North American Religions

North America

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

brekus2018

Catherine Brekus

Chair, Committee on the Study of Religion
Charles Warren Professor of the History of Religion in America
David F. Holland

David F. Holland

John A. Bartlett Professor of New England Church History
Director of Graduate Studies, Ph.D. Program in the Study of Religion
Leila Ahmed

Leila Ahmed

Victor S. Thomas Research Professor in Divinity (HDS)
Emeritus
Ann D. Braude

Ann D. Braude

Senior Lecturer on American Religious History and Director of the Women's Studies in Religion Program
Diana Eck

Diana Eck

Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies Fredric Wertham Professor of Law and Psychiatry in Society
James Engell

James Engell

Gurney Professor of English Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature
ON LEAVE Spring 2024
David Hall

David Hall

Bartlett Research Professor of New England Church History
David N. Hempton

David N. Hempton

Dean of the Faculty of Divinity ON LEAVE SPRING 2021
Alonzo L. McDonald Family Professor of Evangelical Theological Studies
John Lord O'Brian Professor of Divinity
James Kloppenberg

James Kloppenberg

Harvard College Professor and David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History
Dan McKanan

Dan McKanan

Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Senior Lecturer in Divinity
Jacob Olupona

Jacob Olupona

Professor of African and African American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Professor of African Religious Traditions in the Harvard Divinity School
Mayra Rivera

Mayra Rivera

Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies