Professor Catherine L. Albanese WF, 12:30-1:45 pm

Winter 2008 Phelps 1260

Course Description

This course surveys American religious history until 1865. We discover that, as early as its pre‑Civil‑War years, the United States was something like Noah's ark. It contained examples of numerous species of religion, even among indigenous dwellers in the land. That initial religious pluralism multiplied as the nation grew, and we trace its outlines from the seventeenth through the antebellum nineteenth century. At the same time, we find, in the pre‑Civil‑War period, the overwhelming predominance of certain forms of Protestant faith and practice. We examine the impact of the Protestant experience in American history and culture and look for the mutual lines of influence between American Protestant Christianity and general American history and culture.

Course Texts

Jon Butler, Grant Wacker, and Randall Balmer, Religion in American Life: A Short History (Oxford University Press).

Reader (Grafikart, 6550 Pardall Road, Isla Vista). See class schedule below.

Undergraduate Course Requirements

A midterm examination (25 percent of course grade) will test your grasp of basic factual materials and ask related questions regarding readings and lectures for the first half of the course.

A final examination (25 percent of course grade) will again seek to determine your grasp of basic information and ask related questions concerning readings and lectures, this time for the second half of the course. The final is scheduled for Wednesday, March 19, from 12:30 to 1:45 pm.

A research paper (50 percent of course grade) will also be a major course requirement. The paper should work from one of the questions listed on the syllabus and answer it for the pre-1865 period—or the appropriate part of that period—in America. The paper should use, minimally, seven or eight scholarly sources (books or journal articles) that are not used in class reading and discussion. It should either (1) explore the question in general terms, give concrete examples, and arrive at defensible generalizations; or (2) give a brief general answer to the question and then focus on one particular aspect, case study, or example generated by the question. In whatever way you approach the paper, the point is to produce a sustained and creative synthesis that represents your encounter with historical materials and your intellectual response to them.

Your paper should be 1,800 words in length (that is, at least 7-8 pages long, assuming that you print double-spaced in font-size 12 with one‑inch margins all around). Moreover, the paper you submit should be in exactly that format—double-spaced in font 12, with one‑inch margins all around. Be sure to number the pages!!! The paper should be carefully documented, with citations made in endnotes (NOT parenthetical notes in the body of the paper). A bibliography of works consulted should accompany each paper. The endnotes and the bibliography should follow standard historical referencing format, as found in Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th ed. (University of Chicago Press). Papers are due on Wednesday of the last week of the quarter at class time (Wednesday, March 12). Late papers, if still acceptable, will be penalized.

Your paper will be graded as follows:

(1) clearly answers a question on the syllabus using historical material for the pre-1865 period in America (35 percent of paper grade);

(2) offers concrete examples to illustrates general points and generalizes appropriately and convincingly from the evidence presented (20 percent of paper grade);

(3) produces a study that is approximately 1,800 words (about 8—but not more than 10—pages), printed double‑spaced in font size 12, with standard one‑inch margins all around (10 percent of paper grade);

(4) is appropriately documented with endnotes following the Turabian standard historical referencing format (NOT parentheses in the text) as specified above (15 percent of paper grade);

(5) includes a bibliography of sources consulted, again in the Turabian standard historical referencing format, which contains at least seven or eight serious items, either university press or comparable books or scholarly journal articles (20 percent of paper grade).

Please also note the following:

(1) Papers without any notes or bibliography are considered incomplete and will be very seriously downgraded, if still acceptable.

(2) As a way of assisting you in the production of a successful paper, there will be mini-lectures on bibliography, endnotes, organization, and the like at intervals throughout the course.

(3) CLAS will schedule workshops specifically designed to aid you in this research project.

(4) Anne Barnhart (abarnhart@library.ucsb.edu), the Religious Studies bibliographer will be available to assist you with research strategies. Consult the instructor for Barnhart’s once-a-week office hours in the department, or arrange to see her in the library.

(5) Plagiarism is academic dishonesty—a form of stealing. Papers that appear suspicious will be checked against Internet search engines. Plagiarism will be reported to the Dean of Students office, and any paper identified as containing plagiarized material will be unacceptable as fulfillment of the course requirement for a research paper.

Graduate Course Requirements

Regular class attendance/participation (10 percent of grade). Graduate students are expected to take a leadership role in class participation, raising questions, offering comparative historical insights, and giving critical commentary and perspective on topics under consideration. There will be three additional meetings with the instructor. In addition, the graduate requirement will be a major research paper on some aspect of religion in United States history in the period beginning with the seventeenth-century contact between Europeans and Indians and ending with the Civil War (90 percent of course grade). The paper should demonstrate historical thinking. It should be sensitive to social and cultural context and seek to explain changes and continuities regarding its topic. It should review previous historical work on the topic and highlight its own contribution. The paper should be based on primary sources from the historical period under consideration, utilizing these for about half of its bibliography. Endnotes should follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 15^th ed., and a full bibliography of works consulted should accompany the paper. Papers are due on Monday, March 17.

