Paul Harvey

The following conference announcement comes to us from Phil Goff, Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture in Indianapolis. The first Biennial Conference was hosted in Indianapolis in the summer of 2009; click here for our contributor Linford Fisher's report from that conference, and click here for the full conference proceedings from 2009. Full schedule and registration/hotel information for this conference in the first weekend of June is below. I'm looking forward to it already.

Second Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture

Indianapolis, Indiana

June 2-5, 2011



We are pleased to announce the Second Biennial Conference on Religion and

American Culture, to be held at the new J.W. Marriott in downtown

Indianapolis, June 2 through June 5. The theme for this meeting is "change,"

focusing both on changes in religion in North America over time and changes

in how we understand the topic. Scholars from multiple perspectives will

serve on multidisciplinary panels. The conference schedule is given below.



Like the conference in 2009, the room will be set up in a circle with

audience members on risers around the central round table. This set-up

promotes more participation from the audience and deeper conversation among

the panelists and those surrounding them. The hotel is again conveniently

located in downtown Indianapolis among restaurants, museums, and public

parks - all very conducive to continuing conversations begun in sessions.



Thanks to a grant from Lilly Endowment, we have reserved a block of rooms at

the J.W. Marriott at the special rate of $74.50 per night. Once those rooms

have sold out, rooms will be $149, so please be sure to reserve your room

right away. Early registration rates are available until May 5. To reserve

your room, register for the conference, or print a copy of the schedule,

please go to www.iupui.edu/~raac/<http://www.iupui.edu/~raac/>. (Note: the

special hotel rate of $74.50 will not appear on the screen but will be

billed correctly.)



CONFERENCE SCHEDULE



Thursday, June 2



Arrival and Registration

Opening Reception



Friday, June 3



PART A: CHANGING WHAT "RELIGION" MEANS

"What are our academic assumptions about religion?"

Panelists: Penny Edgell (Sociology, University of Minnesota)

Robert Orsi (Religious Studies, Northwestern University)

Ann Taves (Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara)



"Revisiting the secularity/secularization question"

Panelists: Tracy Fessenden (Religious Studies, Arizona State University)

Paul Froese (Sociology, Baylor University)

Rhys Williams (Sociology, Loyola University Chicago)



PART B: CHANGING RELIGION IN A CHANGING CULTURE



"Religion's role in political identity"

Panelists: Edward Curtis (Religious Studies, Indiana University -

Purdue University Indianapolis)

Paul Djupe (Political Science, Denison University)

Clyde Wilcox (Government, Georgetown University)



"Religion's role in immigration and globalization"

Panelists: Gerardo Marti (Sociology, Davidson College)

Timothy Matovina (Theology, University of Notre Dame)

Fenggang Yang (Sociology, Purdue University)



Saturday, June 4



"Religion's role in personal identity"

Panelists: Sylvester Johnson (Religious Studies, Indiana

University-Bloomington)

Sally Gallagher (Sociology, Oregon State University)

Laurie Maffly-Kipp (Religious Studies, University of North

Carolina)



"Market models for understanding religion"

Panelists: Roger Finke (Sociology, Pennsylvania State University)

James Hudnut-Beumler (Vanderbilt Divinity School)

Kathryn Lofton (American Studies and Religious Studies,

Yale University)



PART C: CHANGES IN THE FUTURE, REAL AND IMAGINED

"Changes in the understanding and uses of scripture"

Panelists: Charles Cohen (History and Religious Studies, University of

Wisconsin)

Kathleen Flake (Vanderbilt Divinity School)

Charles Hambrick-Stowe (First Congregational Church, Ridgefield,

CT)



"The future of religion in America"

Panelists: David Daniels (Church History, McCormick Theological Seminary)

Mark Silk (Religion, Trinity College)

Julie Byrne (Religion, Hofstra University)



