April 20th, 2023

Panelists

Gary Laderman, Goodrich C. White Professor of American Religious History and Cultures, Emory College

Gary Laderman, Goodrich C. White Professor of American Religious History and Cultures, is the author of Don’t Think About Death: A Memoir on Mortality (Deeds Publishing, 2020). His other books include an exploration of the sacred in the new American religious landscape: Sacred Matters: Celebrity Worship, Sexual Ecstasies, the Living Dead, and Other Signs of Religious Life in the United States (The New Press, 2009); two books on the history of death in America (read the new one to understand why):  The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883 (Yale University Press, 1996) and Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America (Oxford University Press, 2003).

Andrew Monteith’s research examines questions of secularism, religion, and power in American life, both past and present. He is also interested in the ways that America itself can serve as its own kind of religion. His first book, Christian Nationalism and the Birth of the War on Drugs (New York University Press, 2023) explains how religion, race, and US colonialism germinated the early Drug War during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Dr. Deepak Sarma, professor of Indian religions and philosophy at Case Western Reserve University, is the author of Classical Indian Philosophy: A Reader (2011), Hinduism: A Reader (2008), Epistemologies and the Limitations of Philosophical Inquiry: Doctrine in Madhva Vedanta (2005) and An Introduction to Madhva Vedanta (2003).

January 20, 2022 

Cohosts

Andrea R. Jain, Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Andrea R. Jain, Ph.D. is professor of religious studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis and research affiliate at Indiana University’s Environmental Resilience Institute, editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and author of Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture (Oxford 2014) and Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality (Oxford, 2020). She received her doctorate degree in religious studies from Rice University in 2010. Her areas of research include religion and capitalism; global spirituality and modern yoga; gender, sexuality, and religion; and theories of religion.

Jain’s current work, including the documentary film Predation, calls for humanities scholars to center questions about the current pandemic and planetary crisis. The purpose of humanities scholarship, Jain argues, should include the following: to remind scientists and health experts that equity must be at the center of their response to pandemic and planetary crisis; to uncover and analyze the needs for repair in the relationships between human societies and environmental bodies and non-human animals; and to diagnose capitalism’s death-dealing structures and the causes of ecological death in the hope that activists, in turn, can build on that scholarship to imagine radically different futures.

He has a PhD in Religious Studies from Indiana University, an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary, and an MTS from United Theological Seminary. Jonathan teaches in the Theology Department at Xavier University. Additionally, he is the Director of Adult Education at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Springboro, OH

Panelists

Christopher Carter’s teaching and research focuses on philosophical and theological ethics, Black and Womanist theological ethics, environmental ethics, and animals and religion. He approaches religious studies as a liberation ethicist committed to exploring how the moral economy of U.S. religious thought and culture impact the everyday lives of marginalized populations, particularly African American and Latino/a communities. He is active in the leadership of the American Academy of Religion where he serves as a steering committee member of both the Religion and Ecology and the Animals and Religion Group. Professor Carter is also a pastor within the United Methodist Church and currently serves as an assistant pastor at Pacific Beach United Methodist Church.

Lori G. Beaman, Professor and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Religious Diversity and Social Change, University of Ottawa

https://youtu.be/j0DfJyrhKLU

October 15, 2020

100 years after the ratification of the 19^th amendment and at this moment of racial reckoning, the American political climate is still dominated by the unequal representation of women, especially women of color, in local, state, and electoral politics. For the inaugural session of “Religion &”, we will explore the intersection of gender, race, politics, and the role of religion. Specifically, this panel will analyze the role that religious traditions play in sustaining or mitigating  new models of engagement, political formation, and social change. How do current works on the intersection of gender, race, religion, and political participation help us frame and anticipate this current electoral season? Furthermore, have our theoretical focus on certain groups, like white Evangelicals, and insistence on traditional constructions of topics, like climate change from the perspective of nation-states and the corporate elite, adversely impacted our ability to tell a compelling story of the American religious landscape and its resistances to the current moment? How might we tell a more comprehensive story of the American electorate and its relationship to gender, race, religion, and belonging?

Panelists

Melissa Borja, University of Michigan

Melissa Borja is assistant professor in the Department of American Culture and core faculty member in the Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Program at University of Michigan. Her book Follow the New Way: Hmong Refugee Resettlement and Practice of American Religious Pluralism” (Harvard) is forthcoming.

Grace Yukich, Quinnipiac University

Grace Yukich is professor of Sociology at Quinnipiac University. She is the author of One Family Under God: Immigration Politics and Progressive Religion in America (Oxford) and co-editor of Religion Is Raced: Understanding American Religion in the 21^st Century (NYU).

