YSAR Program -- Final Call! Applications due 15 February 2010

Young Scholars in American Religion 2010-2012: Call for Applications

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture announces a program for early career scholars in American Religion. Beginning in October 2010, a series of seminars devoted to the enhancement of teaching and research for younger scholars in American Religion will be offered in Indianapolis. The aims of all sessions of the program are to develop ideas and methods of instruction in a supportive workshop environment, stimulate scholarly research and writing, and create a community of scholars that will continue into the future.

Dates:

Session I: October 14-17, 2010
Session II: April 28-May 1, 2011
Session III: October 13-16, 2011
Session IV: April 26-29, 2012
Session V: October 11-14, 2012

Seminar Leaders:

Ann B. Braude is Director of the Women's Studies in Religion Program and Senior Lecturer in American Religious HIstory at Harvard Divinity School. In addition to directing the WSRP, she teaches courses on the religious history of American women. Her first book, Radical Spirits: Spritualism and Women's rights in 19th-Century America, is now in its second edition, and she is the author of Women and Religion in America, the first history of the religion of American women for a general audience. She has published many articles on women in Judaism, Christian Science, and American religious life, and served as co-editor ofRoot of Bitterness: Documents of the Social History of American Women. Dr. Braude's most recent book is Saints and Sisters: Women and Religion in America.

Mark Valeri is the Ernest Trice Thompson Professor of Church History at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education. His areas of specialization include eighteenth-century American religion, religion and social thought in America, Puritanism, and Reformation theology and the social history of Calvinism. Dr. Valeri's works include Practicing Protestants: Histories of Christian Life in America, 1630-1965 (with Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp and Leigh E. Schmidt);Law and Providence in Joseph Bellamy's New England: The Origins of the New Divinity in Revolutionary America (Mackemie Prize, Presbyterian Historical Society, 1995); Global Neighbors: Christian Faith and Moral Obligation in Today's Economy (with Douglas A. Hicks); and, most recently, Heavenly Merchandise: How Religion Shaped Commerce in Puritan America.

Eligibility:

Scholars eligible to apply are those who have launched their careers within the last seven years and who are working in a subfield of the area of religion in North America, broadly understood. Ten scholars will be selected, with the understanding that they will commit to the program for all dates. Each participant will be expected to produce a course syllabus, with justification of teaching approach, and a publishable research article. All costs for transportation, lodging, and meals for the seminars will be covered, and there is no application fee.

To Apply:

Applicants must submit a curriculum vitae with three letters of reference directly supporting their application to the program (do not send portfolios of generic reference letters) as well as a 500-word essay indicating 1) why they are interested in participating, and 2) their current and projected research and teaching interests. The deadline for applications is 15 February 2010. Essays, CVs, and letters of reference should be sent to:

YSAR
Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, IUPUI
Cavanaugh Hall 417
425 University Blvd.
Indianapolis, IN 46202-5140

Seminars, Young Scholars, and Conference Proceedings at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture

Paul Harvey

One report and two upcoming seminars/opportunities at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at IUPUI for you to be aware of.

First, as noted here before, the next (and, for now, final) round of the Young Scholars in American Religion Program is upcoming, and applications to participate are due by February 15. Here is information on the program and how to apply; you can click also on the "young scholars program" label on the right of this blog to see all of our various entries about this in the past.

Next, the Center is hosting a NEH Summer Institute for teachers, July 12-30 2010, on "The Many and the One: Religion, Pluralism, and American History." Click on the link for full information, the schedule, and information on how to apply (applications due March 2, 2010); here is a brief description:

Thank you for taking an interest in The Many and the One: Religion, Pluralism, and American History, a Summer Institute for School Teachers to be held at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) from July 12 to July 30, 2010. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, this three-week institute for teachers focuses on religion in American history and culture. Our Institute is part of the NEH’s “We the People” initiative, a program designed to encourage and enhance the teaching, study, and understanding of American history, culture, and democratic principles.

This institute will support the studies of twenty-five talented teachers from across the nation as they join with nationally renowned scholars to explore how religion has shaped, and been shaped by, the American experience. The Institute directors, Philip Goff, Arthur Farnsley, and Rachel Wheeler, are all noted scholars in their field, whose work encompasses a wide range of subject matter and methodologies.

