American Religious History Doctoral Programs

[throwawaymcforumuser]

I've been a lurker on the forums for a while now (what a simultaneously stressful and helpful place). One of the things that I haven't seen talked about that much is the American religious history/American religions subfield. I know that compiling a list of rankings is probably not the most fruitful and, if past threads are any indication, will likely end in chaos. That being said, I thought it might be helpful - for the sake of people currently choosing between programs and future applicants - for the hivemind to evaluate/offer impressions of the doctoral programs in this area - in terms of reputation, faculty, resources, placement. Especially since a lot of the "big names" in the field for the last few decades (e.g. Butler, Wacker) have retired or are nearing retirement, it would be nice to get a sense of what departments remain strong, which are up-and-coming, etc.

Off the top of my head (that's been steeped in this stuff over the last year), some of the programs - limited to Religion departments and not History - that have a American religions subfield or people working in that area are: Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Duke, UNC Chapel Hill, Stanford, UVA, Emory, Vanderbilt, Florida, Florida State, Iowa, Indiana Bloomington, Southern Methodist, UT Austin, UC Santa Barbara, Columbia, Princeton, Princeton Theological Seminary, Northwestern, Fordham. Am I missing any, and what do you think of these programs' places in the subfield?

[menge]

That's about the same list I have. I too am interested to hear about the relative strength of the subfield at these schools.

[Ted Chicago]

Here's a few comments on the field:

The University of Chicago has been hurt by the loss of Catherine Brekus to Harvard--they will hopefully hire a replacement next year, but at the moment the whole program is being run by Curtis Evans--although Evans is great and it's a fantastic place to be in general--and you could probably also spend some time at Northwestern with Orsi.

I'm biased, but I do think Harvard is the best place in the country to do American religious history due to the sheer size of the faculty and their diversity of interests. The dean of the Divinity School, David Hempton, is a historian of transatlantic evangelicalism, and in addition you have David Holland, Catherine Brekus, Ann Braude, Marla Frederick, Jonathan Walton, and the list could go on, especially if you include faculty in history and American Studies.

Princeton University has always had a very strong program, especially in African-American religions, as has Yale--but it might be harder to do early American topics at these places than it used to. Obviously Duke and UNC are also traditionally very strong, but UNC lost Maffly-Kipp and Grant Wacker has retired from Duke. Albanese has also retired from UCSB and Holifield from Emory.

I won't keep going on because I don't have exhaustive knowledge of the field (I'm sure Vanderbilt, Florida State, UVA, etc. are strong, but I'm not very familiar with them), but my strong belief is that the more faculty you can draw from in an institution, the better off you are going there. If there's just one or two faculty, you could be in trouble if someone leaves, doesn't get tenure, etc. Plus, the more faculty, the more students there will be in the area, which will help to shape your project in ways you can't anticipate.

I think it's a little artificial to separate out religion programs from history programs that have strong emphases in American Religious History--for example, some of the most important figures in the field in recent years such as Mark Noll and George Marsden (and a whole slew of historians of American Catholicism; and now Darren Dochuk as well) are in the history or (in the case of Tom Tweed) American Studies departments at Notre Dame--part of this I think is the fact that few of these historians would fit in a Catholic theology department.

Another example: Washington University in St Louis now has a very strong contingent of American religion faculty (Leigh Schmidt, Marie Griffith, Laurie Maffly-Kipp, etc.) in their Danforth Center, but in order to work with them as a doctoral student I think you'd need to go through the history department.

Quick edit: I would also add Boston University to your long list depending on your specialization (if you are interested in world Christianity/missions at all, BU, Yale, and Edinburgh are the three centers). Very strong in mission history (Dana Robert), Jon Roberts would be a great resource in the history department, Stephen Prothero is in religion, and there's a number of potential faculty in the School of Theology. Plus you could take classes across the BTI.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Ted Chicago

[menge]

Thanks for the thoughts, that was quite helpful.

[throwawaymcforumuser]

8 hours ago, Ted Chicago said:

I think it's a little artificial to separate out religion programs from history programs that have strong emphases in American Religious History--for example, some of the most important figures in the field in recent years such as Mark Noll and George Marsden (and a whole slew of historians of American Catholicism; and now Darren Dochuk as well) are in the history or (in the case of Tom Tweed) American Studies departments at Notre Dame--part of this I think is the fact that few of these historians would fit in a Catholic theology department.

Yeah, this is an important point. I mainly restricted the list to Religion programs to avoid potential confusion. I applied to Notre Dame to work with Noll/Dochuk for that reason (alas, to no avail), but it seems like a great place to be. I wonder if it's a bit more difficult to go from a religious studies program/divinity school to history than the reverse, especially if you don't have extensive undergrad work in history.

Thanks for the insights, Ted - that's extremely helpful in giving a better lay of the land. Do you have a sense for which programs have been most successful lately when it comes to placement (e.g. do you know how Harvard's doing)?

[Ted Chicago]

Feel free to PM me and I can talk specifics. But Harvard has done very well over the last few years--it was one of the reasons I chose to come here rather than history programs elsewhere.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Ted Chicago

[Marcion]

I emailed  Stephen Prothero about BU and he basically told me not to bother due to the job market... Nice and encouraging...

[PAHstin]

So I'm definitely interested in studying Am Religious history from a history department. Which history departments do you think would afford me the best opportunities. Would I still get a chance to work with scholars associated with religion departments or divinity schools if I went through a history dept?

[marXian]

On 3/7/2016 at 10:55 AM, PAHstin said:

So I'm definitely interested in studying Am Religious history from a history department. Which history departments do you think would afford me the best opportunities. Would I still get a chance to work with scholars associated with religion departments or divinity schools if I went through a history dept?

Find departments that have faculty who are jointly appointed in religious studies and history (e.g. Bob Orsi at Northwestern is in both history and RS--but he may not be taking students for much longer.) Also, more generally, if schools have a strong commitment to being interdisciplinary, then it probably won't be a problem to work with people in RS departments. From my experience, history departments can get a little insular (like philosophy departments) in adjudicating what kind of work actually qualifies as history. For that reason, some departments/faculty might be resistant to students doing work that is too theoretical and not "historical" enough. On the other side of things, though, I've known people who have felt that RS programs are too theoretical and have felt much more at home in a history department. It all very much depends on the climate in each department though. By and large, I don't think most history departments/faculty would have a problem with a student wanting to do some work with religion/divinity school faculty as long as the student's work was firmly historical. 

[Marcion]

One of the issues I am funding with going with the Ph.D. in History as opposed to Ph.D. in Religious Studies is that a lot of the faculty I have contacted assume I am a religion only person and simply say "we are not that interested in religion" or "we do not specialize in that field." In other cases it has been an asset because they have said "you would bring something unique/different." Just depends who, where, and what.