Cohosts

Anthea Butler, University of Pennsylvania

Anthea Butler is associate professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making A Sanctified World (UNC) and the forthcoming White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America (UNC).

Philip Goff, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Philip Goff is Chancellor’s Professor of American Studies and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. 

Introduction to K-12?

NEH Institutes and Seminars

Muslim American Identities, Past and Present

In 2015, the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture hosted sixteen K-12 school teachers for a three-week seminar exploring study the diverse facets of Muslim American identity, both as grounded in the past and as experienced in the present. Summer scholars read thirty primary source documents and two major academic monographs; heard from two visiting scholars and visited two mosques; and created individual research projects. You can view examples of their research projects (HERE IN OUR FABULOUS DOC LIBRARY).

For information on the 2017 version of this program, please check out Muslim American Identities.

The Many and the One: Religion, Pluralism, and American History

In July 2010, the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture conducted a three-week NEH summer institute for teachers on the role of religion in American history and life. The institute supported the studies of twenty-four talented teachers from across the country as they joined with nationally renowned scholars to explore how religion has shaped, and been shaped by, the American experience. Each teacher presented a project of his or her choosing at the end of the institute, focusing on some aspect of teaching about the role of religion in America. The lesson plans and teaching modules developed by those teachers can be found (HERE IN OUR FABULOUS DOC LIBRARY).

January 21, 2021

Panelists

Elaine Peña, The George Washington University

Elaine Peña’s areas of expertise include border studies, anthropology of religion, built environment, performance theory, transnationalism, and Latinx and Latin American studies. Her most recent book ¡Viva George! Celebrating Washington’s Birthday at the U.S.-Mexico Border considers the tradition of commemorating George Washington’s Birthday on the Texas-Tamaulipas border.

Nichole R. Phillips, Emory Univeristy 

Nichole R. Phillips’ research interests lie at the intersection of religion and American public life with a focus on community and congregational studies where she investigates the moral commitments and vision of community and congregational members. Her scholarship treats religion, critical race theory, gender, and cultural memory studies. She is also developing new research interests in the sociology of science and religion. Her most recent book is titled Patriotism Black and White: The Color of American Exceptionalism.

Cohosts

Kristina Horn Sheeler, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Kristina Horn Sheeler is Professor of Communications Studies and Honors College Executive Associate Dean at IUPUI. Her academic interests include political communication, gender, and public identity, studying the ways in which political identity is rhetorically constructed and contested in popular media.

Raymond Haberski, Jr., Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Raymond Haberski, Jr. is Professor of History and Director of American Studies at IUPUI. He also directs the Institute for American Thought and is part of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture. Dr. Haberski is trained in twentieth century U.S. history with a focus on intellectual history. As editor, along with Philip Goff and Rhys Williams, his forthcoming book is titled Civil Religion Today: Religion and the American Nation in the 21st Century (2021).

March 18, 2021

Panelists

Amanda J. Baugh, California State University, Northridge

Amanda Baugh is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Cal State Northridge.  She specializes in religion and the environment, with particular attention to race, ethnicity, and class.  Her first book, God and the Green Divide: Religious Environmentalism in Black and White (California, 2016), seeks to decenter religious environmentalism as mainly the product of white elites, a story she continues in her current project, Rethinking Religious Environmentalism.

Evan Berry, Arizona State University

Evan Berry is Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities and Senior Sustainability Scholar in the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation at Arizona State University in Tempe.  He is the author of Devoted to Nature: The Religious Roots of American Environmentalism (California, 2015), which traces the influence of Christian theology on the environmental movement in the U.S.  He is president-elect of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture.

Cohosts

Lisa H. Sideris, Indiana University, Bloomington

Lisa H. Sideris is Professor of Religious Studies and Associate Director of the Center for Religion and the Human at IU Bloomington.  In fall 2021, she will join the faculty of the Environmental Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  An environmental ethicist who studies the interface of science and religion, she is the author of Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge, and the Natural World (California, 2017), and Environmental Ethics, Ecological Theology, and Natural Selection (Columbia, 2003), and is co-editor of Rachel Carson: Legacy and Challenge (SUNY, 2008).

Peter J. Thuesen is Professor of Religious Studies, co-editor of Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, and Director of Humanities Research in the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at IUPUI.  His latest book, Tornado God: American Religion and Violent Weather (Oxford, 2020), traces how religious views of weather and climate disasters have evolved from the colonial era to Donald Trump.  His other books include Predestination: The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine (Oxford, 2009), and In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible (Oxford, 1999).