Finally, a posting of great interest: last summer the Center ran the 1st Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture; our contributor Linford Fisher attended and blogged about it here, and so did our contributor Seth Dowland, whose thoughts are here. The proceedings from the conference have now been published and can be accessed (as a pdf file) here. Comments and presentations comes from many of the stars of the field, including Jon Butler, Amanda Porterfield, Robert Orsi, Daniel Walker Howe, and many others. I plan to blog about this further once I have a chance to read over more of these contributions carefully.

War, Religion, and National Identity at the AHA

Paul Harvey

A sneak preview of an American Historical Association session that ought to draw a serious crowd, details listed below. I got to preview the 3 papers being presented, at the last Young Scholars in American Religion meeting, and you AHA attendees are in for a terrific session. So if you're going to the AHA in San Diego, make your plans now.

War, Religion, and American National Identity
AHA Session 42
Friday, January 8, 2010: 9:30 AM-11:30 AM
Elizabeth Ballroom B (Hyatt)

Chair: Laurie Maffly-Kipp, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Commentator: Harry S. Stout, Yale University

Breaking Ties: The SPG, the SPCK, and International Protestantism during the American Revolution Katherine Carte Engel, Texas A&M University

Give the Devil His Due: National Division and Concepts of Evil in the Civil War Era Edward J. Blum, San Diego State University

“Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition”: World War II, the Apocalypse, and Fundamentalist Political Activism Matthew Avery Sutton, Washington State University

Young Scholars Program, 2010-2012: Call for Applications

Paul Harvey

I'm just back from Indianapolis and the end of my tenure as one of the leaders of a Young Scholars in American Religion group, which went on from 2007-2009. I was privileged to work with Amanda Porterfield of Florida State, the senior mentor for this round. My group included blog compatriots Randall Stephens, Ed Blum, Matt Sutton, and Kathryn Lofton. The group also featured scholars whose work has been featured here in recent days, including Tisa Wenger (Yale) and Kate Carte Engel (Texas A & M). Additionally, we were fortunate to have four other amazing scholars: Darren Dochuk (Purdue), Spencer Fluhman (BYU), Rebecca Goetz (Rice), and Charles Irons (Elon College).

I'll have more to say about these two years later on the blog; suffice for now to say it was the best professional experience of my academic career, and a deeply affecting personal one as well.

The next group of Young Scholars will begin meeting next year, and the call for applications is up; I'll repost it here for those interested. I know many readers of this blog have applied before; I hope you'll re-apply. Some of the folks in my group were three-time applicants.

_____________________________________________________________

Young Scholars in American Religion 2010-2012: Call for Applications

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture announces a program for early career scholars in American Religion. Beginning in October 2010, a series of seminars devoted to the enhancement of teaching and research for younger scholars in American Religion will be offered in Indianapolis. The aims of all sessions of the program are to develop ideas and methods of instruction in a supportive workshop environment, stimulate scholarly research and writing, and create a community of scholars that will continue into the future.

Dates:

Session I: October 14-17, 2010
Session II: April 28-May 1, 2011
Session III: October 13-16, 2011
Session IV: April 26-29, 2012
Session V: October 11-14, 2012

Seminar Leaders:

Ann B. Braude is Director of the Women's Studies in Religion Program and Senior Lecturer in American Religious HIstory at Harvard Divinity School. In addition to directing the WSRP, she teaches courses on the religious history of American women. Her first book, Radical Spirits: Spritualism and Women's rights in 19th-Century America, is now in its second edition, and she is the author of Women and Religion in America, the first history of the religion of American women for a general audience. She has published many articles on women in Judaism, Christian Science, and American religious life, and served as co-editor of Root of Bitterness: Documents of the Social History of American Women. Dr. Braude's most recent book is Saints and Sisters: Women and Religion in America.

