Religions in America

Please remember, as mentioned on the syllabus, to bring laptops to class on Wed 10/16 so we can use them to explore, research, and get started working on the Pluralism Microhistory Project. For more information on the project, see the tabs on Blackboard and the course website.

PRRI Portrait of Religious Affiliation (2017)

Maps: Largest participating rel group by county (2010)

Links for today’s class —

On a Note of Triumph (1945), starting at 52:55

I Have a Dream (1963)

Our quick tour of American religious history has brought us up to the end of the 19th century and the turn of the 20th, a period in which waves of new immigrants arrived in the United States, many of them Jewish or Catholic from southern and eastern Europe. They brought their religious traditions and cultures, often entering an atmosphere of mutual suspicion about the effect their presence would have on the nation and its existing religious cultures.

For the next two classes, we will read and discuss Robert Orsi’s masterpiece of religious ethnography, Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950, which examines Italian Catholic devotional practices in New York’s East Harlem neighborhood that center on worship of the Virgin Mary. Orsi is a Professor of History and Catholic Studies at Northwestern University.

I posted Discussion Questions for our two class sessions on Blackboard, also here.

Chapters 1-5 for Wed Sept 25

Chapters 6-8 for Mon Sept 30

You can download these as Word docs and type directly into them as a guide for your notetaking: these are not homework assignments and don’t need to be turned in. They are just assists for your own reading and preparation for class.

Relevant links:

a fascinating 5-minute NPR piece from 2015 about the Madonna of 115th Street’s image being refurbished and what she — and the ritual and cultural practices associated with her — continue to mean for 21st-century New York Italian Catholics in East Harlem.

The Madonna of 115th Street, in 2015

See also: video of the 201 festa

Links for today:

American Yawp 10: Religion and Reform

Joseph Smith Papers

Sunday School Books in 19th Century America

The Liberator (1803-1865)

Burning of the Ursuline Convent in Charlestown MA, 1834

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA): Colonial Religion

DPLA: Spanish Missions in California

DPLA: Women of the Antebellum Reform Movement

Links for today:

Religion in Early America (Smithsonian 2018 exhibit)

Religion and the New Republic (Library of Congress online exhibition)

Links from today:

Robert Bellah, “Civil Religion in America” (1967), appropos of 9/11

Kateri Tekakwitha, first Native American to be recognized as a Catholic saint

Reminder:
Document Based Question assignment is due Monday, printed in class. Download all Assignment Guidelines here.

Timothy Beal’s Very Short Introduction to American Religion begins with a driving tour, circa 2008, of his Shaker Heights / Case Western Reserve University neighborhood and its religious diversity.

Google Map of his route