The Puzzle of American Methodism

1994 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan O. Hatch
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Religious History ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Half Century ◽  
American Life ◽  
Short Span ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Role Of Religion

Picture, if you will, the rich landscape of American religious history that has taken shape over the last half century. At least three features of this terrain stand out, the first being a richly-textured panorama before us, a recognizable field of study that has come into existence in a relatively short span of time. This field has been shaped by a varietyof forces, among them the vast expansion of religion departments since 1960, the recovery of the role of religion in the broader disciplines of history, literature, sociology and political science, and the stubborn persistence of religion in modern American life which scholars struggle to explain.

Logics of Gender Justice and Their Meaning for the Study of Sexuality and Gender Identity: A Dialogue

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-526
Author(s):  
Phillip M Ayoub
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Gender Justice ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Sexuality And Gender ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Role Of Religion

Abstract This piece dialogues with Htun and Weldon's exceptional new book, The Logics of Gender Justice, as it relates to LGBTI rights. Beyond engaging the authors' questions of when and why governments promote women's rights, I also engage their argument that equality is not one issue but many linked issues, including issues of sexuality and gender identity. My own reflections on their work thus address the contributions the book makes to the study of political science, as well as open questions about how their logic of gender justice might apply across other issue areas less explored in the book. Htun and Weldon's own definition of gender justice also rightly includes space for LGBTQI people, which I see as an invitation to think through the typology in relation to these communities. The piece begins by reflecting on the book's theoretical and methodical innovations around the complexities of gender politics, before moving on to the multi-faceted role of religion in gender justice, and then theoretical assumptions around visibility of the marginalized.

American Religious History—Decentered with Many Centers

2002 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 374-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Stein
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Correct Answer ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Religious History ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Rich

This panel poses the question, “Is there a center to American religious history?” We historians live in a world and work in a period when the politically correct answer to the question is, “Of course not!” In this day of decentered religious historiography the celebration of radical diversity seems to prohibit any other response. In our publications and teaching we set out to expose readers and students to the rich religious pluralism in America. We catalogue the traditions that reach back to colonial times, the communities that filled out the wider spectrum of religious options during the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, and the new religious movements that have appeared since the midpoint of the past century. One publication that provides a contemporary index to this inclusive catalogical approach is J. Gordon Mellon's Encyclopedia of American Religions, which in its fifth edition filled 1,150 pages with data regarding more than 2,100 discrete religious organizations in America, from the Aaronic Order to the Zoroastrian Associations in North America.

scholarly journals “Real Good and Sincere Catholics”: White Catholicism and Massive Resistance to Desegregation in Chicago, 1965–1968

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-306
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Cressler
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Racial Formation ◽  
Religious History ◽  
Massive Resistance ◽  
Role Of Religion

AbstractAlthough the civil rights movement has long been framed as a pivotal turning point in twentieth-century U.S. religious history, comparatively little attention has been directed to the role of religion in what has been termed “the long segregation movement.” Likewise, Catholic historians tend to emphasize the exceptional few priests, sisters, and lay people committed to interracial justice over and against the majority of white Catholics who either opposed integration or objected to the means by which it would be achieved. This article argues that, in order to fully understand U.S. Catholicism in the twentieth century, scholars must reckon with the ways racial whiteness shaped the Catholicness of white Catholics. It takes as its primary source more than six hundred letters written by white Catholics outraged and disgusted over the Archdiocese of Chicago's apparent support for desegregation between 1965 and 1968. These letters not only illuminate the inseparability of religion and race, but they also reveal that white Catholicism itself operated as a religio-racial formation in the lives of white Catholics. Given the overwhelming white Catholic (and white religious) resistance to integration, this article argues that the long segregation movement and massive resistance to desegregation ought to be included as signal events in the telling of U.S. Catholic and U.S. religious history.

Disability Media Studies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill Kirkpatrick
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Cultural Assumptions ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Construction Of Disability ◽  
Lady Gaga

Disability Media Studies proposes the formation of a field of study, based in the rich traditions of media, cultural, and disability studies. Such a field is necessarily interdisciplinary and diverse, arising from cross-pollinating conversations and engagements. Thus, this collection offers fourteen chapters written by scholars located in a variety of disciplinary homes, all exploring media artifacts in light of disability. Additionally, two afterwords—by Rachel Adams, and Mara Mills and Jonathan Sterne—reflect upon the collection, the ongoing conversations, and the future of disability media studies. This book is intended to be accessible, teachable, and friendly to newcomers to the study of disability and media alike. Case studies include familiar contemporary examples—such as the blockbuster film Iron Man 3 (2013), Lady Gaga, and Oscar Pistorius—as well as historical media, independent disability media, reality television, and media technologies. Chapters consider disability representation, the role of media in forming cultural assumptions about ability, the construction of disability via media technologies, and how disabled audiences respond to particular media artifacts. Each chapter is preceded by a short abstract, orienting the reader by explaining the background and contribution of the essay.

A MAINLINE MOMENT: THE AMERICAN PROTESTANT ESTABLISHMENT REVISITED

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 735-747 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID SEHAT
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Religious History ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
American Life ◽  
Wrong Direction ◽  
The Times ◽  
Protestant Denominations

William R. Hutchison had a complaint. Though he was a dean of American religious history and a gatekeeper of the field at Harvard, Hutchison could not shake the feeling that the discipline was going in the wrong direction. In 1989, when he wrote an introduction to his edited volume, Between the Times, his fellow religion scholars were busy examining trans-denominational movements like revivalism, smaller religious practices like voodoo in New York, and “dissenters and other outsiders” to the mainstream. But their efforts had ignored what Hutchison considered the most important subject of all, the Protestant denominations that had guided American life since the American Revolution.

Afterword

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Hudnut-Beumler
Keyword(s):  
Religious History ◽  
Religious Organizations ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
American Religion ◽  
Critical Inquiry ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
American Life ◽  
Religious Dimensions ◽  
Market Capitalism

The essays in this volume present the case for attending to the business aspects of religious activities in American religious history. Individual essays model useful approaches for pursuing these dimensions of religious organizations without neglecting their religious dimensions. Some of the essays are also models for critical inquiry into the sometimes self-serving compromises religious individuals and groups make with market capitalism in contemporary American life. The essay considers why previous theologically inclined scholars have neglected the kind of inquiry represented by the volume and celebrates the Business Turn as a “Big Idea” in the historiography of American religion worthy of emulation by other scholars interested in pursuing the nature of the American religious enterprise. By following flows of funds and bodies, watching who is raising money for what philanthropy, and how religious businessman and philanthropists justify themselves, the volume’s authors upset common assumptions about American religion.

The Role of Religion in American Life, an Interpretive Historical Anthology

1983 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 278
Author(s):  
W. Harrison Daniel ◽  
Robert R. Mathisen
Keyword(s):  
American Life ◽  
Role Of Religion
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