Mark Valeri is the Ernest Trice Thompson Professor of Church History at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education. His areas of specialization include eighteenth-century American religion, religion and social thought in America, Puritanism, and Reformation theology and the social history of Calvinism. Dr. Valeri's works include Practicing Protestants: Histories of Christian Life in America, 1630-1965 (with Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp and Leigh E. Schmidt); Law and Providence in Joseph Bellamy's New England: The Origins of the New Divinity in Revolutionary America (Mackemie Prize, Presbyterian Historical Society, 1995); Global Neighbors: Christian Faith and Moral Obligation in Today's Economy (with Douglas A. Hicks); and, most recently, Heavenly Merchandise: How Religion Shaped Commerce in Puritan America.

Eligibility:

Scholars eligible to apply are those who have launched their careers within the last seven years and who are working in a subfield of the area of religion in North America, broadly understood. Ten scholars will be selected, with the understanding that they will commit to the program for all dates. Each participant will be expected to produce a course syllabus, with justification of teaching approach, and a publishable research article. All costs for transportation, lodging, and meals for the seminars will be covered, and there is no application fee.

To Apply:

Applicants must submit a curriculum vitae with three letters of reference directly supporting their application to the program (do not send portfolios of generic reference letters) as well as a 500-word essay indicating 1) why they are interested in participating, and 2) their current and projected research and teaching interests. The deadline for applications is 15 February 2010. Essays, CVs, and letters of reference should be sent to:

YSAR
Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, IUPUI
Cavanaugh Hall 417
425 University Blvd.
Indianapolis, IN 46202-5140

We Have a Religion, But We Don't Have Religious Freedom

Paul Harvey

Another triumph for one of the prolific authors in my "class" of the Young Scholars in American Religion program: in the next couple of months, Tisa Wenger's work We Have a Religion: The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom will be available, hardback and paper, from University of North Carolina Press. The work covers one of the more fascinating episodes of how American culture has defined and delimited the term "religion," thus defining and delimiting who has religious freedom, and who doesn't. More on the book below from the work's webpage.

We Have a Religion
The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom

By Tisa Wenger

For Native Americans, religious freedom has been an elusive goal. From nineteenth-century bans on indigenous ceremonial practices to twenty-first-century legal battles over sacred lands, peyote use, and hunting practices, the U.S. government has often acted as if Indian traditions were somehow not truly religious and therefore not eligible for the constitutional protections of the First Amendment. In this book, Tisa Wenger shows that cultural notions about what constitutes "religion" are crucial to public debates over religious freedom.

In the 1920s, Pueblo Indian leaders in New Mexico and a sympathetic coalition of non-Indian reformers successfully challenged government and missionary attempts to suppress Indian dances by convincing a skeptical public that these ceremonies counted as religion. This struggle for religious freedom forced the Pueblos to employ Euro-American notions of religion, a conceptual shift with complex consequences within Pueblo life. Long after the dance controversy, Wenger demonstrates, dominant concepts of religion and religious freedom have continued to marginalize indigenous traditions within the United States.

About the Author
Tisa Wenger is assistant professor of religious studies at Arizona State University in Tempe.
Reviews

"Although the debate is not well remembered today, the Pueblo Dances affair is one of the most important legal and political conflicts over religious freedom in American history. In this well-researched study, Tisa Wenger does a fine job of describing the affair and vividly highlights the cast of activists on both sides."--Philip Jenkins, author of Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality

"Wenger's book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the strange career of 'religion' by doing a superb and unmatchable job of recovering the full complexity of how that idea related to the Puebloan dance controversy."--Joel Martin, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Religion and Profit

Paul Harvey

I'm very happy to announce that my colleague in the Young Scholars program, Katherine Carte Engel, has just published her new book Religion and Profit: Moravians in Early America. A while back, Kate guest-blogged for us about the conference on Markets and Morality, held last November. Sometime in the near future, I hope to host here a blog interview with Kate on the new book. Until then, here's the information from the U. Penn web page:
______________________________________________________

Religion and Profit: Moravians in Early America
Katherine Carté Engel

304 pages 6 x 9 17 illus. Cloth 2009 ISBN 978-0-8122-4123-5 $39.95s £26.00. A volume in the Early American Studies series

The Moravians, a Protestant sect founded in 1727 by Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf and based in Germany, were key players in the rise of international evangelicalism. In 1741, after planting communities on the frontiers of empires throughout the Atlantic world, they settled the communitarian enclave of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in order to spread the Gospel to thousands of nearby colonists and Native Americans. In time, the Moravians became some of early America's most successful missionaries.