Concluding reception

Beyond the Protestant Nation: Religion and the Narrative of American History

Paul Harvey

We hadn't yet posted notes on the Saturday and (dreaded) Sunday morning sessions at the AHA in Boston, more on that forthcoming. But we definitely want to highlight one session of huge significance, which unfortunately got stuck in the no-man's-land of the Sunday morning (Jan. 9) at 8:30 a.m. slot at the AHA. Despite the unfortunate time placement, the panel "Beyond the Protestant Nation" ought to be one of the most interesting of the whole conference, and certainly of great interest for American religious history/studies scholars. I'm pasting in the abstract below, with the following note from panel organizer Chris Cantwell of Cornell University:

"The round table grew out of a conversation Orsi and I repeatedly return to, where it seems that scholars who work on Protestants are able to make far bigger claims about American history than historians who work on other religious traditions. The protestant work ethic, for example, tells us about the foundations of America's capitalist ethos. Catholic street feste, however, tell us about immigrants; not about America. Out of this conversation Bob and I put together a round table that features scholars who do not work on traditionally defined Protestantism to ask how would the American historical narrative change if we gave the questions and concerns of non-Protestant religions the same interpretive strength as Protestantism receives."

Here's the abstract:

Beyond the Protestant Nation: Religion and the Narrative of American History

American historians, like their counterparts in other fields of historical inquiry, have become increasingly interested in integrating religion into our historical narratives. Prominent religious figures now appear in survey courses; we see theological ideas contributing to the formation of political philosophies and programs; and we use popular ritual practices to convey the culture of an era. But in studying the most religiously diverse country in the world historians have implicitly perpetuated an interpretive hierarchy of American religious life that inflates the illuminating power of certain religious communities and circumscribes or even ignores the historical (and historiographical) contributions of others. For instance, exploring the contours of the Protestant work ethic or evangelical conceptions of the state tell us, scholars argue, about the foundation of America’s capitalist ethos or our core political values. Catholic street feste to particular saints or changes within Reformed Judaism, however, are about urban culture or the immigrant experience—about Catholics and Jews, not about “America.”

This roundtable seeks to bring the deeply rooted Protestant and religious presuppositions of American historiography to light to challenge its assertions. Historians who insist on the historical primacy of Protestantism (singular) are not describing the past; they are implicitly reproducing a particular nationalist ideology that has long equated the identity and wellbeing of the United States with “Protestantism.” “Protestant,” moreover, entails assumptions about the kind of religiosity that has been consequential in American history. Embedded in the enduring and unchallenged identification of America as “Protestant” is an implicit argument about religion and modernity that endorses specific ways of being religious. Jewish orthodoxy, Mormon revelation, Catholic devotionalism, spiritualist meetings, Pentecostal tongue speaking, and other ways of being religious are excluded or defined as historically marginal.

This roundtable proposes to invert this interpretative hierarchy to ask how the American historical narrative change if the historiographical questions and concerns of non-Protestant religious groups were given national significance. What questions would rise in importance? What questions would decline? How would our periodizations change? In short, the round table seeks to ask what it would mean to re-imagine the American historical narrative from a more robustly plural religious perspective—not to include other religious idioms in our stories, but to rethink the narrative itself from a post-“Protestant” perspective? The round table convenes a number of scholars who work on religious traditions other than “Protestant” to explore this question of a post-Protestant historiography. Lila Berman considers the consequences of Protestant paradigms in Jewish studies, where authors have contorted Jewish beliefs to underline their seamlessness with America’s “Protestant” values. Wallace Best argues that assumptions about the Protestant nature of African-American religiosity have obscured the spiritual beliefs of admittedly secular and non-believing black activists. Robert Orsi suggests that the way Catholics have been “American” demands revisions of the idea of a singular American modern. Catherine Albanese asserts that though loosely organized and poorly defined, metaphysical religiosities have been a potent “third force” in American history that has inflected and shaped much of what we see as purely mainline and evangelical Protestantism. Richard Bushman highlights the distinctive perspectives Mormons brought to many phases of American history and how these have engaged and shaped the contours of the nation.

Though each participant brings a particular insight to the panel, the roundtable hopes to put these perspectives in conversation with the audience to explore the possibilities of a post-Protestant historiography as a field.

