Today’s post marks our conclusion to the series—for now—and you are in for a treat! Leigh Eric Schmidt reflects on the Geertzian moment at the time of writing, the evolution of his subsequent research and methodology, and the legacy of historical ethnography www.american-religion.org/back-pages/o...

Back Pages is back for a penultimate hurrah! Read Pamela E. Klassen on her second book, Blessed Events (2001), and her reflection on merging theory with feminist critique at the height of the “ethnographic turn” in arguing for childbirth as a religious form.

Check out Arab Americana, an awesome new journal founded by Dr. Edward E. Curtis IV! The journal is currently issuing a call for papers for their first issue. www.psupress.org/journals/jnl...

Today we are spotlighting two book reviews in our Fall 2025 issue! Tracy Fessenden on _Thoreau’s Axe_ by Caleb Smith Elaine Lai on _American Koan_ by Ben Van Overmeire Read further here muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/issue/...

Today we are spotlighting four book reviews in our Fall 2025 issue! Read all reviews here: muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/issue/...

Today we are spotlighting four book reviews in our Fall 2025 issue! Read them all here muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/issue/...

Today we are spotlighting Morgan Barbre's and Kathryn Lofton's review essay of "The Hoosier Cabinet in Kitchen History" by IU alum Nancy Hiller. To read further, go to muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/articl...

Today we are spotlighting James B. Nicola's poem, "States of Matter," in our Fall 2025 issue! To read further, go to muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/articl...

Today we are spotlighting Frank Jamison's poem, "Three Orders of Prayer," in our Fall 2025 issue! To read further, go to muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/articl...

Today we are spotlighting Dustin P. Brown's poem, "Sé Catedral," in our Fall 2025 issue! To read further, go to muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/articl...

Today we are spotlighting Morgane Thonnart's article, "Preacher Moss Sets the Tone: A New Genealogy and Anatomy of American Muslim Comedy," in our Fall 2025 issue! muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/articl...

Today we are spotlighting Megan Leverage's article, "S. W. Hopkins’s 'Gospel of Intelligent Industry': The Industrial Religion of the Mt. Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School," in our Fall 2025 issue! muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/articl...

Today we are spotlighting Winnifred Fallers Sullivan's essay, "Notes on an American Pope," in our Fall 2025 issue! To read the entire essay, go to muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/articl...

Today we are spotlighting Chandra Plowden's essay, "A Case for Half-Lives: Ten Years after a Charleston Shooting" in our Fall 2025 issue! muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/articl...

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Tuesday installment: Tracy Fessenden on Culture and Redemption (2007). Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/o...

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Thursday installment: Winnifred Fallers Sullivan on her book, The Impossibility of Religious Freedom (2005). Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/c...

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Tuesday installment: Mark Hulsether on his book, Building a Protestant Left (1999). Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/r...

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Thursday installment: Mark Valeri on Law and Providence in Joseph Bellamy’s New England (1994). Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/l...

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Tuesday installment: John Schmalzbauer discusses how 2016 was a turning point among scholars of evangelicalism and recent academic conversations about the intersection of race and religion. Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/r...

Congratulations to Dr. Talia Burnside, whose dissertation “So God Made a Farmer: Religion, Flesh, and the State on the Family Farm” has won American Religion Dissertation Prize's Honorable Mention.

The prize jury found it to be scholarship of remarkable creativity and sophistication, marshaling a range of methods and critical approaches to consider in new—and entertaining—ways not just the what but the how and why of scholarly endeavor.

Rather than treating science and religion as exclusive frameworks for being in the world, this study argues that SETI practitioners engage in forms of religious work—mediating presence and absence, cultivating openness to transcendent figures, and managing radical uncertainty.”

In Martini’s own words, “The Evidence of Things Not Seen” "examines the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) as a site where scientific practice contributes to the enchantment of the universe through material and discursive processes that sustain openness to unknowable others.

Connor Martini earned his PhD from Columbia University’s Department of Religion, and he’s currently a Postdoctoral Research associate at Princeton’s Center for Culture, Society, and Religion.

