Religion in the American West

Embracing and Subverting Civil Religion in the American West: Japanese Americans during World War II

2011-12-26T09:00:00.020-05:00

by Anne Blankenship

In light of the 70^th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, it seems fitting to reflect on the ways in which minorities sometimes re-imagine—or revise—a country’s civil religion in response to persecution or discrimination. Incarcerated Japanese and Japanese Americans reconciled their commitment to the United States with the nation’s betrayal in a number of ways, but given the time of year, I’ll focus on one: incarcerees used Christmas celebrations to simultaneously demonstrate patriotic loyalty and protest their current treatment.

In 1942, war hysteria coupled with economic and political pressures led government officials to exile and incarcerate 115,000 Japanese nationals and their children (U.S. citizens) from the Pacific Coast. A small minority repatriated, but the vast majority wanted to remain in their chosen nation.

When I began exploring the religious life in Minidoka Relocation Center (a camp of 9,000 in southern Idaho), the quantity, quality and variety of material objects associated with Christmas jumped off the screen. (www.densho.org is an extraordinary resource for researching or teaching the incarceration.) Photographs, oral histories and newspapers documented the annual decorating contests between housing blocks.

Eager for a creative outlet, incarcerees assembled elaborate displays comparable to those found in department store windows. Some shouted patriotic messages like this portrait of Uncle Sam with Santa Claus.

Photograph courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration

Others juxtaposed incarcerees’ commitment to the American way of life with their current circumstances. A two-part display called “Santa Remembers Minidoka” expressed this complexity succinctly. The first scene, “Seattle 1941,” depicted a family-oriented Christmas scene in a typical American home, while “Minidoka 1942” contained a rough model of the camp set in front of a gloomy Idaho landscape painting.

Minidoka Christmas Display resembling “Christmas 1941”

Photograph courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration

Minidoka Christmas Display, “Christmas 1942”

Photograph courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration

The display insinuated that the community would have continued celebrating Christmas in an American manner, but was forced to improvise in an impersonal, unpleasant institution. When outsiders saw photographs of this exhibit in Portland newspapers, I wonder if they recognized the irony or saw what they expected and wanted to see—non-threatening minorities celebrating a quintessential American holiday.

The Christmas displays were only one example of this phenomenon. Similar modifications were visible in Christmas cards from Minidoka, one of which transformed a common image—snow covered houses—into a dark, haunting depiction of dilapidated barracks. Muddy paths surround the latter, not a forest floor or wide expanse covered in pristine, glistening snow. The contrast of light and dark is enough to show observant viewers that this revision of a holiday staple contained a more complex message.

Courtesy of Shosuke Sasaki Collection, via densho.org

Minidoka Relocation Center

Christmas in America is not simply a religious occasion, and for the vast majority of Minidokans, the holiday was about doing something American, not doing something Christian. At most, a quarter of the incarcerees were Christian. During World War II, Christmas symbolized what the country was fighting for—hope and love, home and family, peace and goodwill toward men—and its observance became a patriotic act. This sentiment was reflected in the patriotic or secular decorations and participants’ defensive insistence that Buddhists could “do” Christmas just as well as anyone else. In fact, the men and women who first conceived of the decorating competition were Buddhist, not Christian.

Readers might object that these displays and cards hardly constitute protest, but I disagree. The U.S. government characterized Japanese American incarcerees as submissive compatriots, but recent scholars argue that retaining cultural arts like ikebana and sumo was an act of resistance. The Christmas celebrations were a more nuanced expression of resistance and Americanism. However, I don’t argue that anti-incarceration sentiments were necessarily placed in displays or cards intentionally, but rather that these sentiments organically manifested themselves within creative works. In Artifacts of Loss: Crafting Survival in Japanese American Concentration Camps, Jane Dusselier argued that artwork enabled incarcerees to “[reposition] themselves in hostile environments.” Their adaptation of civil religious customs was personalized to match their experience in America. Decades ago, James Scott urged scholars to look for hidden layers of meaning within the art and literature of oppressed people. This is one such case.

Editors' Note: Religion in the American West is happy to welcome our new contributor, Anne Blankenship. Anne is a PhD candidate at the University of North Carolina. She will continue her discussion of civil religion in internment camps on Memorial Day, where she will show how incarcerees engaged and transformed the American frontier myth.

Tim Tebow: The New Western Man?

2011-12-19T09:00:00.049-05:00

by Brandi Denison

First, a confession. Although I am a Coloradoan at heart, and therefore, a Bronco’s fan, I am only a fair-weather football fan. My knowledge of the game is through osmosis. I have absorbed the rules and rhythms of the game through the hours my dad, uncles, and cousins have spent watching and hoping that the Broncos will recover their former glory. But there is a new man in town and he has caught my attention.

Photo by Mark Seliger

What? No, not that. I meant Tebowing.

This gesture has started a craze among athletes—ranging from high school players to professionals, including skier Lindsey Vonn. Vonn, a native Coloradoan, said that she would Tebow if she won a race in Colorado (a feat that the world-class skier has never accomplished). When she won her first race in the States at Beavercreek last week, she knelt down in front of her skis. In honor of God? No. When asked why she did it, she said: “Go Broncos. I did it. Got to represent.”

Many Coloradoans of all religious stripes might be in agreement with Vonn. For fans that have seen their team come so close to glory only to have it slip away in a fumbled football, Tebow is their savior. Tim Tebow fits into a mythic narrative Coloradoans have of themselves and of their sports teams—a little scrappy, but he gets the job done. Except last night, but an SNL skit predicted that this would happen.

But there’s more to Tebow than meets the eye.In addition to being portrayed as the savior of the Broncos, he has been heralded as the new face of evangelical Christianity. For one thing, he has a mythic birth story. In short, according to his parents, Tim Tebow shouldn't be here.

He has caught the attention of non-Christians as well. In an article for the ChristianScience Monitor, Dan Lebowitz, the executive director of Sport in Society at Northeastern University in Boston said:

I happen to be Jewish … and it’s not Tebow versus other religions,” Mr. Lebowitz says. “I believe in a new construct of manhood. You can be tough as heck on the football field, but still be kind, compassionate, respectful of women…. He sends a message that there may be dignity in choosing partners carefully, or respecting your body and someone else’s body as a temple. I respect that.

So, is Tebow, situated in the American West, giving us a new vision of manhood? One that is tough as nails in the workplace, but kind, compassionate, and respectful of women everywhere else?

No, of course not. Tebow is just engaging a very old idea of American masculinity, popularized by many writers and actors, including John Wayne. Here’s a clip from Rooster Cogburn (the 1975 sequel to the original True Grit), where Cogburn advises Eula Goodnight (played by the “Yankee” Katherine Heburn) on his take on gender and religion. In short, Goodnight asks Cogburn if his name is written in the Book of Life. After some back and forth, Cogburn responds by advising Goodnight to follow the apostle Paul's recommendation that women stay quiet.

Cogburn was tough in a fight but always willing to help ladies in need out. Sounds a little like another popular hero (albeit a mid-western one):

Truth, Justice, and the American Way are secular ideals that Tebow, among other western heroes, embodies. Wait! You might object, as Tebow is the first to popularize an evangelical message on the national football arena

Oh? Do you remember this guy?

Tim Defrisco/Getty Image

Bill McCartney was the storied coach of the University of Colorado at Boulder football team from 1982-1994. During his tenure as coach, he led the team to win 3 consecutive Big Eight Conference titles. Off the field, though, McCartney worked to fight another battle.

In 1990, McCartney founded Promise Keepers, an organization whose mission is to: “ignite and unite men to become warriors who will change their world through living out the Seven Promises.” These Seven Promises include supporting men in “building strong marriages and families through love, protection and biblical values.” Promise Keepers teaches men that they need to be the spiritual head of their household, leading their wives and children into salvation.

McCartney also participated in another storied birth story—that of Timothy Chase (TC) McCartney, a quarterback at LSU. TC is the son of McCartney’s daughter, Kristy, and one of his football players from the CU team, Sal Aunese. Sal was diagnosed with cancer when Kristy was pregnant. Before Sal died, Bill McCartney led Sal to Christ. You can read the story here.

I’m sure that this list could go on. Tebow is just one of many other Christian athletes working to use sports to transform images of both Christianity and masculinity. Look for Annie Blazer’s book, Faith on the Field: Sports, Gender, and Evangelicalism in America in the coming months to help contextualize male athleticism within a broader evangelical culture.

Now, I have to ask. Is this a type of masculinity that we want modeled for us? Tebow’s optimism, sportsmanship, and charity work do seem quite admirable. Indeed, in the face of NFL scandals like Rob Gronkowski’s photo shoot with a porn star, Tebow stands out as a quarterback parents could encourage their kids to look up to.

However, we need to interrogate even Tebow's version of masculinity. Are these really the only two ways of being a man in the United States today? Neither one is desirable, as both define themselves against subordinating women. On the one hand, women become valued as objects of male desire, but on the other hand, women are powerful only in their capacity to sacrifice themselves in order to build an evangelical home. In both of these visions of American manhood, women stand behind the men. We do need new constructions of manhood. I'm just not sure that we have found our guy in Tebow.

We're Here. Get Used to It.

