| |
||||
|
|
||||
| Faculty - Ann Taves, Ph.D. |
||||
![]() |
Ph.D.
in History of Christianity and American Religion Areas of Academic Interest:
|
|||
| Statement: I teach a sequence of four advanced undergraduate courses in Catholic Studies, each designed to illuminate the tradition from a different perspective. Two of the courses explore the way the tradition has been transmitted over time and across cultures. The first focuses on the way the tradition has defined, maintained, and transmitted its understanding of orthodoxy. The second focuses on the way the tradition has adapted and changed through interactions with other cultures and traditions. The second set of two courses uses Catholicism to examine the way that a particular tradition has navigated its way through the challenges of the modern era. The first does so in relation to modern thought, the second in relation to modern political institutions. Comparative material is introduced in each of these courses to frame the analysis of the Catholic tradition in light of the comparative questions that have historically been of interest to scholars of religion. My research on religious
experience, the rise of the academic study of religion, the history
of psychology and psychical research engages a wide range of Catholic
and Protestant debates over religious experience both academic and
popular in the U.S., England and France at the turn of the last century.
Selected Publications:
Lectures:
Current/Planned Research/Projects: From Mediums to Mystics: Psychology and the Study of Religious Experience -- a book-length study of the emergence of the psychology of religion as an international movement at the turn of the last century. When viewed internationally, Catholics and the study of mysticism figure much more centrally than when viewed from an American perspective. “William James’s Contribution to Pascendi and the Oath Against Modernism,” paper delivered at the American Catholic Historical Association meeting, Philadelphia, January 2006. Essay on Catholic Studies for volume on same edited by James T. Fisher and Margaret McGuinness. Experiencing Religion:
Studies in Cognition, Culture, and Personality – an argument
for and examples of a new approach to the scientific study of “experiences
deemed religious.” Courses Projected: Undergraduate:
Graduate:
Curriculum Vitae: |
||||
| Department of Religious Studies | University of California | Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3130 telephone: (805) 893-7136 | fax: (805) 893-2059 | http://www.religion.ucsb.edu |
||||