This course explores religious life in the United States in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will focus on some of the basic social categories that organize our society and that make religion a social phenomenon. How do religious belief and practice relate to race, class, and gender? How do we understand the role of religion in relation to region and space? How can we understand the many different stories that Americans tell about their own country as a special—even sacred—place? We will survey case studies from a wide range of times and places, in order to develop a comparative perspective on the many ways of being religious that constitute this nation. Taken together, these cases begin to illustrate the dynamism, contentiousness, and multiplicity of American religious identity.
Course History
Fall 2013: taught by Prof. Marie Griffith and Dr. Anne Blankenship Fall 2016: taught by Prof. Laurie Maffly-Kipp Fall 2017: taught by Prof. Laurie Maffly-Kipp Fall 2018: taught by Prof. Marie Griffith Spring 2021: taught by Prof. Laurie Maffly-Kipp Fall 2023: taught by Prof. Laurie Maffly-Kipp
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Great professor teaching an important subject. American citizens deserve better education of religions.
— Fall 2018
The feedback I was given on my weekly reflections boosted my confidence and helped me tweak my writing schedule.
