American Religious History

Introduction to the basic issues in American history including the study of Puritans, immigration, church and state, revivalism, civil and military religion, apocalypticism, and new age religion.

We will dig beyond rituals and doctrine to discover the roles religion plays in the lives of Americans. Moving roughly chronologically, the class will give particular attention to race, immigration, and pluralism in American religion. We’ll wrestle over the meaning of religious liberty and different understandings of the separation of church and state. We will experiment with textual and visual analysis and ethnography to see what these methodological approaches offer us as scholars. Class periods will be filled with a mixture of discussion, short videos, group activities, lectures, and student presentations as we learn about new and old religious traditions in America.

 

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