Such vast projects demanded vast sums. Bethlehem's Moravians supported their work through financial savvy and an efficient brand of communalism. Moravian commercial networks, stretching from the Pennsylvania backcountry to Europe's financial capitals, also facilitated their efforts. Missionary outreach and commerce went hand in hand for this group, making it impossible to understand the Moravians' religious work without appreciating their sophisticated economic practices as well. Of course, making money in a manner that be fitted a Christian organization required considerable effort, but it was a balancing act that Moravian leaders embraced with vigor.

Religion and Profit traces the Moravians' evolving mission projects, their strategies for supporting those missions, and their gradual integration into the society of eighteenth-century North America. Katherine Carté Engel demonstrates the complex influence Moravian religious life had on the group's economic practices, and argues that the imperial conflict between Euro-Americans and Native Americans, and not the growth of capitalism or a process of secularization, ultimately reconfigured the circumstances of missionary work for the Moravians, altering their religious lives and economic practices.

Katherine Carté Engel teaches history at Texas A&M University.

YSAR: Final Reminder for Applications Due Mid-October

Young Scholars in American Religion 2009-2011: Final Reminder!

Here is the latest round of the Young Scholars in American Religion Program. As a current leader of the 2008-2010 group, I encourage everyone to apply, including those who applied for the last round. Those fortunate enough to be selected will have no more valuable professional opportunity. The deadline is mid-October, so pass the word!

Young Scholars in American Religion Program 2009-2011

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at IUPUI announces a program for early career scholars in American Religion. Beginning in April 2009, a series of seminars devoted to the enhancement of teaching and research for younger scholars in American Religion will be offered in Indianapolis. The aims of all sessions of the program are to develop ideas and methods of instruction in a supportive workshop environment, stimulate scholarly research and writing, and create acommunity of scholars that will continue into the future.For more information about the Center or the YSAR Program, please visit the Center's website.

Dates:
Session I: April 2-5, 2009
Session II: October 15-18, 2009
Session III: April 15-18, 2010
Session IV: October 14-17, 2010
Session V: April 28-May 1, 2011

Seminar Leaders:

W. Clark Gilpin is the Margaret E. Burton Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Christianity and Theology in the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is a historian of Christianity who studies the cultural history of theology in England and America since the seventeenth century. Among his works is an intellectual biography of Roger Williams, the seventeenth-century advocate of religious liberty. A more recent book, A Preface to Theology, examines the history of American theological scholarship in terms of the theologian's responsibilities to a three-fold public in the churches, the academic community, and civil society.

Tracy Fessenden is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University, specializing in western religious traditions, religion and literature, and American religious and cultural history. Her recent work focuses on religion, race, gender, and sexuality in American cultural history, on the relationship between religion and the secular in American public life, and on questions of religion and violence. She is author, most recently, of Culture and Redemption: Religion, the Secular, and American Literature.

Eligibility: Scholars eligible to apply are those who have launched their careers within the last seven years and who are working in asubfield of the area of religion in North America, broadly understood.Ten scholars will be selected, with the understanding that they will commit to the program for all dates. Each participant will be expected to produce a course syllabus, with justification of teaching approach, and a publishable research article. All costs for transportation, lodging, and meals for the seminars will be covered, and there is no application fee.To Apply: Applicants must submit a curriculum vitae with three letters of reference directly supporting their application to the program (do not send portfolios with generic reference letters) as well as a 500-word essay indicating 1) why they are interested in participating,and 2) their current and projected research and teaching interests.

The deadline for applications is 15 October 2008. Essays, CVs, and letters of reference should be sent to: Director, Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, IUPUI, Cavanaugh Hall 417425, University Boulevard, Indianapolis, IN 46202-5140

YSAR Reminder and Repeat

Reminder and Repeat Post:

Here is the latest round of the Young Scholars in American Religion Program. As a current leader of the 2008-2010 group, I encourage everyone to apply, including those who applied for the last round. Those fortunate enough to be selected will have no more valuable professional opportunity. The deadline is mid-October, so pass the word!