AHA Interviewing Advice and Some More Sessions of Note

Paul Harvey

Randall posted a few days ago about some sessions of note in religious history at the upcoming American Historical Association/American Society of Church History meeting, Jan. 6-9 in Boston. I thought I would note in addition, first, that for you graduate students who follow the blog here, Tenured Radical and John Fea both have posted excellent suggestions for job interviewing at the AHA, no one's favorite thing to do for sure but the suggestions here are valuable (I think I made every single mistake that Tenured Radical warns you against back in my day; wish someone had told me this then).

Also, a couple of our commentators here added a couple more sessions of interest in addition to those which Randall posted, and I thought I would repost those here for those who didn't see the comments on that post so wouldn't have seen those sessions noted.

1. The Black Women's Intellectual History Project is sponsoring a session on Friday morning (Jan. 7) from 9:30-11:30 on transnational perspectives on black women's religious leadership. Jon Sensbach, Natasha Lightfoot, and Eve Troutt Powell will be giving papers.

2. Cosmopolitanism and Religion in the Turn of the Twentieth Century U.S. Left

AHA Session 102
Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 3
Friday, January 7, 2011: 2:30 PM-4:30 PM
Orleans Room (Marriott Boston Copley Place)

Chair:
Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, Syracuse University

Papers:
“Has He Paused and Taken Thought?” Mark Twain's "War Prayer," Pacifism, and the Impact of Empathy
John Pettegrew, Lehigh University
Spiritual Unity, Social Progress: The National Federation of Religious Liberals and the Legacy of the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions
Amy Marie Kittelstrom, Sonoma State University
Holidays for Humanity's Future: Festivals at New York's Ethical Culture School, 1890–1920
Emily Mace, Princeton University

Comment:
Leigh Eric Schmidt, Harvard University

North American Religions Series, NYU Press

Paul Harvey

I'm posting below an announcement from New York University Press, about a new series in North American Religions for which the editors are soliciting ideas and manuscripts. Jennifer Hammer, the religion editor there, is coordinating the series; Tracy Fessenden (Arizona State), Laura Levitt, and David Watt (Temple) are serving as series editors. Here is the announcement:

New Series!
North American Religions

In recent years a cadre of industrious, imaginative, and highly intelligent scholars have focused their attention on North American Religions. The books and articles that they have produced have transformed the field. Scholars’ understanding of North Ameri- can Religions is far more subtle, expansive, and interdisciplinary than it was just a couple of decades ago.

North American Religions will build on this momentum. The series will focus primarily, but not exclusively, on religion in the United States in the twentieth and twenty- first centuries.

The editors of the series seek to cultivate books that explore a wide range of topics in intelligent and original ways. We welcome creative, adventuresome, and challenging books that are carefully researched and compellingly written. We wish to further scholarly conversation on such topics as lived religion, popular religious movements, representations of religion in the media, religion and social power, religion and cultural reproduction, religious and governmental institutions, and the relationship between secular and religious practices.

We are interested in working with scholars who start from the premise that religion itself matters even as they pay attention to the cultural, social, and political contexts of religious beliefs and practices. We are open to a wide range of methodologies, including ethnography, historical study, and the close reading of literary and other texts.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: The majority of books are anticipated to be single- or dual-authored. All works submitted for consideration must be broadly construed and critically engaged, ideally blending theory seamlessly within arguments and supporting interesting contentions with clear evidence. The “big picture” contribution of the work must be clear. Writing must be both accessible and engaging. We anticipate most authors will be situtated within religious studies or in closely related fields such as American studies, cultural studies, or cultural history. A proposal should be at least 6–10 pages in length and should include: A statement of the significance, need, and organization of the work. Its intended readership(s), including particular disciplines, any likely course adoption into specific types of common classes, any likely audience(s) outside the academy, and any relevant organizations/associations whose members may be interested in the work. A brief discussion of the closest 3–5 similar/competing works and how the proposed volume will distinguish itself. An annotated chapter outline with 1–2 paragraphs describing what each chapter will discuss. Ideally 2 or more sample chapters. An indication of the time line for completion and the anticipated length. Typical manuscripts should be roughly 80,000–90,000 words in total. A current copy of the author’s curriculum vitae.