September 16, 2021

Cohosts

Melissa Borja, University of Michigan

Melissa Borja is Assistant Professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan, where she is a core faculty member in the Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Program. She researches migration, religion, politics, pluralism, and race in the United States and the Pacific World, with special attention to how religious beliefs and practices have developed in the context of the modern American state. Her book, Follow the New Way: Hmong Refugee Resettlement and the Practice of American Religious Pluralism (under contract, Harvard University Press) explores the religious dimensions of American refugee care.

Soulit Chacko is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Religion and Urban Culture 2.0 at Indiana University’s school of Liberal Arts at IUPUI. She is particularly interested in exploring how local histories are reshaped through migration processes and how they are practiced and embodied. Her current project focuses on the experiences of low-wage immigrant women workers in the U.S. using an intersectional lens that includes race, religion, gender, immigration status, and nationality. She earned her Bachelor’s in Urban Planning and Public Policy from University of Illinois at Chicago and Masters and PhD in Sociology from Loyola University Chicago.

Panelists

Salah Ansary, Senior District Director, Lutheran Community Services Northwest

Salah Ansary is the Senior District Director of Multicultural Community Services (MCS) at Lutheran Community Services Northwest. Mr. Ansary knows from personal experience the pain and suffering that refugees endure when they leave their homeland for a new country. He first came to the U.S. in 1978, during a time of political turmoil and war in his native Afghanistan. He continued his education after arriving in the northwest and earned his Master’s degree. In 1984, Mr. Ansary started his career at what was then Lutheran Family Service of Oregon and Southwest Washington, eventually becoming Senior District Director of MCS. For the last 37 years, he has helped develop transformative programs and services for refugees to rebuild their lives throughout the Northwest.

Todd Scribner, Educational Outreach Coordinator, Department of Migration and Refugee Services, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Religion and Resettlement Project, Princeton University

Todd Scribner is an independent researcher who also serves as Educational Outreach Coordinator in the Department of Migration and Refugee Services at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He has written extensively on the Catholic Church in the public square—particularly migration and issues related to Catholic identity, including A Partisan Church: American Catholicism and the Rise of Neoconservative Catholics (2015).

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture was established in 1989 to explore the connection between religion and other aspects of American culture. We are a research and public outreach institute that supports the ongoing scholarly discussion of the nature, terms, and dynamics of religion in America. As a program of the IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI, the Center pursues its aim as part of the mission of liberal and humane learning. It seeks to elevate among students, faculty, and the larger American public the understanding of the influence of religion in the lives of people.

Scholarly Resources

The Center supports and advances the scholarly study of religion through a wide range of programs and initiatives:

• National conferences and symposia
• Books, essays, bibliographies, and research projects
• Fellowships for new scholars
• Semiannual scholarly periodical Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation
• Institutes for teachers to help them know how to talk about religion in the classroom

Public Teaching

The Center also promotes increased understanding of religion’s role in current events among the general public. In addition to hosting public meetings, we are here to serve as a resource for media organizations, publishers, and writers. The Center’s officers and researchers are available as expert sources for journalists reporting on topics related to American religious history and practice.

February 16, 2023

Host

Andrea R. Jain, Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Andrea R. Jain, Ph.D. is professor of religious studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis and research affiliate at Indiana University’s Environmental Resilience Institute, editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and author of Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture (Oxford 2014) and Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality (Oxford, 2020). She received her doctorate degree in religious studies from Rice University in 2010. Her areas of research include religion and capitalism; global spirituality and modern yoga; gender, sexuality, and religion; and theories of religion.

Jain’s current work, including the documentary film Predation, calls for humanities scholars to center questions about the current pandemic and planetary crisis. The purpose of humanities scholarship, Jain argues, should include the following: to remind scientists and health experts that equity must be at the center of their response to pandemic and planetary crisis; to uncover and analyze the needs for repair in the relationships between human societies and environmental bodies and non-human animals; and to diagnose capitalism’s death-dealing structures and the causes of ecological death in the hope that activists, in turn, can build on that scholarship to imagine radically different futures.

Panelists

Timothy Beal is a writer and scholar in the field of religious studies whose work explores matters of religion, media, and American culture, past and present. He is Distinguished University Professor, Florence Harkness Professor of Religion, and Director of h.lab at Case Western University. He has published sixteen books, including Religion in America: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2008), The Book of Revelation: A Biography (Princeton, 2018), and When Time is Short: Finding Our Way in the Anthropocene (Beacon, 2022).

Sara Pike, Professor of Comparative Religion, California State University, Chico