Young Scholars in American Religion Program 2009-2011

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at IUPUI announces a program for early career scholars in American Religion. Beginning in April 2009, a series of seminars devoted to the enhancement of teaching and research for younger scholars in American Religion will be offered in Indianapolis. The aims of all sessions of the program are to develop ideas and methods of instruction in a supportive workshop environment, stimulate scholarly research and writing, and create acommunity of scholars that will continue into the future.

For more information about the Center or the YSAR Program, please visit the Center's website.

Dates:
Session I: April 2-5, 2009
Session II: October 15-18, 2009
Session III: April 15-18, 2010
Session IV: October 14-17, 2010
Session V: April 28-May 1, 2011

Seminar Leaders:

W. Clark Gilpin is the Margaret E. Burton Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Christianity and Theology in the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is a historian of Christianity who studies the cultural history of theology in England and America since the seventeenth century. Among his works is an intellectual biography of Roger Williams, the seventeenth-century advocate of religious liberty. A more recent book, A Preface to Theology, examines the history of American theological scholarship in terms of the theologian's responsibilities to a three-fold public in the churches, the academic community, and civil society.

Tracy Fessenden is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University, specializing in western religious traditions, religion and literature, and American religious and cultural history. Her recent work focuses on religion, race, gender, and sexuality in American cultural history, on the relationship between religion and the secular in American public life, and on questions of religion and violence. She is author, most recently, of Culture and Redemption: Religion, the Secular, and American Literature.

Eligibility: Scholars eligible to apply are those who have launched their careers within the last seven years and who are working in asubfield of the area of religion in North America, broadly understood.Ten scholars will be selected, with the understanding that they will commit to the program for all dates. Each participant will be expected to produce a course syllabus, with justification of teaching approach, and a publishable research article. All costs for transportation, lodging, and meals for the seminars will be covered, and there is no application fee.To Apply: Applicants must submit a curriculum vitae with three letters of reference directly supporting their application to the program (do not send portfolios with generic reference letters) as well as a 500-word essay indicating 1) why they are interested in participating,and 2) their current and projected research and teaching interests. The deadline for applications is 15 October 2008. Essays, CVs, and letters of reference should be sent to: Director, Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, IUPUI, Cavanaugh Hall 417425, University Boulevard, Indianapolis, IN 46202-5140

Young Scholars Program, 2009-2011

Here is the latest round of the Young Scholars in American Religion Program. As a current leader of the 2008-2010 group, I encourage everyone to apply, including those who applied for the last round. Those fortunate enough to be selected will have no more valuable professional opportunity. The deadline is mid-October, so pass the word!

Young Scholars in American Religion Program 2009-2011

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at IUPUI announces a program for early career scholars in American Religion. Beginning in April 2009, a series of seminars devoted to the enhancement of teaching and research for younger scholars in American Religion will be offered in Indianapolis. The aims of all sessions of the program are to develop ideas and methods of instruction in a supportive workshop environment, stimulate scholarly research and writing, and create acommunity of scholars that will continue into the future. For more information about the Center or the YSAR Program, please visit the Center's website.

Dates:

Session I: April 2-5, 2009
Session II: October 15-18, 2009
Session III: April 15-18, 2010
Session IV: October 14-17, 2010
Session V: April 28-May 1, 2011

Seminar Leaders:W. Clark Gilpin is the Margaret E. Burton Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Christianity and Theology in the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is a historian of Christianity who studies the cultural history of theology in England and America since the seventeenth century. Among his works is an intellectual biography of Roger Williams, the seventeenth-century advocate of religious liberty. A more recent book, A Preface to Theology, examines the history of American theological scholarship in terms of the theologian's responsibilities to a three-fold public in the churches, the academic community, and civil society.

Tracy Fessenden is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University, specializing in western religious traditions, religion and literature, and American religious and cultural history. Her recent work focuses on religion, race, gender, and sexuality in American cultural history, on the relationship between religion and the secular in American public life, and on questions of religion and violence. She is author, most recently, of Culture and Redemption: Religion, the Secular, and American Literature.