2011-12-12T09:00:00.039-05:00

by Brett Hendrickson

The semester is ending, but I’m still ruminating on so much of the delicious material presented at this year’s AAR meeting in San Francisco. (Did it seem to you that the respondents this year were terrific?) Of course, one of the best panels was our very own Religion in the American West Seminar, which featured fine scholarship, poised thinkers, another spell-binding respondent (click here to read Greg Johnson's response), and a hearty discussion. In this post, I want to reflect a little on a portion of that discussion.

At one point in part of the back-and-forth after the papers (which can be found by following these instructions), a first-time attendee to the Seminar asked something like, “Yeah, but how is it that religion in the American West is a stand-alone topic?” Inwardly, I groaned. Not that it’s not an interesting question—it is—but we have discussed it several times now at the AAR and other venues. It’s just that the discussion in San Francisco had been going so swimmingly, with no existential angst, that I thought perhaps we had reached a moment of self-acceptance wherein we could assume a defensible raison d'être and move forward. But then the question resurfaced. And again this year, I heard many good points defending attentiveness to region in the study of American religion, but when I saw the questioner outside later, she confessed that she remained unconvinced.
So, as an exercise of self-definition, and as a plea that we accept our own basic existence, I offer the following points arguing for the area of study we have named “religion in the American West.” (Since this is a blogpost, not a researched article, I suggest and summarize rather than prove.)

1. Historiography. We have noted a great lacuna in other scholarly literature about the West around the subject of religion. Somehow, others have mostly found a way to tell the story of this region of the world without fully integrating the religious motivations and practices of the people in it. When religion is mentioned, it is dropped in like a quick and mandatory visit to church.

2. Land. We have made the point repeatedly that the mountains, the deserts, the Pacific world, and much of the rest of the western landscape are unique both in scale (big) and in the American imagination. Moreover, the amount of publicly-owned land is comparably much greater in the West, and the national park system originated and still has its largest examples in the region. The connection between religion and this unique land deserves more attention.

3. Native Americans. While indigenous people live in all parts of the American continents, the largest American Indian nations are in the West as are the largest reservations and other populations of Native people. In broad brushstrokes, it is fair to say that the study of living Native American religions and worldviews has been vital in the American West as has been the development of Native American religious rights.

4. Mormons. Sure, they began in New York, but the LDS Church and the American West are utterly entangled. As Greg Johnson confirmed, the Mormons are a real gift to those who study American religions, and it is a special treat that they are headquartered in Utah.

5. Spain and Mexico. Most of the American West was once part of a non-British European Empire (Spain). Later, most of the region was part of another liberal western nation-state (Mexico). Hence, most of the American West, rather than being a colony that threw off its master, is part of our very own American colonial expansion. The West is one of the clearest results of our nation’s own imperial pretensions. As any religions scholar can tell you, empire and religion go together.

6. The Pacific World and Asian Immigration. The western United States is a part of the Pacific Rim and has historically received many immigrants from Asian nations. As a consequence, there is a long and varied history of Asian religions in the region.

7. The Frontier. It goes without saying that “the frontier” as an interpretive category is contested. But the frontier, whatever it is, is intricately connected to religious expansion and expression in the United States.

8. Women. Universal suffrage first surfaced in Wyoming in the mid-nineteenth century, and several other western states gave women the right to vote earlier than the rest of the nation. Women have been important in the missions movement, in various metaphysical groups throughout the region, and in other roles of religious leadership.

9. Pentecostalism. Now a global religious juggernaut, Pentecostalism really got going in Los Angeles. Is it a coincidence that global communication networks and media production also grew to maturity in L.A.?

Finally, as Greg Johnson also helpfully added in San Francisco, it is not necessary that “religion in the American West” be some sort of Platonic form of utter uniqueness. It merely needs to be a fruitful referent for comparative study. It passes that test with flying colors. (Let’s not forget that the AAR has all kinds of sessions that boggle the mind in their specificity. I mean, how much is there really left to say about Schleiermacher?) The existence of this Seminar is proof enough that this is a worthwhile and justifiable endeavor.

How would you add to this list? How would you nuance these suggestions?

Book of the Month:

2011-12-05T09:00:00.039-05:00

Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sunbelt
review by Tisa Wenger

Editors' note: Today we kick off a new feature on the blog -- the Book of the Month. On the first Monday of each month, we'll have a review of a new or not-so-new book that is pertinent to the study of religion in the American West. We begin today with Tisa Wenger's review of Darren Dochuk's From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism.

Most of you will already have heard about Darren Dochuk’s widely acclaimed new book, From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (W.W. Norton, 2011). This book is already accumulating richly deserved awards: the Allan Nevins Prize from the Society of American Historians; and, just announced last month, the Dunning Prize of the American Historical Association, named every other year for “the best book on any subject pertaining to the history of the United States.” Congratulations, Darren!

From Bible Belt to Sunbelt is chock-full of colorful characters and new historical insights that will be of interest to readers of this blog. Dochuk describes the migration of southern evangelicals to California (a move that began during the Depression and accelerated in the 1940s), their conversion to conservative political activism, and their importance in the subsequent emergence of evangelical conservatism nationwide. He does not present the convergence of evangelicalism and conservatism as inevitable in any way, and in fact he shows how volatile and varied these migrants’ political commitments were when they first arrived in California.

Sara’s last post described the discussion at the seminar meeting about whether are or should be making any claims of regional distinctiveness. This question has haunted the seminar, and every time we face it we seem to feel the need to justify our existence, to justify our focus on the West within the field of American religious history. I think Darren’s book helps us move beyond that question simply by demonstrating so well the value of attentiveness to region and to local regional cultures. Indeed he helps us understand not only Southern California but also the “western south” (Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas) where many of these migrants originated, and in far more detail than previous accounts he also shows how important these grassroots conservatives and these regional cultures were for the “religious right” that came to national prominence with Reagan’s election in 1980.

All this raises another one of our seminar’s perennial questions, which does not involve justifying a regional focus, but what seems to me the more substantive problem that there is in fact no single “West.” California is not Utah is not North Dakota is not Texas, and none of these states can be taken as a unitary entity in themselves. There are multiple regional cultures and subcultures within the purview we’ve claimed, and the question is whether bringing them together within the rubric of “Religion in the American West” obscures more than it illuminates. I could ruminate much longer on all this, but I fear I’d be testing your patience as well as moving even further away from the book I’m supposed to be reviewing. So I’ll stop here with a single piece of advice: if you haven’t yet read Dochuk, yourself a favor, and read it. NOW.

More notes from the Editors: Have you read this book? What do you think about it? Join the conversation and leave your thoughts in the comments! If you have a suggestion for a future book of the month, or if you would like to review a book for the book of the month series, please contact us. Next month, Quincy D. Newell reviews Gregory Smoak's Ghost Dances and Identity: Prophetic Religion and American Indian Ethnogenesis in the Nineteenth Century (University of California Press, 2006).

"Building Up What Needs to be Destroyed"

2011-11-28T09:00:00.005-05:00

by Sara M. Patterson

One of my favorite comments from the Religion and the American West seminar at this year’s AAR—and, mind you, there were many comments worthy of quotation—was in response to a question posed by a first timer to the seminar: “What makes the West really distinct?” In asking that question, our visitor tapped into the discussions that we’ve been having for the past four years: what really makes the West distinct? The first response came from Greg Johnson, this year’s respondent. He argued that the emphasis shouldn’t be on the really, rather that the West need only be sufficiently different to sustain interesting and on-going conversations. A second response to the question came from Jim Bennett, co-chair of RAW. He said that as a group we knew that our regionalism skirted on exceptionalism but that we still felt there was value to focusing our attention on religion in the American West: “We are building up what we know needs to be destroyed; we’re doing both simultaneously.” I appreciated how well those comments seemed to epitomize much of what the seminar and its participants have tried to do.

Because all four of the papers presented can be found by following the instructions here, I will not attempt to summarize each author’s argument. Rather, I will try to tease out several themes (or several manifestations of one theme) that I saw surface in this year’s discussion. I hope that others will respond and explore the themes that stood out to them because this is in no way a comprehensive list. I am encouraged here by the comments given by Greg Johnson, whose response can be found here. Johnson suggested that the panelists explore secondary order arguments that would promote comparison and cross-talk, while recognizing that comparisons in the past (and today) often function in a bullying fashion, forcing peoples and their spiritual identities into categories that they might not recognize themselves. Nonetheless, Johnson argued for a cautious exploration of the larger relevance of each of the specific papers’ arguments.

The first theme that stood out to me was the role of “the West” in nation formation. Several of our panelists noted that “the west” was not always geographically west of wherever the United States was, and yet “the West” was the space on which Americans played out their futuristic, often millennial, hopes for the nation. As one participant noted, it was in the American imagination what America “ought to be.” This desire to create the ideal “American” (read also Protestant Christian) space, led to some very serious revisionist histories that “disappeared” indigenous peoples and wildernesses (and Muslims and animists in the Philippines), that flat out rejected whatever was deemed “non-Christian” (ie. Groups like Mormons), and re-read, in order to claim, certain histories (such as California’s Spanish, Catholic past). All of these strategies were part and parcel of the formation of an idealized American identity. Brandi Denison offered an important caution to our discussion of ‘disappearances,’ one later echoed by John-Charles Duffy: that in talking about disappearances and constructing these activities as the act of disappearing, we may well be participating in our own forms of romanticization.

