This year the Religions in America Workshop will meet on Wednesdays from 12:30 – 1:45 p.m. in the Kitagawa Library (Swift 232) unless otherwise indicated. Lunch will be provided at all in-person workshops. The zoom link for virtual workshops will be circulated via the listserv: please subscribe here.
The schedule below is subject to change, so please check our main page for details the week before each event, or email goldbergerm@uchicago.edu with questions.
Fall 2024
October 9 – Ken Homan, S.J., PhD candidate, Georgetown University
October 23 – James Bielo, Professor of Religious Studies at Northwestern University
October 30 – Izzi Olive, MA student, University of Chicago Divinity School
November 13 – Maggie Goldberger and Nathan Tucker, PhD students, University of Chicago Divinity School
Previous Workshops
Autumn 2023
5 October [Virtual via Zoom]
Rachel Carbonara, PhD candidate, University of Chicago Divinity School, “The Energy Medicine of the Americas”
19 October
Maggie Goldberger, PhD student, University of Chicago Divinity School, “Building the American Church: The Archdiocese of Newark’s Confrontation with Race in the 1930s”
October 27: Special event
Please note date, time, and location change: Friday from 4:30-5:50 in Social Sciences Tea Room, SSRB 201
Dr. Daniel Hummel, University of Wisconsin-Madison, “The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle over the End Times Shaped a Nation”
9 November
William Underwood, PhD candidate, University of Chicago Divinity School, “True Americanism in the Godless Institution: Making Religious Studies in the Wake of World War I”
30 November
Professor Richard Rosengarten, University of Chicago Divinity School, “ABCs and American Identity”
Winter 2022
27 January
Derek Buyan, PhD candidate, University of Chicago, “The Meaning of Our Creed: Dignity, Democracy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Christian Personalism,” Pre-circulated paper.
17 February
Joel Brown, PhD candidate, University of Chicago, “Homes for the ‘Least of These’: The Christian Social Activism of African American Women’s Clubs in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago,” Pre-circulated paper.
21 February
Pub night in Ida Noyes!
3 March
Erin Simmonds, PhD Candidate, University of Chicago, “Religion, Sex, and the Law in American History,” Pre-circluated syllabus.
10 March
Dr. Daniel Vaca, Robert Gale Noyes Assistant Professor of Humanities, Brown University, “Gospels of Efficiency in Gilded Ages,” Pre-circulated paper.
Autumn 2017
5 October
Pub Night! (University Pub, 6-7pm) No paper, just conversation
12 October
Karl Kuehner (MA Student, U. of Chicago)
“Modern Warriors: Jerry Falwell, The New Christian Right, and the Experience of Modernity” Pre-circulated paper
26 October (*12:30 – 1:30pm)
Russell Johnson (PhD Candidate, U. of Chicago), “The Struggle is Real: Understanding the American ‘Culture War’” Pre-circulated paper
10 November (2-4pm, Third Floor, Swift Hall)
David Hall (Harvard University), “Thinking across (Protestant) Reformations: Scotland, England, and New England, 1550-1640” (Co-sponsored with the Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture) Panel Respondents: W. Clark Gilpin, Margaret E. Burton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Christianity and Theology, and Eric Slauter, Associate Professor of English Language and Literature No pre-circulated paper
16 November
Erin Simmonds (PhD Student, U. of Chicago)
“Battling ‘The Other’: Atheism’s Dual Role in the Evolution Debates of the 1920s” Pre-circulated paper
30 November
Kit Shields (PhD Candidate, U. of Chicago), “‘Written on Their Hearts’: Body, Imagination, and Slave Literacy” Pre-circulated paper