Benjamin Y. Fong

Harper Fellow and Assistant Collegiate Professor of Social Sciences (University of Chicago)

“Freak Stuff or Protestant Stock-in-Trade?: Edwin Diller Starbuck’s The Psychology of Religion in Light of its Influence on William James

Tuesday, February 3, 4:30pm (Location TBA)

Abstract:

“In this paper, my aim is to articulate the nature of William James’ debt to and divergence from the ideas of his student Edwin Diller Starbuck through an analysis of the latter’s The Psychology of Religion conducted in light of the “Conversion” lectures in the Varieties of Religious Experience.  As I will demonstrate, The Psychology of Religion was not simply “source material” for James, who actively edited Starbuck’s work as he presented it.  My hope is contribute to a fuller understanding of James’ Varieties while introducing the work of a mostly forgotten figure in the history of the study of religion, but it is perhaps more importantly to show that the psychology of religion in America, at its inception, was not defined by a single trajectory.”