The second theme that emerged in the papers was the theme of different groups—in these papers Mormons and Jews—claiming an American Indian past in order to foster a particular group identity. This process stood out most clearly in Sarah Imhoff’s work which analyzed the reasons why supporters of the Galveston movement—a movement to place newly immigrated Jews in the American West—might be interested in the argument that Jews were somehow tied to American Indian ancestry, an argument that had been made since the colonial settlement of the Americas.

The third theme that is intimately tied to the previous two was the way Catholics, Mormons and American Indians (particularly Utes, in our discussion), played a role in creating these visions of the past, present and future. As Katherine Moran pointed out, Catholics played a key role in creating a romantic Catholic past in the pacific west, they were integral in portraying themselves as the predecessors of American Protestants. In a similar vein, the Utes were not passive players in the creation of historical narratives that tied to the present day. As an example Greg Johnson brought up the fact that the Utes currently own a tiny piece of the area surrounding Mesa Verde even though they have no blood connection to the ancient Pueblo who dwelt there. Although there is no blood connection, the Utes have set up a hot dog stand where a tourist economy allows them the possibility of connecting with the esteemed and romanticized native past portrayed at Mesa Verde.

The final statement that caught my attention and may not be a ‘theme’ from the seminar this year, but is certainly worthy of note, was Johnson’s claim that Mormonism was “God’s gift to people who study religion.” The argument behind this comment was simply that Mormon history is so rich and full of data about the founding of a new religious movement. Johnson encouraged seminar participants to use their own approach to teaching Mormonism as a type of litmus test: If one can’t teach about Mormonism as a serious religious movement, then there “is something wrong with your methodology.” I think this is an excellent reminder that I will use to end my comments about this year’s seminar. What stood out most to me was that we should be constantly questioning our methodologies while also continuing to explore, compare and make secondary-order arguments. We should, indeed, continue the task of building up what we know needs to be destroyed.

Editors' note: Stay tuned for further conversation about our recent AAR session! Did you go? What did you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments! ALSO, coming up next week: Tisa Wenger kicks off our Book of the Month series with a review of Darren Dochuk's From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (W.W. Norton, 2010).

Contributors Wanted!

2011-11-22T14:59:00.000-05:00

We’d like to keep up the once-a-week posting that we’ve got going on here. To that end, we asked for blog post pledges Sunday at our seminar meeting. But many of you did not get to attend the seminar meeting! This post is for you. Will you help us keep the blog going at this rate for the next year?

Blog posts do not have to be long: 200-250 words is plenty, though you’re welcome to write more.

Blog posts can take a variety of forms:

alerting readers to a useful resource
reviewing a new or not-so-new book or article
ruminating on an idea or event
reporting on a recent conference, lecture, or other happening
ranting about something at least tangentially related to religion in the west

These are all welcome! You might come up with something that doesn’t fit any of these categories – that’s great too!

You do not need any technological expertise to write a blog post: We can help with formatting, illustrations, hyperlinks, and the like – you come up with the idea and the text. You send it to us as an email or a Microsoft Word document. That’s it.

Your pledge does not have to be large: Even pledging one post will help. In fact, if each of us writes a couple posts, we can probably cover the whole year!

WILL YOU PLEDGE? If you would like to contribute a blog post (or two, or ten) over the next year, please contact us. Tell us how many posts you’ll write before AAR 2012, and alert us to any conditions or qualifications on your pledge. (For example, Quincy Newell pledged six posts, not including posts regarding Seminar business. You might pledge three posts, of which one will be a book review. Or not – it’s up to you!) Please note, too, that the Seminar leadership and RAW blog editor reserve the right to refuse to publish any post that they deem unsuitable for the blog.

Religion and the WHA

2011-11-14T00:12:00.003-05:00

by David G.

Since the advent of the New Western History in the mid-1980s, BYU Professor Emeritus Thomas G. Alexander has frequently commented on the absence of religion in western history. At the WHA conference held last month in Oakland, California, Alexander again raised the issue during the Q&A of a plenary session on the place of biography, environmental history, public history, Native America, and gender within western history. When Alexander questioned why religion was not included in the panel, panel organizers explained that selections were based on submissions to the Western Historical Quarterly, and religion, while not absent from the journal's pages, does not approach the volume of the topics selected for the panel. Afterward, Stanford historian Richard White commented to Alexander that people are writing on religion in the West, but they're not submitting their work to the WHQ.

Alexander's critique of the panel could stand in for a general assessment of religion at the entire conference. While religion was not completely absent, only one panel (on Mormon women) was dedicated entirely to religion as a separate category of analysis. When it did appear in papers, religion was usually subsumed in another field. My guess is that people interested in religion in the West are presenting at different conferences (such as AAR or ASCH), and that most western historians that touch on religion see it as secondary to other categories seen as more “central” to western pasts, such as race, the environment, or gender.

David G. is a Ph.D. candidate in American history at Texas Christian University, working with Todd Kerstetter. David's dissertation examines the politics of Wounded Knee memory from 1890-1940. He blogs on Mormon history at juvenileinstructor.org.

Religion in the 19th-Century West: Primary Sources Online

2011-11-07T09:00:00.004-05:00

by Joshua Paddison

With the proliferation of digital collections and archived newspapers in recent years, it can be difficult to keep track of the online databases of historical primary source materials now available. An added complication is that some offer completely free and open access, while others (noted below) are subscription-based, locking researchers out unless they or their institutions pay the often hefty fee. This is a round-up of online databases I'm familiar with that offer primary sources useful for the study of religion in the nineteenth-century American West. Across them, you'll find a wide and sometimes frustrating array of software systems, visual designs, retrieval capabilities, output options, and search sensitivities.

PERIODICALS

Nineteenth-century newspapers are treasure troves of information on religion, revealing not only media portrayals of various religious groups but also the practices, beliefs, and rhetoric of the groups themselves via transcriptions of sermons and speeches. With the exception of the Mormons, few if any church-affiliated newspapers in the West (such as the Methodists' California Christian Advocate) are currently available online, however.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: the gold-standard in terms of ease of use and, in my experience, sophistication of keyword searching, but subscriptions are pricey.

19th Century U.S. Newspapers (Gale Digital Collections): also subscription-based.

America's Historical Newspapers (Readex): subscription-based; notable in that it includes numerous African American and Spanish-language newspapers.

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (Library of Congress): free access but awkward to use in that its output is page- rather than article-based.

Making of America (Cornell University): contains long runs of American Missionary, Harper's New Monthly Magazine, North American Review, and other journals.

California Digital Newspaper Collection (UC Riverside): almost 500,000 pages from California newspapers both urban and rural.

Historic Oregon Newspapers (University of Oregon): almost 20,000 pages from Oregon newspapers, but its lack of an advanced search option makes it difficult to search effectively.

Utah Digital Newspapers (University of Utah): more than 50 Utah newspapers.

Deseret News Collection (BYU): full run of Utah's first newspaper, a weekly until 1898.

19th Century Mormon Article Newspaper Index (BYU): almost 5,800 articles by Mormon and non-Mormon authors about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

19th-Century Publications about the Book of Mormon, 1829-1844 (BYU): fascinating collection of early responses to the Book of Mormon specifically.

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS

The amount of western-related content in these databases vary, but together they offer a staggering amount of material on nineteenth-century American religions, from sermons and tracts to prescriptive literature and hymnals. The challenge is finding what you're looking for among the millions of pages now available.

Google Books: phenomenally useful and growing daily, with everything from James Mooney's The Ghost Dance Religion to W. J. Colville's The Problem of Life: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Spiritual Science and Philosophy.

Making of America (University of Michigan): counterpart to the Cornell site, this contains 10,000 digitized books.

The Nineteenth Century in Print (Library of Congress): 1,500 more books.

Sunday School Books: Shaping the Values of Youth in Nineteenth-Century America (Library of Congress): 163 Sunday school books published during the antebellum era, including such gems as The Indian Chief and the Little White Boy from 1857.

Mormon Publications (BYU): 150 books, tracts, hymnals, and other writings by Mormons in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS

Making use of unpublished manuscript collections in digital form brings different challenges than books and periodicals. Few manuscripts are keyword-searchable at the full text level, forcing researchers to rely on cataloguers' subject terms. Reading nineteenth-century handwriting can be difficult in the best of conditions, and digital scans are often especially difficult to decipher. It remains to be seen to what extent digitalization can (or should) replace in-person archival work.

Mountain West Digital Library: a digital portal for digital collections related to Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and the Rocky Mountain West.

The Chinese in California, 1850-1925 (Library of Congress): few of the materials here were created by Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans themselves, making this collection mostly useful in understanding how white Americans viewed Chinese "heathenism," especially its materiality (to which Laurie Maffly-Kipp has called scholars to pay more attention).

Oroville Chinese Temple (Bancroft Library): photographs of artifacts from a Chinese Temple in Oroville, California, built in 1863.

Documents Relating to Indian Affairs (University of Wisconsin): contains a run of the Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1826 to 1932 as well as ratified treaties the U.S. government made with the Cherokee, Seneca, Delaware, and other Indian groups.

American Indians of the Pacific Northwest (Library of Congress): photographs and textual depictions of Pacific Northwestern Indians, including religious practices.

Utah American Indian Digital Archive (University of Utah): gateway to government and tribal documents, oral histories, photographs, and maps related to the Northwestern Shoshone, Goshute, Paiute, Utah Navajo, White Mesa, and Ute Indians.

Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life (Bancroft Library): online collections related to Jewish life in the West.