Eligibility: Scholars eligible to apply are those who have launched their careers within the last seven years and who are working in asubfield of the area of religion in North America, broadly understood.Ten scholars will be selected, with the understanding that they will commit to the program for all dates. Each participant will be expected to produce a course syllabus, with justification of teaching approach, and a publishable research article. All costs for transportation, lodging, and meals for the seminars will be covered, and there is no application fee.

To Apply: Applicants must submit a curriculum vitae with three letters of reference directly supporting their application to the program (do not send portfolios with generic reference letters) as well as a 500-word essay indicating 1) why they are interested in participating,and 2) their current and projected research and teaching interests. The deadline for applications is 15 October 2008. Essays, CVs, and letters of reference should be sent to: Director, Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, IUPUI, Cavanaugh Hall 417425, University Boulevard, Indianapolis, IN 46202-5140

Ed Blum's Airplane Reading, Part III (Plus A Discourse on Donkey Kong)

Book Teasers for Your Next Flights
by Ed Blum

I’ll be so happy when we’re past November. Then, we’ll be able to think, talk, and write (oftentimes not necessarily in that order) about issues other than the upcoming presidential election. I wondered what the main topics of conversation would be in the post-election world; will Tom Cruise reprise his role in Top Gun? will the United States initiate new wars in the Middle East or elsewhere? will Paul Harvey win another blog award? What will be the major conversations among American religious historians? These were the questions I asked as a boarded a plane for Houston and then Indianapolis last week. It was the official end of my book tour and then the second Young Scholars in American Religion meeting. After discussing links between lynching, crucifixion, religion, theology, and politics at the University of Houston, I was jetting off to Indy to play some football, critique proposals on everything from Puritans in colonial Virginia (or is it “puritans” in Virginia) to links between evangelicals and technology, from notions of religious liberty to the brutalities of religious studies. All of it, combined with Paul Harvey’s less-than-amazing athletic abilities (think Eli Manning, only just exactly the opposite), made for an incredible trip (I’ll forget the horrible night I spent stuck at the Dallas airport).

On the various plane trips, I had two manuscripts (well, actually one full manuscript and the introduction to another). The first was Charles Irons’s The Origins of Proslavery Christianity: White and Black Evangelicals in Colonial and Antebellum Virginia and the second was Katherine Carté Engel’s Religion and Profit: Moravians in Early America. Thankfully, neither book was about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or John McCain. Neither book claimed to tell us who would win, how they would win, or how they would lose. Neither Irons nor Engel is interested in the arts of divination. These were historical works written by insightful, exacting historians. Praise God!

Irons shows how colonial and antebellum religion in the United States South – at least Virginia – was the fruit of interracial interaction. Particularly, southern proslavery Christianity spun out of white action and black reaction, black action and white reaction, interracial conflict, cooperation, understanding, misunderstanding, exchange, and outrage. Taking his cue from recent work on the abolitionist movements in the North, Irons reveals convincingly how African Americans – from unnamed farmhands to revolutionaries like Nat Turner – drastically altered the terrain of southern evangelicalism. The Origins of Proslavery Christianity is exactly the kind of history called for by Princeton historian Nell Irvin Painter. In Writing Across the Color Line, Painter urged historians to stop reifying segregation as if white and black worlds were ever truly separated. She urged scholars to defy notions of Jim Crow by showing the dynamic interactions between white and black voices, characters, aspirations, and imaginations. Charles Irons does this, and he does it … masterfully (oops, is that an acceptable word when writing about slavery?) The University of North Carolina Press has treated Professor Irons well, and for good reason. The book is available immediately in paperback and would be terrific for classes on the American South, antebellum America, and religion in American history.

After reading Irons’s work, I started to think about the long trajectory of white-African American religious interactions, how so often whites have based their politics, beliefs, and thoughts in relationship to African American religion. There are the messianic black leaders, like Martin Luther King, Jr., and his “I Have a Dream” speech; then there are the maligned prophetic figures, like Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Whether the antebellum world or the twenty-first century one, white and black religion seem to play games of tag, of cat and mouse, and of hide and seek. Then it dawned on me… I’m thinking about the present again; I’m thinking about politics. Even Charles Irons’s work, which his history at its best, forces me to think about now.

