North American Religions

This is an interdisciplinary area of research that brings together students with interests in the geographical region of North America. Students use various methodologies and approaches–including history, ethnography, literary studies, gender studies, critical theory, and ethics—to focus on religious thought, institutions, movements, cultures, and practices within North America. Students in this field may pursue transnational projects that consider connections between North America and other regions of the world. Projects in this area can be focused on a single tradition or on interactions among religious groups from early America to the present. Candidates are expected to master the literatures in their areas of specialized research and to develop methodological expertise relevant to their dissertation work.

Recent and current dissertation topics include:

Gospel of the ‘Orient’: Koreans, Race and the Transpacific Rise of American Evangelicalism in the Cold War Era

The Missionary Republic: Missionization, Improvement, and the Remaking of American Protestantism, 1787-1837

Comic Belief: Religious Irreverence and Irreverent Religion in Cold War America

Wireless Provider: White Evangelical Subjectivity on the Internet

American Sacraments: Ritual and Religion in the Early United States

“For the Good of Mankind”: Marshallese, Missionaries, Militaries and the Making of American Empire in the Pacific, 1857-1966

Second Sight: Black Calvinism and Religio-Racial Identity in the Revolutionary Era

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make Herstory: The Spiritual Dimensions of Storytelling in the Second Wave Feminist Movement

Red Sisters, Womanly Fathers, and Queer Domesticities: Radical Pietism, Kinship, and Intimacy in Lenape and Mohican Homelands

Sacred Borders, Divine Hierarchies: American Liberal Protestants, US Immigration Policymaking, and the Fashioning of Asians as “Undesirables,” 1882-1924

Radical Devotion: The Politically Progressive Women at the Margins of Evangelicalism

The Cost of Free Religion: Church, State, and Economy in Eighteenth-Century New England

Requirements:

Students are encouraged to take courses that will help them to develop the methodological expertise that they will need for their dissertation. Many students choose to pursue Secondary Fields in Anthropology; Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; or African and African American Studies. Students typically participate in the bimonthly North American Religions Colloquium, which brings together students and faculty to discuss work in progress.

General Examinations

All students are required to take four exams, including a mandatory examination in method and theory and an examination in the student’s area focus. In keeping with CSR policy, a paper may be submitted as the fourth examination. The specific content of each examination will vary according to the student’s interests and should be worked out with the student’s exam committee. Typically, for students interested in North American religious history, one of the exams will broadly survey the history of North American religion from the 1600s to the present.

Affiliated Faculty