California Cultures (University of California): pictorial and manuscript materials related to racial groups in California; most of the material is from the twentieth century.

Western History Collections (University of Oklahoma): portal to western history-related digital collections at UO, featuring material on the Cherokee, Cheyenne-Arapaho, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole nations.

Mormon Migration (BYU): geared towards genealogical research, this database pulls together information related to Mormon migration and immigration from letters, newspaper articles, ship logs, and customs reports.

Trails of Hope: Overland Diaries and Letters, 1846-1869 (BYU): transcriptions and scans of 49 migrants' accounts of the overland journey.

American Westward Migration (University of Utah): 6 diaries and 32 maps documenting Mormons' travel westward in the 1850s.

IMAGE COLLECTIONS

These collections offer much for the study of religion in the West. Photographs of western churches, synagogues, temples, and religious artifacts provide evidence for scholars of religious material culture, while paintings, drawings, cartoons, and other pictorial representations shed light on religious iconography and popular attitudes.

History of the American West (Library of Congress)

Robert B. Honeyman Jr. Collection of Early Californian and Western American Pictorial Material (Bancroft Library)

Photographs of the American West, 1861-1912 (National Archives)

Alaska, Western Canada and United States Collection (University of Washington)

Buffalo Bill Historical Center Digital Collections

Calisphere (University of California)

Religious Education Image Archive (BYU)

C. R. Savage Collection (BYU)

William Henry Jackson Collection (BYU)

Jewish Archives Collection (University of Washington)

These lists are far from comprehensive, I'm sure. Please report online resources I've missed!

AAR is Coming Soon!

2011-10-31T17:43:00.008-04:00

...And that means we're getting ready for our session, which will be on Sunday, November 20, from 9:00 to 11:30 in the Parc 55 Wyndham hotel's Sutro room. We hope you all will be able to join us!

The theme for our session this year is "Land, Identity, and Transnational Wests." We'll read and discuss four papers: "City Jew, Country Jew: Immigration, Masculinity, and American Zionism," by Sarah Imhoff of Indiana University; "Civilizing the American Frontier: Utah, Kansas, Nicaragua, and American Millenarianism, 1856-1858," by Konden Smith of Arizona State University; "'Playing Indian': Defining American Religion through Ute Land Religion, 1910-1940," by Brandi Denison of the University of North Florida; and "Faith, Place, and Power: Catholicism and the Making of the United States Pacific," by Katherine Moran of the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. In addition to discussing the critical issues that each paper raises, the seminar discussion will also focus on ways that the four papers taken together highlight the distinct contributions the American West makes to understanding American religion and the ways in which religion helps us understand the American West. As in the past, our session will open with brief summaries of the papers from each author, followed by a response to the papers, this year given by Greg Johnson of the University of Colorado, Boulder. That will get the ball rolling for our discussion.

Seminar attendees are asked to read the four papers in advance; they are now posted on the Seminar’s website. Click on the "members only" tab, which should take you to the class management system at Yale where the papers are posted. (This link will take you directly to that site.) Click on the appropriate log-in tab, which for most of us will be the non-Yale log-in. If you have been enrolled as a member of the seminar, you should be able to use the log-in from last year. If you do not remember your password (your log-in should be your email address), there is a "forgot your password" link that should enable you to recover access. Once you have successfully logged onto yaleclassv2 you should see a tab that says "Rel American West" Click that tab and then the "papers" link on the left and should see the folders. If you are not yet enrolled as a member of the seminar, please contact Tisa Wenger to be enrolled.

Religion in the News

2011-10-24T09:37:00.000-04:00

by Brandi Denison

This past week, several incidents occurring west of the Mississippi have called attention to the way in which the religious diversity of the American West leads can lead to friction.

First, in Roosevelt, Utah, a small town in eastern Utah, police officers used pepper spray against an "unruly" crowd at a high school football game. The Washington Post reported that a group of Polynesian men had come to the came to support a relative, who was playing for Union High School. Union had lost the game, but to rally the team's spirits, the relatives decided to perform the Haka, a traditional Maori dance that has been appropriated by sports teams as a pre-game ritual. You can see a video of the All-Blacks (New Zealand's soccer team) perform it here. Police reported that they did not know the Haka would be performed and were alarmed by the aggressive dance.

This space is no stranger to governmental crackdowns on indigenous dance practices. Roosevelt borders the Ouray-Uintah Ute reservation--a space where, in the early twentieth century, authorities attempted to quell the Sun Dance and other traditional practices.

Second, earlier this month, the Seattle division of Hertz, the car rental company, fired 26 Somali Muslims for failing to clock out during prayers. The Washington Post reported that 34 workers were suspended for not clocking out during breaks, which the company contends includes prayers. Eight employees were reinstated once they agreed to sign out. The union which represents the drivers, Teamsters Local 117, contends that the most recent contact states that workers would not need to clock out for prayers. Seventy percent of the Hertz employees the union represents are Muslim, making this contract dispute significant. Hertz argues that their policy is not discriminatory, but instead, making sure that all their employees are treated fairly.

This isn't the full story, though. You might think this all sounds familiar. That's because in 2009, non-Muslim Hertz employees in Atlanta sued the company for not requiring Muslim employees to clock out during prayers. Like the Seattle case, the non-Muslim employees in Atlanta were concerned about fairness. Muslim employees, the lawsuit contended, had up to three 15-minute paid breaks a day.

Are these two cases simply about maintaining order and fairness? Or are there elements of racial and religious discrimination in each? What do you think?

Faith Healing in Oregon

2011-10-19T15:50:00.000-04:00

by Quincy D. Newell

For a long time, people have come to the West to be healed. Whether it’s the high desert air thought to relieve the symptoms of tuberculosis, asthma, and other ailments; the cosmic vortices, thought to concentrate spiritual energy; or the charismatic personalities, able to heal through prayer, the laying on of hands, and other religious practices, healing and the West have gone hand-in-hand in the American imagination.

Aimee Semple McPherson, whose ministry was built in large part on healing, preaching in 1939. Photo from the Los Angeles Examiner collection, Regional History Collection, via http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/la/scandals/aimee.html.

Many of those healing practices were, or are, alternatives to the modern medicine of their day. Their scientific validity has been questioned – their practitioners have taken them on faith.

But faith-based healing is struggling in the West, at least in Oregon, these days. An Oregon jury recently convicted Dale and Shannon Hickman of manslaughter in the death of their newborn son. The Hickmans are members of the Followers of Christ Church, based in Oregon City. (The church also has branches elsewhere in the West, including three in Idaho.)

AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, via katu.com.

The Followers of Christ are a small church with Pentecostal roots. The approximately one thousand members believe in healing through prayer and anointing with consecrated oil – not through modern medicine. The Hickmans’ trial is the latest in a run of several Oregon cases concerning the deaths of Followers children whose lives could have been saved by basic medical treatment.

For many years, the Followers of Christ were protected from prosecution by Oregon laws that granted religious exemption from criminal charges in some cases, including cases of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment. According to journalist Susan Nielsen, this made Oregon “the nation’s most lenient state for parents who let their children suffer in the name of religion.” (That quote is indicative of local discourse surrounding these cases, which are framed in terms of child abuse rather than in terms of religious freedom.)

In 1999, the Oregon legislature narrowed the exemptions, eliminating the spiritual healing defense in cases of second-degree manslaughter and first- and second-degree criminal mistreatment. This year, they passed another law eliminating “spiritual treatment” as a defense against homicide charges and subjecting parents to mandatory minimum sentencing rules. But even before the 2011 legislation, the District Attorney in Clackamas County (which covers some of the suburbs of Portland, OR, including Oregon City) had brought charges against three couples. The Hickmans are the fourth couple in two years to be charged. Seven of the eight people charged have been convicted.

These cases are tragic. Since 2009, parents have been charged in the case of a 15-month old girl who died from pneumonia and another infection; a 16-year-old boy who died of a urinary blockage; a child who nearly went blind in her left eye because of an abnormal growth of blood vessels there (the state intervened and got treatment for her, which the parents may have to pay for); and the Hickmans’ son David, who died from an infection shortly after being born two months prematurely. Concern about the Followers is not new; Time carried an article in 1998 raising concerns about the high mortality rates for children in the group and the extraordinary suffering some endured before death.

The tragedy, I think, can overshadow the extremely complicated nature of the issues at stake here. On the one hand, we have the state’s concern for the welfare of its most vulnerable citizens, its children. On the other hand is the concern of religious people for their First Amendment rights – specifically, the free exercise of religion. On the third hand (Kali seems an appropriate image here) is the question of parental rights – the ability of parents to raise their children as they see fit, without undue interference from the state. The case of Neil Beagley, the 16-year-old boy who died of a urinary blockage, raises a concern for the fourth hand: minors’ own religious convictions, and their ability to act on those convictions.

Neil Beagley at age 14, via oregonlive.com.

Neil’s parents, Jeffrey and Marci Beagley, were sentenced to 16 months in prison for their son’s death. According to Marci Beagley’s testimony, reported by Nicole Dungca, “As Neil lay in the bed before his death in June, he asked that family members come for a laying on of hands, his mother testified. They asked him if he wanted medical care, but she said he declined.” Some two and a half months earlier, Neil spoke with a Department of Human Services caseworker, telling him that “he had the flu, but was feeling better and didn’t want to go to the doctor.”

