Religious Lives in America

Religious Lives in America is a graduate seminar that explores themes in American history through examining
the genre of religious biography. Listening to voices from various eras, regions, and identities, students will
analyze the craft of religious biography, its promises and perils. We will interrogate how culture, race, gender,
class, sexuality, place, and relationship impact individuals and both expand and constrain traditional religious or
institutional narratives. What makes a biography of a person religious? Who decides? Whose stories are told? By
whom? What is included or left out? How do individual lives intersect with broader narratives of American
religion(s)?