We are thrilled to congratulate Dr. Connor Martini as the winner of American Religion’s fifth annual dissertation prize! Dr. Martini’s dissertation is titled, “The Evidence of Things Not Seen.”

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Thursday installment: Candy Gunther Brown on The Word in the World (2004). Brown reflects on continuity in the practice of reading overtime and her recent, multidisciplinary research. Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/f...

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Tuesday installment: Jason C. Bivins on the Fracture of Good Order (2003).Bivins reflects on the political moment that shaped the book’s research questions and the applicability of its method for today’s politics. www.american-religion.org/back-pages/t....

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Thursday installment: Tisa Wenger on We Have a Religion (2009). Wenger reflects on the genesis of the book’s theoretical framing and new directions in Indigenous scholarship since publication. Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/w....

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Tuesday installment: Amanda Porterfield on her book Female Piety in Puritan New England (1992). Porterfield reflects on puritan rhetoric and the trial of Anne Hutchinson. Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/b...

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Thursday installment: Thomas Tweed on American religious historiography. Tweed reflects on the place-centered focus of his scholarship and the importance of narrative complexity in US history. Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/d...

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Tuesday installment: Paul Harvey on his book, “Redeeming the South” (1997). Harvey discusses the “cult of the archive,” salient questions in religious historiography, and recent work on biography.Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/r...

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Thursday installment: Courtney Bender on her book Heaven’s Kitchen (2003). Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/g....

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Tuesday installment: W. Clark Gilpin on his book, “A Preface to Theology” (1996). Gilpin reflects on his use of Lippmann and the book’s call for public theological dialogue. Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/a....

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Tuesday installment: Russell T. McCutcheon on his book, “Manufacturing Religion” (1997). Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/a...

COMING VERY SOON: American Religion's newsletter! Subscribe now for periodic memos about upcoming journal issues, important announcements, website series, and more! americanreligion.substack.com

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Thursday installment: E Brooks Holifield on his book, “The Gentlemen Theologians” (1978). Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/t...

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Tuesday installment: John Corrigan on his book “The Hidden Balance: Religion and the Social Theories of Charles Chauncy and Jonathan Mayhew” (1987). Read further here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/c...

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Thursday installment: Edward E. Curtis IV on his first two books, “Islam in Black America” (2021) and “Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam” (2006). www.american-religion.org/back-pages/a...

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Tuesday installment: Mark A. Noll on his first book, “Christians in the American Revolution” (1977). Noll addresses the book’s early reception and reassesses Protestantism in American religious history. Read here: www.american-religion.org/back-pages/n...

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: Special Issue on Religion and Health (Pippa Koch, Guest Editor) Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words to [email protected] by December 1, 2025. www.american-religion.org/announcements

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Thursday installment: Laura Levitt on her book chapter about the dynamics of citation, “(The Problem with) Embraces” (1997). www.american-religion.org/back-pages/r...

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Tuesday installment: Robert Wuthnow on his book, “The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith since World War II” (1988). www.american-religion.org/back-pages/w...

Back Pages is back again with your biweekly Thursday installment: William David Hart on “Edward Said and the Religious Effects of Culture” (Cambridge 2000). Read about Hart's methodological approach to Said and why Said continues to matter today. www.american-religion.org/back-pages/h...

Back Pages is back with Rebecca Alpert on Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition (1997). Read Alpert’s reflection on how the field of Jewish Studies has changed since and the conversations her book has opened. www.american-religion.org/back-pages/a...

Check out the first installment in Back Pages below: Jon Butler on Awash in a Sea of Faith. Read Butler’s reflection on writing the book thirty-five years ago and what has changed in the field of religious studies since. www.american-religion.org/back-pages/b...

Reminder: Back Pages drops on Tuesday. The first entry features Jon Butler on _Awash in a Sea of Faith_

REMINDER: Submissions for American Religion's dissertation prize are due in TEN DAYS on August 30, 2025! Please send submissions to [email protected] and include an abstract of the dissertation, the complete dissertation as a pdf file, and the author’s current CV. www.american-religion.org/announcements

1) A Special Announcement from American Religion