In the United States, we have tried children younger than Neil Beagley as adults for taking the lives of other people. Beagley, according to his mother’s testimony, played a significant role in his own death by refusing medical care. His church, to which he was devoted, taught that seeking medical care showed a “lack of faith.” It is not unreasonable to think that Neil believed asking for a doctor might jeopardize his salvation.

Neil learned the beliefs that led him to reject medical treatment from his parents and other members of his faith community. Acting on those beliefs, he essentially foreclosed the possibility of saving his life. His parents claimed that they complied with his wishes based on their understanding (facilitated by conversations with a state-employed social worker) that Oregon law allows children to seek or refuse medical treatment once they reach the age of fifteen. (Technically, the law allows children to seek medical treatment, but says nothing about their right to refuse it. The law also obligates parents to provide adequate medical care for their children.) But notice the apparent paradox into which Neil Beagley and his parents unwittingly walked: the U.S. Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, allows virtually unlimited freedom of religious belief as well as limited freedom of religious practice.

The current justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Of these nine people, three are Jewish and six are Catholic. Only two were born west of the Mississippi.

The limitations on practice generally revolve around protection of vulnerable populations (like children) and restrictions on impinging on other people’s rights. It’s basically agreed that you can believe anything you want – that the earth is flat, that the wafer on your tongue is human/divine flesh, that the world is going to end next year, that evolution is a crock. You can also teach your children these beliefs. But, at least in Oregon, if your children – children who are apparently old enough to make decisions on their own, old enough to drive, old enough to hold a job – if those children act on those beliefs in ways that physically harm themselves (but nobody else) – you are liable for criminal prosecution. Jeffrey and Marci Beagley were convicted because their son learned and practiced the religion they taught him.

The Followers, of course, are not the only religious group to teach doctrines that contradict current scientific thought. I’m thinking here specifically of conservative Christians who reject the theory of evolution because it conflicts with their interpretation of the Bible. My friends who are biologists rant every so often about what they perceive as these folks’ hypocrisy, dutifully taking antibiotics when a doctor prescribes them, but rejecting the science on which these drugs are based. Followers eliminate the hypocrisy that drives my friends nutty, but by doing so they open themselves up to criminal prosecution.

Striking a balance between respect for citizens’ religious convictions, the need to protect children, and the desire to raise our children according to the dictates of our own consciences is a difficult task. In the wake of so many childrens’ deaths, Oregon has moved to emphasize the protection of children, giving less deference to the wishes of parents and the concern for free exercise rights.

MHA CFP Deadline extended!

2011-10-10T15:45:00.001-04:00

Please see the CFP below.

The 47th annual conference of the Mormon History Association will be held a month later than usual – June 28-July1, 2012 at the MacEwan Conference and Events Centre at the University of Calgary. The year 2012 marks the 125th anniversary of the establishment of the first Mormon settlement on Lee’s Creek (later Cardston) in southern Alberta by Charles Ora Card. Furthermore, July 1, 2012 will mark the 145th anniversary of the Canadian Confederation. Originally established in 1875 as Fort Calgary by the Northwest Mounted Police, Calgary has become a thriving metropolitan center to many of Canada’s most successful oil, gas and transportation businesses. So come celebrate with us!

Building upon last year’s theme of global transformations, we intend to capitalize on Calgary’s dynamic setting to invite papers that interpret the Restoration Movement in fresh, new ways. Canada is a richly diverse and cosmopolitan nation and as such beckons the immigration of new viewpoints on Mormon history. International studies of the Mormon experience and comparative studies with other faiths and their environments are encouraged; we also invite research that considers changing perspectives. For instance, how have media and the new era of electronic digitalization influenced the print culture of Mormon history and historical research? What influence has internationalization had on church structures and local memberships as well as interpreting our histories? To what extent has U.S. politics defined the internal understanding of Mormonism? How might various disciplinary lenses such as lived religion, theology, praxis, gender, race and ethnicity shape and reshape our understanding of the Mormon past? Beyond the standard North American perspective, how have local cultures, challenging economics, and national politics affected our interpretations?

The intersection of Canadian and Mormon history also begs scholarly inquiry. For example, how did the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1881 impact Mormon migration to Alberta? What unique legal and social challenges did Mormon polygamy encounter in Canada? How does the current debate in the Supreme Court of Canada over plural marriage challenge historical interpretations? How have the Restoration Movements developed in Canada? What of the challenges of secularization?

While we encourage presentations related to the conference theme, we also welcome high-quality proposals related to any and all aspects of Mormon/Restoration history. As a Program Committee we invite proposals for panels as well as individual papers. Innovative formats will also be considered. Please send an abstract of each paper (no more than 300 words) plus a short CV (no longer than two pages) as well as suggestions for session chairs and respondents. Previously published papers will not be considered. Young scholars are especially encouraged to participate. Generous donors have offered to pay travel expenses for some undergraduate and graduate students whose proposals are accepted. Student proposals should include estimated expenses if applying for a travel grant.

The deadline for proposals has been extended to November 1, 2011. Proposals should be sent by email to mhacalgary2012@gmail.com. If necessary, hard copies of proposals can be sent to Richard Bennett, 370D Joseph Smith Building, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be made by December 31, 2011. Additional instructions and information are available on the MHA website at http://www.mhahome.org.

Mapping Religion

2011-10-04T07:49:00.002-04:00

by Quincy D. Newell

I ran across a super-cool website recently: the North American Religion Atlas. Did y’all know about this? Were you just hiding it from me? No, you wouldn’t do that. You must not have known about it either. Anyway, it’s an interactive site that uses data from the 2000 Religious Congregations and Membership Survey from Glenmary Research Center and the 2000 U.S. Census. You can make your own maps and charts, and you can save them and download them. So, for example, if you’re teaching about religion in the American West, you could make a map that shows which counties in the United States reported more than 10% uncounted/unaffiliated people AND more than 10% adherents of “Eastern religions.”

Okay, so that’s a really random query, leading to a fairly colorless map. As it turns out, though, there are six of those counties – two in Colorado, two in New Mexico, one in Hawaii, and one in what looks to be West Virginia. (I know, it’s a little hard to tell on this particular rendering of the map – especially because I’m not showing you Hawaii. But on the site, you can zoom in and see the stuff up close.)

You can also make maps that show things like Orthodox adherents as a percentage of the total state population.

Here, I’m totally going to show you Alaska, because it’s different from the rest of the States:

And you can make pie charts! Here, for example, you can see what the data says about religion in Wyoming: adherents as a percentage of the total population.

Look at that – over half the population of WY is unaffiliated or uncounted.

Despite its name, it appears that the site only has data about the United States. If you’re wondering about Canada or Mexico (let alone Central America) I’m afraid you’re out of luck here. Also, the tools are a bit crude – it’s hard to get very nuanced maps. (That first map, for example, started as an attempt to find out where there were more adherents of Eastern religions than people who were uncounted/unaffiliated. I didn’t figure out how to create such a comparison.)

The people who run the site tell me that they are currently “redeveloping the site and moving it to a new platform that will permit greatly improved functionality and provide more visualization options.” It will also include “several more years of religion and census data going back to at least the first part of the 20^th century.” I’m particularly excited about that last bit, because it will allow us to illustrate change over time. The launch date for the new-and-improved site is summer 2012. The NEH is helping fund the redevelopment – kudos to them, and to the folks who put this site together. For teaching and thinking about religion in the American West (or, really, any other region of the U.S.) it’s really useful.

Michele Bachmann, Immigration, and Religion in the West

2011-09-27T16:17:00.005-04:00

by Quincy D. Newell

A little over a year ago, Brandi Denison wrote a great post about the Tea Party and the West, focusing on land and land use. As the race for the Republican presidential nomination heats up, I’d like to revisit and extend some of those ideas. In particular, I’ve been bothered by something Michele Bachmann said in the Republican debate held on September 7 at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

(Photo by Jae C. Hong, AP Photo.)

In a response to a question about what to do about “11.5 million people who are here [in the United States] without documents and with U.S.-born children,” Bachmann said this:

Our immigration law worked beautifully back in the 1950s, up until the early 1960s, when people had to demonstrate that they had money in their pocket, they had no contagious diseases, they weren`t a felon. They had to agree to learn to speak the English language. They had to learn American history and the Constitution. The one thing they had to promise is that they would not become a burden on the American taxpayer.

Bachmann repeated this claim in the next debate on September 12, blaming “liberal members of Congress” for changing the immigration laws and asserting that the way the system worked before was “the American way.”

Alex Wagner of the Huffington Post fact-checked the first statement for MSNBC’s post-debate coverage. Wagner’s analysis?

The rules that Michele Bachmann describes here are actually pretty darn close to exactly what already exists. To become a U.S. citizen, you have to show that you can read, speak and write basic English. You need to have a basic understanding of U.S. history and the form of the U.S. government. You cannot have a criminal record. You have to have filed your income tax return every single year. You must have, quote unquote, ‘good moral character.’ And if you apply for a visa or admission into the country, you`re rejected if you have a significant communicable disease.

