From Morning in America to American Carnage: The Role of the Religious Imaginary in American Politics

Professor Diane Winston is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, author, and columnist. Her most recent book, Righting the American Dream: How the Media Mainstreamed Reagan’s Evangelical Vision (University of Chicago Press, 2023) explores how the news media normalized religiously-wrapped neoliberalism.

Diane Winston is Knight Center Chair in Media and Religion at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Winston will be joined for a discussion of her work by Mark Oppenheimer, Professor of Practice and Executive Editor of the Center’s online journal Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera.

Winston has authored and edited numerous books on the connection between religion, media, American history, and politics. They include Red-Hot and Righteous: The Urban Religion of the Salvation Army (1999), Faith in the Market: Religion and the Rise of Urban Commercial Culture (2002), Small Screen, Big Picture: Television and Lived Religion (2009), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the News Media (2012), and Religion and Reality TV: Faith in Late Capitalism (2018).

Between 1983 and 1995, Winston covered religion for the Raleigh News and Observer, Dallas Times Herald, and Baltimore Sun, during which time she was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize three times. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among other places.

Winston holds a Master of Theological Studies from the Harvard Divinity School, an MS in Journalism from Columbia University, and a PhD in Religion from Princeton University. 

Please register at rap@wustl.edu or 314-935-9345 so we can appropriately plan for your visit and send you parking and event information. Your registration does not guarantee a seat.

Emerson Auditorium offers open seating and doors will open at 6:00 p.m. for this event. Tickets are not required and seating will be “first come, first served.” All attendees are welcome to join us for a reception with the speaker immediately following his talk.

Visitor parking is available on the fourth level of Millbrook Garage or in the Danforth University Center (DUC) underground garage. Pull a ticket at the gate when you enter. Parking is free in yellow spaces (you will be ticketed if in a red space) weekdays between 5 p.m. and 7 a.m. and on weekends. For more information on parking, visit parking.wustl.edu/parking/visitor.

Please call us at (314) 935-9345 or email us at rap@wustl.edu with any questions or accommodation requests.