Southern Cultures Announcement and CFP

Paul Harvey

The following announcement from the journal Southern Cultures will be of interest to some of you here:

Southern Cultures, the award-winning quarterly from UNC's Center for the Study of the American South, has added several more essays and features to the section of our website that focuses of American religion, including content from our brand new issue. We'd also like to remind scholars of religion in the South--and related topics--that we're interested in your
submissions.

Over 58,000 readers in classrooms in over 60 countries have viewed our content online. To read our material on religion, please visit here. You'll also find our submission guidelines, content on other subject areas, and more information about our latest issue here.

I would just add that cruising through the journal's most popular articles and pieces from the last decade yields a lot of fun reading, including Michael Butler's "Sin, Salvation, and Southern Rock."

Heidelberg Center for American Studies Spring Academy

Paul Harvey

I've been asked by Hilde, our Senior Norwegian Correspondent, to forward along information on this unique opportunity for finishing graduate students, to present their work with fellow American and European colleagues in Heidelberg. Hilde writes: "I attended the Spring Academy last year, and it was a wonderful experience! It's a great mix of students from Europe and the USA, covers many disciplines, and has a supportive and safe atmosphere to present your material." Hilde, any chance the Oslo Soul Children will be a warm-up act at the conference?

More information below:

__________________________________________________

HCA Spring Academy:

American History, Culture & Politics

HCA Spring Academy on American History, Culture & Politics is an annual, one-week interdisciplinary conference for Ph.D. candidates working in different fields of American studies.

Every year twenty outstanding Ph.D. students from European and American universities come to Heidelberg to present their dissertation projects. All presentations are thematically arranged into ten panels. Participants are requested to prepare a twenty-minute presentation of their research projects which is followed by a forty-minute discussion session. Four experts are invited for afternoon workshops that elaborate on topics discussed during the conference.

Possible topics for discussion are American literature and culture, U.S. history, domestic and foreign policy, as well as the economy and aspects of jurisprudence. Race, class, and gender are frequently employed analytical categories. This diversity of disciplines and approaches enables students from different academic backgrounds to become part of a unique international intellectual network which has been successfully established and broadened by the HCA in the last six years.

Florida State University Graduate Symposium

Coming off the 2010 Annual American Academy of Religion meeting, I thought it was especially relevant to blog about the Florida State University Graduate Symposium hosted each year by FSU's religion graduate students. The call for papers has been up on h-net for about a month now, but I particularly wanted to draw the attention of my fellow Americanists.

The Florida State University Department of Religion is pleased to announce its 10^th Annual Graduate Student Symposium to be held February 18-20, 2011 in Tallahassee, Florida. This year’s symposium will be centered on the theme “Discourses of Ritual and Power.”

Dr. Matthew Kapstein, of the University of Chicago and Directeur d'études of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris, will deliver this year’s keynote address. His lecture is tentatively titled “Spiritual Exercises in Indian Buddhist Philosophy: The Thought of Pierre Hadot in a Comparative Perspective.” Also, we are pleased to once again host Dr. Kathryn Lofton of Yale University as a guest respondent.

Presentations should be approximately 15 to 20 minutes in length and will receive faculty responses. Those proposing papers in the sub-field of American Religious History can look forward to Dr. Lofton, Dr. John Corrigan, Dr. Amanda Porterfield, and Dr. Amy Koehlinger offering thoughtful responses. In addition, every year respondents select the best graduate paper to receive the Leo F. Sandon Award, an endowed award named for the Religion Department's former chair.

Every year, this conference is a big success. There is no registration fee, and food and drink is provided throughout the weekend.

Proposals including an abstract of approximately 300 words, a list of key terms, and a one-page CV should be submitted by December 1, 2010 for review. Final papers must be submitted by January 15, 2011. Please send proposals to fsureligionsymposium@gmail.com