I can only hope that all my students were as flabbergasted as I to hear these words emanating from Bachmann’s mouth, and that they were as disappointed as I that Wagner’s fact-checking didn’t go far enough. As many of you, dear readers, will know, the thing that changed in the mid-sixties that had profound consequences on immigration into the United States was not the requirements Bachmann named, but rather the system that had kept many people out for forty years or more. The law was a little thing we like to call the 1965 Immigration Act, but it’s also known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 or, after its sponsors, the Hart-Celler Act. (LBJ signed the bill into law on October 3, 1965. Happy Birthday, Hart-Celler!) Although most of the discussion about immigration these days centers on Hispanic immigrants, the Hart-Celler Act affected Asian immigrants most dramatically. It ended the set of laws and agreements that went back as far as the 1880s and continued being enacted into the 1920s, often collectively referred to as the Asian Exclusion Acts. A few bloggers have picked up on this – among the earliest to write about it was Ian Millhiser at thinkprogress.org. The Washington Post also carried an opinion piece on the topic. Nothing I’ve seen, though, works through the religious implications of Bachmann’s statement. That’s what I plan to do here.

First, some background. In 1924, as I mentioned above, Congress passed the Immigration Act of (surprise!) 1924 and the Oriental Exclusion Act. The former used a “national origins” system to limit European immigration. The latter, according to the good folks at Harvard University Library Open Collections Program, “prohibit[ed] most immigration from Asia, including foreign-born wives and the children of American citizens of Chinese ancestry.” In 1929, the National Origins Formula went further, capping immigration at 150,000 and totally barring Asian immigration. Result: in the 1920s, over four million immigrants arrived in the United States. In the following decade, the number was about an eighth of that – a bit over five hundred thousand. Keeping Asians out had the side effect of stunting the growth of Asian religions in the United States. Yes, there were Asians and practitioners of Asian religions in the U.S. after 1924, but their numbers were small. Thus, sociologist Will Herberg could publish an analysis of American religion in 1955 entitled Protestant, Catholic, Jew – and describe most of American religion in three words.

Things started to ease a bit in the wake of World War II, but it wasn’t until 1965 that the national origins system was dismantled. The effect was palpable: in 1965, Asian Americans comprised about half a percent of the total U.S. population. From 1971 to 2002, over seven million people immigrated to the United States from Asian countries. (This nifty table shows how that ranks in terms of continent of origin. Asia ranks second below North America [nearly ten million immigrants] and above Europe [over three million immigrants].) In 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 4.8% of the population of the United States is of Asian descent. In other words, since the 1965 Immigration Act, the proportion of the American population that claims Asian ancestry has increased almost tenfold.

Okay, so that’s the legal and demographic history that Michele Bachmann is referencing in her comments about immigration. The result for American religion was, predictably, a rise in religious diversity in the United States (although, since many immigrants have been Protestants, Catholics, and Jews – or have become part of that “triple melting pot” since immigrating – religious diversity has not kept pace with racial/ethnic diversity). In 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life surveyed the American population and found that nearly three-quarters of a percent of American adults identified as Buddhist, almost half a percent identified as Hindu, and just over half a percent identified as Muslim. (These numbers differ slightly from the American Religious Identification Survey, released the same year.) Granted, those are pretty small percentages, but they’re significantly more than even the numbers from 1990, let alone from, say, 1960.

So why does Bachmann single the Hart-Celler Act out for special attention? I think Alex Wagner, fact-checking the statement on MSNBC, was right to describe Bachmann’s remarks as “based more on nostalgia than actual fact.” Bachmann is appealing to a specifically conservative Christian nostalgia – the longing for a lost golden age in America, when everyone was Christian, or at least “Judeo-Christian.” It’s worth noting that the concept of Judeo-Christianity is a twentieth-century idea that really took hold in the years after World War II. Originally a liberal ideal that competed with conservatives’ nativist, Protestant dream of a “Christian America,” the Judeo-Christian ideal became a rallying cry in the late-twentieth century for conservatives who feared the chaos of a pluralist society. (For more on this history, see Kevin M. Schultz’s book Tri-Faith America [Oxford, 2011], reviewed here by Edward J. Blum.) Perhaps someone out there with more Google skills (or more patience) than I will track down a quotation from Bachmann to the effect that she thinks the United States is or ought to be a Christian nation. I haven’t found it. However, much has been made in recent weeks of Bachmann’s (and Rick Perry’s) ties to conservative Christian movements like Christian Reconstructionism. And it’s clear that Bachmann has learned from and been influenced by people who believe that the United States is, or at least used to be and ought to be again, a Christian nation.

As it turns out, the Tea Party agrees, at least according to a 2010 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), which found that 55% of Tea Partiers “believe that America has always been and is currently a Christian nation.” For comparison, 42% of the general public and 43% of white evangelical Protestants believe the same thing. So the desire for a Judeo-Christian America fits neatly with the values of Bachmann’s Tea Party supporters. In other words, Bachmann’s appraisal of the Hart-Celler Act as failed policy that is not “the American way” is Tea Party religion driving (implicitly) proposed immigration policy. Although there have been some claims that the Tea Party is not religious, Sarah Posner neatly made the argument that it is over at Religion Dispatches. Echoing the PRRI poll, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has also shown in a 2011 poll that “Tea Party supporters …. are much more likely than registered voters as a whole to say that their religion is the most important factor in determining their opinions on these social issues [such as abortion and same-sex marriage]. And they draw disproportionate support from the ranks of white evangelical Protestants.” Indeed, some pundits have argued that the Tea Party is just the Religious Right with another name. See, for example, Rachel Maddow (start the clip at about 10:40), or just go straight to the New York Times opinion piece she’s working from, “Crashing the Tea Party,” by David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam.

What, I’m sure you’re asking, does this have to do with religion in the American West? Well, first of all, immigration is a particularly live issue in the West. Anyone who has visited Southern California may have noticed signs like this one, which went up in the 1990s:

(Photo by Earnie Grafton, San Diego Union-Tribune.)

More recently, another Western state, Arizona, has become the focal point for debates over immigration reform.

Immigration has meant that racial/ethnic diversity is quite pronounced in the West. From the U.S. Census:

In the 2010 Census, just over one-third of the U.S. population reported their race and ethnicity as something other than non-Hispanic white alone (i.e. "minority"). This group increased from 86.9 million to 111.9 million between 2000 and 2010, representing a growth of 29 percent over the decade.

Geographically, particularly in the South and West, a number of areas had large proportions of the total population that was minority. Nearly half of the West's population was minority (47 percent), numbering 33.9 million. Among the states, California led the nation with the largest minority population at 22.3 million.

Between 2000 and 2010, Texas joined California, the District of Columbia, Hawaii and New Mexico in having a "majority-minority" population, where more than 50 percent of the population was part of a minority group. Among all states, Nevada's minority population increased at the highest rate, by 78 percent.

Of course, all that racial/ethnic diversity has religious consequences for the West, too. In a really interesting article in Geographies of Religions and Belief Systems (volume 2, issue 1, pp. 3-20) Lisa Marie Jordan analyzed the spatial distribution of religious adherents in the United States, and concluded that “The Pacific Northwest coast, a home to many new, non-Christian immigrant families, shows very high rates of religious diversity” (11). The West is home to lots of different religions: Protestants (of all stripes), Catholics, and Jews, to be sure – but also Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Mormons, Sikhs, many new religious movements, and many other religious traditions that I haven’t named. The West also has some of the highest proportions of “nones” – people who claim no religious affiliation – in the nation. Though it’s not entirely due to the Hart-Celler Act, this diversity is certainly fueled by that change in the immigration laws.

As Sara M. Patterson pointed out in her paper for the Religion in the American West Seminar’s very first session way back in 2008, in religious terms, everyone is a minority in the West. The West has thus become the poster child for a new understanding of American society based on pluralism rather than “Protestant-Catholic-Jew.” That’s not to say, of course, that there haven’t been conflicts: the West has been the place where white American Protestants have perhaps worked the hardest to impose their vision of what it means to be an American. (There has been so much work done on this idea, I will only list a couple more-or-less randomly selected works from a pile of possibilities: Todd M. Kerstetter’s God’s Country, Uncle Sam’s Land [University of Illinois Press, 2006] and Susan M. Yohn’s Contest of Faiths [Cornell University Press, 1995] are both good places to start.) But the West is also where competing visions of what it means to be an American – and how religion might (or might not) be involved in that endeavor – have emerged most clearly. For example, the children of South Asian immigrants in Southern California discovered that the way to be accepted by their classmates was not to cover up their religious differences, but to embrace them – to become American by becoming Hindu. (See Prema Kurien’s wonderful article “Becoming American by Becoming Hindu” in Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration, ed. R. Stephen Warner and Judith G. Wittner [Temple University Press, 1998].)

What changed in 1965 was not what we asked of immigrants – that they speak English and be economically self-supporting, that they know something about the United States and that they not pose a criminal or epidemiological threat to society. We still require all of those things. What changed in 1965 was who we allowed to immigrate. When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Hart-Celler Act into law, he did so saying that the old system, based on national origins – the system Bachmann described as “the American way” – was “un-American in the highest sense, because it has been untrue to the faith that brought thousands to these shores even before we were a country.” The Act allowed the United States to become more racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse than it ever had been before, and much of this diversity is concentrated in the American West. Before the Hart-Celler Act, Michele Bachmann said, “our immigration law worked beautifully.” Perhaps someone should ask her if she finds religious pluralism attractive.

(Many thanks to Jennifer Schuberth, Susanna Morrill, Sara Patterson, Frieda Knobloch, and Brandi Denison for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this post.)