Closing up Irons’s manuscript at the airport in Dallas, I decided to take a break and play some video games. (I’m a sucker for a good game from the 1980s when video games weren’t about beating up police officers or honing military skill in WWII combat). Even in the realm of games, however, I could not escape the presidential election. I fed my quarters into Donkey Kong. Then I wondered – where was the donkey? I kept on playing, looking for a Democratic Donkey to flash across the screen, perhaps save me from turmoil, perhaps stop the evil Kong above from his relentless attacks. But I have news to the Democratic faithful; there was no donkey. He never came. My little plumber character died. I lost interest, and perhaps a part of my political soul.

I had to get out of the present; I had to get far away. And so I turned to the introduction of Katherine Carté Engel’s Religion and Profit: Moravians in Early America. Like Irons, Katherine Carte Engel has written a story of exchange and interchange and of cooperation and conflict. Hers is in the form of markets and missions and centered on the Moravians of the middle colonies. The introduction took me away to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. I was back in the eighteenth century, chopping down trees and bringing the Moravian gospel to Native Americans.

I was looking with Engel’s characters across the Atlantic to England and Germany, to the arrivals and departures of missionaries on the same boats with raw materials and manufactured goods. Engel would not allow me to escape the present, though, any more than my playing of Donkey Kong. Her work forced me to wonder about the moral implications of individualist capitalism, and the market consequences of missionary activity.

And, of course, then I thought of how often current United States foreign interventions are connected to missionary efforts (religious freedom for Protestants) and market consideration (who doesn’t want cheap oil). Religion and Profit: Moravians in Early America should be out by the end of the year. It promises to be another great book of American religious history from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

I’m so grateful to Engel and Irons for writing with brisk prose, for attuning closely to local details and historical nuance. If only I could stop thinking about the present, about presidential elections, and about wars that could go on for one hundred years. Who knows what my next historical escape will be; alas, it will probably just teach me as much about the present as it does the past – like the fantastic works of Engel and Irons.

Fill in the Book Title Contest

PAUL HARVEY

A while back Ed Blum started a comment-off on this blog, his entry being best titles in American religious history. Unbeknownst to us, Jon Pahl's blog entry on Jeremiah Wright would sweep the field of comments, the leader so far in this blog's history.

I'm just back from a highly excellent weekend with the Young Scholars in American Religion in Indianapolis. I'll have something more serious to say about that later. For the time being: While there, eminent Young Scholar and blog contributing editor Randall Stephens sent off a number of witticisms that seemed to me possible "before the colon" book or article titles. Your task: to fill in the rest of the title. It will be sort of like those last-page-of-the-New-Yorker contests, where you are given the cartoon and asked to create the caption.

So here are four [update: now five] titles, from Randall's bottomless store of quips; you fill in the rest in the comments section. Give me the rest of the book or article title.

1) The Halls of Powerlessness: [fill in favorite deprecatory joke about academia here] . . . . .

2) Stop, Drop, and Holy Roll: . . . . . . . . [fill in the blank]

3) The Devil-Busting Satellite: . . . [from an actual quote on TBN, but apply it as you wish!].

4) The Pantheon of AntiChrists: . . .

5) Anthems of Cultural Captivity: . . . . . .

And for you Young Scholars who follow this blog: I did go undefeated in touch football play this weekend. Not to rub it in or anything . . .

Randall's Links

Our contributing editor Randall Stephens has put up an excellent and helpful links page for American religious history, with a concise list of web links, discussion groups, teaching resources, musical resources, broadcasts, publications, and more.

Young Scholars Last Chance -- Apply, the End is Near!

Just a reminder: the deadline for applying for the Young Scholars in American Religion Program is due August 20. Click on the link for details. I was a participant in the 1994-96 "class" of this program, and that experience continues to yield dividends to this day. For those who applied before -- apply again! This is the first of a new series of this program, there will be another "class" or two in the future so if you try this time and don't succeed, there will be time to try, try again. Good luck to all. Apply, the end is near!