Comments needed on new AAR schedule

2011-09-19T09:10:00.007-04:00

by Quincy Newell

Greetings, fellow Religion in the American West-ers! (RAWers?) Robert Puckett, our contact at the AAR, recently sent a newsletter out to the AAR Program Unit Chairs with lots of information about the AAR and its upcoming meeting. (San Francisco! Yay!) There was one note that caught my eye. It’s a bit long, but please read through and continue on to my comment at the end:

New Annual Meeting Session Schedule

The Program Committee has strongly recommended (and the Board of Directors has supported) a motion that beginning in 2012, the AAR shift its sessions into 100-minute time slots with 20-minute breaks, with a final 90-minute session each day following the schedule below on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday:

8:30 am-10:10 am

10:30 am-12:10 pm

12:10 pm-1:30 pm (Plenary Sessions and lunch)

1:30 pm-3:10 pm

3:30 pm-5:10 pm

5:30 pm-7:00 pm

On Tuesday, the schedule would be:

8:00 am-9:40 am

10:00 am-11:40 am

The committee made this recommendation for a number of reasons:

The general feeling that Annual Meeting sessions are too long and that the program has become stagnated by the 4 papers (plus a respondent) model. The committee wishes to encourage sessions that are not just presenters reading their papers. This is not effective communication. We wouldn’t read a lecture to our students, so why do we subject our colleagues to this? The committee encourages alternative presentation styles, and the dedication of most session time to question and answer and discussion.

We are one of only six ACLS organizations to hold 2.5 hour sessions. Among these 71 associations, the median time is 105 minutes, the average is 106 minutes, and the most common length is 90 minutes.

The 90-minute sessions on Sunday afternoon have been successful in concentrating focus and encouraging more discussion amongst participants and the audience.

The dramatic growth of the field in the last decade has overburdened our resources, and we wish to expand the opportunity for growth and not to stifle it. Increasing from 11 time slots to 17 time slots gives the Program Committee more flexibility to increase the number of sessions assigned to any given Program Unit, and to add new units when it feels they are needed. Sessions will be allocated during the regular review process for all program units. Given the substantial increase in proposals (almost 4,000 this year) and the fact that we have the lowest acceptance rate in the ACLS (29%), being able to grow our program is of great importance.

Concerns about adequate space for our sessions, given an average of 35.5 sessions per time slot for AAR and upwards of 40 sessions per time slot for SBL.

Concerns about thematic conflicts within session time slots. Moving to this model reduces the average number of sessions per time slot from 35.5 to 23.

We understand that starting earlier, ending later, and having a slightly shorter lunch period and breaks between sessions may present a slight burden on some of our attendees. With this in mind, we rejected proposed models that started at 8:00 am, others that ran as late as 7:45 pm, and others that left only an hour for lunch. We are dedicated to making sure that our Annual Meeting venues provide for convenient access to food and beverages in order to alleviate these concerns to the best of our ability.

In addition, some may be concerned over getting between sessions in a 20-minute window. One result of this schedule change is that we will no longer be able to effectively share meeting space with SBL, assuming they keep their 2.5-hour session model (though we will still be in the same city at the same time, share the exhibit hall, employment center, hotels, etc). Thus, we will be able to concentrate AAR meeting space within one or two adjacent properties in order to facilitate quick travel between meeting locations (fewer sessions per time slot aids in this process as well). As we did this year, my counterpart at SBL, Charlie Haws, and I will work together to ensure that there are no participant conflicts across the program.

Okay, I’m back. I’m a little concerned about how this schedule will affect our seminar and other seminars. We only get one session per year, but it’s a 2.5-hour session. In that time, we have our discussion of precirculated papers (with a brief overview of those papers by their authors for those who didn’t get the chance to read them, and a response by another scholar to get the discussion ball rolling) and our business meeting, for which we usually budget 15-20 minutes. In the past, we have not always used our full time, but we frequently have. What do you think? Do you have suggestions? Please send me your thoughts on this proposed new schedule and how it affects seminars at qdnewell [at] uwyo [dot] edu. I’ll compile everyone’s comments and pass them along to Robert Puckett.

Problem Solved...Sort of

2011-09-15T13:38:00.001-04:00

by James Bennett

My children's elementary school has a wonderful schedule for living on the West Coast: an early August start is rewarded with a two week break in mid-October. Since September and October are the best weather months in these parts it makes possible some wonderful travel opportunities, although my less flexible teaching schedule means I'm often stuck joining my family only for the weekend in-between. This year the family is headed to Disneyland. Our five year old feels he's been unfairly deprived not yet having been there. The problem? The Western History Association meets the same weekend I would join them, and it meets in Oakland, a mere 40 minute drive for me. It's one of those rare opportunities when, in face of dwindling travel budgets, I could attend for only the cost of registration.

Now, I have no particular love for Disneyland, as my family will testify—the Happiest Place on Earth is merely a thin veneer for some of the crassest consumerism around—but it is sort of a rite of passage (to return to my native language of Religious Studies) and thus would be a disappointment to miss (as well as an unfair burden on my spouse to endure alone). But the schedule conflict exists no more for me.

In perusing the program for the WHA's grand semi-centennial celebration I noticed a striking lack of sessions dealing with religion. I have no way of knowing why that is—whether a lack of proposals, a lack of good proposals, or a lack of interest by the program committee. Regardless of the reason, the result is distressing for those of us who consider the role of religion in the West an important aspect of Western history no less than of American Religious History.

My distress magnified when, earlier this week, I received the fall issue of the Western Historical Quarterly, dedicated to the "State of Western History Scholarship." Now, I haven't had a chance to read the issue yet, but the index is disheartening: nothing on religion, at least explicitly so.

So, while I can join my family next month without worrying about what I missed at the WHA, I now wish a scheduling conflict was my problem. Instead, it seems that religion remains nowhere to be found on the landscape of Western History. That should give us pause.

In the meantime, the Religion in the American West seminar of the AAR continues to explore the contours of the topic and will feature a session bursting with conversation about the role of religion in the American West. Stay tuned here for information on accessing the papers and please join us in San Francisco in November. It's clear that we've got work to do!

Deadline Extended!

2011-03-03T12:46:00.004-05:00

The AAR has extended the deadline for submitting paper proposals for the 2011 Annual Meeting (Nov. 19-22 in San Francisco, CA).

As moderators of the Religion in the American West we would like to encourage submissions to our seminar session, which will hold it's fourth annual session as a part of the AAR meeting.

The call, which is pasted below, can also be accessed on the AAR Website.

This Seminar invites proposals for article-length papers to be precirculated for discussion at the Annual Meeting. Papers may cover any subject within the American West and should make clear how the topic enhances our understanding of religion in the American West, our conceptions of American religious history, and/or of religion in general. The Seminar especially welcomes papers on the following themes:

Competing Wests

West of the West

Economies of religion in the West, especially considering the West as
node(s) in a global economy

The West in Pacific World religion

New religious movements in the West

Urban and rural Wests

Religion, media, technology, and the West

Proposals are due by 11:59pm (EST) on March 8, 2011, and should be submitted online through the OP3 System.

Please contact the Seminar moderators with questions:

James Bennett
Santa Clara University
jbbennett@scu.edu

Quincy Newell
University of Wyoming
qdnewell@uwyo.edu

AAR Call for Proposals!

2011-02-09T10:12:00.001-05:00

Are you looking for a place to present your research? Please submit your paper proposals for the 2011 AAR meeting! Visit here for information on submission!

Call for Proposals

This Seminar invites proposals for article-length papers to be precirculated for discussion at the Annual Meeting. Papers may cover any subject within the American West and should make clear how the topic enhances our understanding of religion in the American West, our conceptions of American religious history, and/or of religion in general. The Seminar especially welcomes papers on the following themes:

Competing Wests
West of the West
Economies of religion in the West, especially considering the West as node(s) in a global economy
The West in Pacific World religion
New religious movements in the West
Urban and rural Wests
Religion, media, technology, and the West

Mission

This Seminar seeks to explore the role of religion in the American West and the ways that considerations of religion affect our understanding of both the West and the history of religion in America. Our goal is to foster both scholarship and teaching about religion in the American West.

Anonymity of Review Process

Proposals are anonymous to Chairs and Steering Committee Members during review, but visible to Chairs prior to final acceptance or rejection.

Questions?

James B. Bennett
Santa Clara University
jbbennett@scu.edu
Quincy Newell
University of Wyoming
qdnewell@uwyo.edu

Why Study Religion in the American West?

2011-01-22T14:50:00.003-05:00

Over at his blog, A Lively Experiment, David McConeghy posted some thoughts on the "Why Study Religion in the American West?" panel at the AHA.

Religion in the American West at the AHA

2010-12-30T14:14:00.006-05:00

For anyone who is going to be in Boston at the AHA/ASCH next weekend, there are quite a few sessions on religion (some of them listed here and here over at Religion and American History). The list also includes this one, featuring several members of our seminar:

Why Study Religion in the American West?

AHA Session 218, Saturday, January 8, 2011: 2:30 PM-4:30 PM, Room 311 (Hynes Convention Center)

A Western Theme to American Religious History?, David W. Wills, Amherst College

Taking the West Seriously in American Religious History, Quincy D. Newell, University of Wyoming

Borderlands Religion and the American West, Roberto Lint Sagarena, Middlebury College

Sacred but Not Religious: Finding Religion in the West and the West in Religion, James B. Bennett, Santa Clara University

Getting Religion: New Themes for the Study of the American West, Tisa J. Wenger, Yale University

Iconoclasm, Western Style

2010-11-18T10:27:00.001-05:00

by Sara M. Patterson

Photo by Doug Crowl

About one month ago, Kathleen Folden drove almost one thousand miles from Kalispell, Montana, to Loveland, Colorado (a town that touts itself as having a thriving arts community), in order to walk into the Loveland Museum/ Gallery and destroy a lithograph with her crowbar. The offending lithograph Folden deemed too blasphemous to be, was an image of Jesus, decked out in a light blue bustier, receiving oral sex. Jesus looks pleased. As she tore the lithograph, one witness noted that she mumbled “How could anyone desecrate my Lord.” Since then, her supporters have likened her to the biblical Jael who, committed to her faith, was “hard as nails.”

Folden was not the only person offended by the lithograph that was only one panel of a twelve-panel, accordion-style piece. About three weeks after the exhibit opened to allow visitors to see the work titled The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals by California artist and Stanford University professor Enrique Chagoya, there was a complaint about the Chagoya lithograph that a city councilor tried and failed to place on the council's agenda. After word got around that the museum had this piece on display, protesters demonstrated outside the museum with picket signs. They believed they did not need to actually see the artwork; they knew that “This is not beauty, this is smut.” (For an photo of the destroyed art work, visit here. Visit this site for an image of the original. Be warned. The image is graphic and may offend some readers.)

One week after his art was ripped to pieces in the Loveland Museum/Gallery, artist Enrique Chagoya accepted a commission from a Loveland church to create a portrait of Jesus Christ, which he will do free of charge. Jonathan Wiggins, the head pastor at Resurrection Christian Fellowship, emailed Chagoya to inquire about his intentions in the original artwork. Chagoya responded with his explanation that the lithograph was a critique of the institutional church rather than Jesus himself. After the email correspondence, Chagoya said that he considered Wiggins his friend. Wiggins accepted Chagoya’s explanation and invited him to create a newer (and tamer) depiction of Jesus.

How does this relate to our discussions of religion in the American West—aside from the obvious answer that this is a western artist, whose artwork was displayed in the west and supported, protested and destroyed by westerners? It seems to me that these incidents are very much tied to what Tisa Wenger identified in her November 3, 2010 blog as the “power of religious imagination to shape local and national identities.” The rhetoric of the Loveland protesters clearly revealed that they perceived Chagoya as a religious outsider, one who could not be tolerated in Loveland, Colorado, a place they believed had Christian values that were not being protected by the local, tax-funded museum. And yet, the choice of the Resurrection Christian Fellowship Church to accept Chagoya’s new artwork—a piece of artwork done for free and with “no disrespect” to Jesus—allowed him to be reaccepted into the community. He was expelled as a “sodomite” and a “sinner” and reaccepted as a repentant believer. The narrative that allowed for his inclusion was deeply embedded in the narratives of evangelical Christianity. "I hope it's just a new beginning,” Chagoya said. His repentance of sorts was an indication that he could be welcomed; he could be a Lovelander, a westerner, because he promised not to sin again.

News articles related to this incident:

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20101007/LOVELAND01/101007001/Woman-bashes-controversial-Jesus-display-in-Loveland-with-crowbar

http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2010101015001

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/07/enrique-chagoya-work-wont_n_755199.html

Call for Papers!

2010-11-17T08:53:00.000-05:00

If you haven't seen this call, check out this panel being put together for the Western History Association:
CFP.

Topic for Discussion: “God in America” Goes West

2010-11-09T15:07:00.000-05:00

by Tom Bremer

The recent PBS documentary “God in American: How Religious Liberty Shaped America" has received much attention, both critical and laudatory, from historians of American religions—see, for instance, reviews at Religion Dispatches (and this one); at The Immanent Frame; at Religion in American History (and this one; and yet another); and at the New York Times. One criticism has been the scant attention to religion in the American west. How might the American west have been better integrated in the narrative of “God in America,” and how would it have been a different kind of story if the religious history of the west had been more prominent?

Religion in the American West Seminar Meeting

2010-11-03T09:43:00.000-04:00

by Tisa Wenger

It was great to see so many people at our seminar session in Atlanta! We had four very interesting papers to discuss:

1. Travis Ross, “California Imagined: The Pacific Expositor and the Religious Imagination”

2. Jonathan Olson, “Not Merely Asiatic but Pagan: Religion, Chinese Exclusion, and the American West”

3. Barry Alan Joyce, “Creating an Axis Mundi in the American Southwest: Religion, Science, and the Sacred at Chaco Culture National Historic Park”

4. Brett Hendrickson, “Mexican-American Religious Healing and the American Spiritual Marketplace”

For anyone who wasn’t at the session and would like to read the papers, they are available to seminar members through the website’s members-only page (link in the blog sidebar). I gave a longer-than-it-should-have-been response to the session, which I thought I’d share in condensed form here on the blog. Reflecting on common themes that ran through some or all of these papers led us to a broader discussion about what key themes might distinguish “religion in the American west” and what contributions our work can offer the broader fields of U.S. western history, religious history, and religious studies more generally.

One common theme was the power of religious imagination to shape local and national identities. The first two papers focused on nineteenth-century Protestant public discourse. Ross gave us a close reading of a California Presbyterian newspaper to show how its writers developed a particular vision of Californian identity as they spoke to national debates around slavery, denominational vs. ecumenical efforts, and religious liberty. Olson showed us the power of religious discourse, and religious “othering,” to shape national political debates—in this case, how Protestant politicians in California deployed religious rhetoric to justify exclusionary legislation aimed at Asian immigrants at the end of the century.

The second set of papers examined tensions and points of convergence in more contemporary or perhaps “postmodern” contexts of religious hybridity and diversity. Joyce’s paper provided a finely layered discussion of competing religious narratives and practices laying claim to Casa Rinconada at Chaco Canyon, where National Park Service personnel attempt to negotiate compromises that honor strikingly different understandings of this space put forth by Pueblo Indians, Navajos, and New Age practitioners. Should New Age uses of the space be prohibited when they are offensive to American Indian traditions, or does the principle of religious freedom give them the right to use this public space? What happens when Navajo sacred histories, and Navajo understandings of how the space should be used, are deeply offensive to the Pueblo Indians who trace their ancestry to those that built this ancient city? Joyce asks, “Who decides under the bureaucratic, institutional umbrella of First Amendment rights which narrative becomes part of the cultural canon and which is denied admittance?”

Finally, Hendrickson’s paper, a study of curanderas who work across racial/cultural boundaries in the southwest borderlands, showed us the power of religious imagination and practices of healing to cross borders. Here, Mexican-American curanderas reshape and perhaps re-indigenize their practices in order to appeal to multiple audiences and especially New Age Anglos who, in Hendrickson’s analysis, are predisposed through an ongoing American metaphysical tradition to these hybridized healing modalities. Here, without minimizing the ongoing power disparities that shape these exchanges, Henrickson shows us how the power of religious imagination may be invoked to provide healing across all sorts of boundaries.

My conclusion proposed several broad rubrics (none of them original to me) for thinking about religion in the American west.

I. WEST AS PLACE.

· Exploring the distinctive forms of racial and religious pluralism that are characteristic in this region

· The particular salience and visibility of Native American traditions

· The significance of LAND and PLACE for understanding religious practices, experience, and traditions in the west.

· Mapping RELIGIOUS GEOGRAPHIES: region, regional identities and traditions as crucial to the study of religion. We can draw here on the work of cultural geographers and others who have done significant work to illuminate the cultural significance of place and geography.

· GLOBALIZATION as a crucial emphasis in current scholarship across the humanities. How can we place our analysis of regional religious geographies in the context of globalized patterns of trade, communication, immigration, and religion?

II. WEST AS IMAGINED.

· The role of religious imagination in constructing regional identities

· The place of the west in national and global religious imaginations

Please share your thoughts in response these comments, and your suggestions for additional rubrics and themes.

Atlanta, 2010

2010-10-22T17:11:00.002-04:00

This year's meeting of the Religion in the American West seminar will center around four papers exploring constructions of identity, especially in the Southwest and California. The papers under discussion examine the role of religion in constructing and complicating regional and national identities, sacred sites, and religious rituals. In addition to discussing the critical issues that each paper raises, the seminar discussion will also focus on ways that the four papers taken together highlight the distinct contributions the American West makes to understanding American religion. Seminar attendees are asked to read the four papers in advance; they are available for seminar members through the “Members Only” page of our website (http://www.yale.edu/relwest/). Enrolled seminar members should have received an email with instructions about accessing this page; those interested in attending who are not yet enrolled should contact tisa.wenger@yale.edu for more information accessing the papers via the website.

The Seminar Meeting will take place during the 4:00-6:30pm session on Saturday Oct. 30. Here is the list of presenters and their topics:

Travis Ross, University of Nevada, Reno

Sectionalism in California’s Religious Periodicals: Place in Religious Rhetoric

Jonathan William Olson, Florida State University

“Not Merely Asiatic but Pagan”: Religion, Chinese Exclusion, and the American West

Barry Joyce, University of Delaware

Creating an Axis Mundi in the American Southwest: Religion, Science, and the Sacred at the Chaco Culture National Historical Park

Brett Hendrickson, Arizona State University

Mexican-American Religious Healing and the American Spiritual Marketplace

Following the discussion will be a business meeting, in which we will chart our direction for the remaining two seminar meetings.

We hope to see in you in Atlanta!