Class Schedule

Learning in this course will come through your careful reading of assignments, through the lectures, and through focused class discussion of questions that arise. You are expected to come to class with reading completed. It would be helpful to write a paragraph that answers each day’s syllabus question before you come to class and then to add material from the class lecture and discussion.

Jan. 9 Orientation: The Nation with the Soul of a Church

Jan. 11 Immigrant Religious Heritages: European and African

How did slavery and white hegemony affect the interactions between Europeans and Africans in North America?

Reading: Text, 1-22, 107-17; Reader #1 (Equiano).

Jan. 16 Indigenous Cultures and American Experience

In what ways did the coming of the Europeans affect seventeenth‑century American Indian cultures and religions, especially in New England?

Reading: Text, 23-50, 98-107, 227-34; Reader #2 (Eliot).

Jan. 18 The Puritan Matrix of American Religion

What were the major factors shaping New England Puritanism in the seventeenth century?

Reading: Text, 51-68, 74-75; Reader #3 (Bradford, Winthrop).

Jan. 23 The English Church Transplanted to Virginia

How did the English church adapt in Virginia and the South?

Reading: Text, 69-73; Reader #4 (Force).

Jan. 25 Quakerism in the Pennsylvania Colony

What was distinctive about Quakerism, and how did its differences affect Pennsylvania’s history and promote religious diversity?

Reading: Text, 76-97; Reader #5 (Penn).

Jan. 30 The Great Awakening

What was the Great Awakening, and what was George Whitefield’s role in it?

Reading: Text, 118-39; Reader #6 (Whitefield).

Feb. 1 Religion and the Woman Question in Colonial Context

What religious options were available to women in the North American colonies?

Reading: Text, 140-41; Reader #7 (Ashbridge).

Feb. 6 Religion and the American Revolution

What role did religion play during and after the American Revolution?

Reading: Text, 142-81; Reader #8 (Bullock).

Feb. 8 The Mission Mind in the New Evangelical Nation

What was the "mission mind" in the nineteenth-century United States? How was it related to church-state separation in the new nation, and what were its results?

Reading: Text, 182-96, 212; Reader #9 (Bower).

Feb. 13 Midterm Examination

Feb. 15 The New American Religions of "Christians" and Millerites

What is restorationism, what is millennialism, and how do both express early nineteenth‑century American concerns?

Reading: Text, 197-211; Reader #10 (Campbell, Bliss).

Feb. 20 Mormonism and New American Religion

How did Joseph Smith and his new Mormon religion express major beliefs and values at the base of popular American religion and culture?

Reading: Text, 213-26; Reader #11 (Hansen).

Feb. 22 Religion, Reform, and Radicalism in Antebellum America

What forms did religious radicalism take in the middle years of the nineteenth century, and what was the relationship between religious radicalism and reform?

Reading: Reader #12 (Todd, Noyes).

Feb. 27 Catholicism in the New Nation

What were the major problems confronting Catholics in America, and how did they cope with them?

Reading: Reader #13 (Dolan).

Feb. 29 The Growth of Judaism in Nineteenth‑Century America

What were the major religious developments within American Judaism in the years before the Civil War?

Reading: Text, 235-38, 246; Reader #14 (Wise).

Mar. 5 Conservative Christian Theology and Evangelical Religion

What were the major emphases in the theological reflection of Charles Hodge, and how did his thinking express evangelical themes?

Reading: Reader #15 (Hodge).

Mar. 7 Liberal Theology and Christian Romanticism

How did Horace Bushnell's views about language shape his theological liberalism and Christian romanticism?

Reading: Reader #16 (Bushnell)

Mar. 12 Feminizing American Religion

How was religion related to social activism among women?

Reading: Reader #17 (Stanton).

RESEARCH PAPER DUE.

Mar. 14 Religion, Slavery, and the Civil War

What was the relationship between Christianity and slavery in the United States, and what was the impact of slavery itself on African American religion?

Reading: Text, 239-45, 247-62; Reader #18 (Anonymous).

COURSE EVALUATION.

Mar. 19 Wednesday, 12:30‑1:45 pm. Final Examination.

Selected Bibliographical Resources

Sydney E. Ahlstrom. A Religious History of the American People (1972). Rev. ed. by David D. Hall. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. (See bibliography.)

Catherine L. Albanese. America: Religions and Religion. 4th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing, 2006. (See bibliography at end of volume.)

John Corrigan and Winthrop S. Hudson. Religion in America: An Historical Account of the Development of American Religious Life. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2004. (See bibliography.)

Edwin S. Gaustad and Leigh E. Schmidt. The Religious History of America. Rev. ed. San Francisco: Harper, 2002. (See bibliography.)

Charles H. Lippy and Peter W. Williams, eds. Encyclopedia of the American Religious Experience: Studies of Traditions and Movements. 3 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988. (See bibliographies at end of individual articles.)

Martin E. Marty. Pilgrims in Their Own Land: 500 Years of Religion in America. Boston: Little, Brown, 1984.

Frank S. Mead, Samuel S. Hill, and Craig D. Atwood, eds. Handbook of Denominations in the United States. 12th ed. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005.

J. Gordon Melton. The Encyclopedia of American Religions. 7th ed. Detroit: Gale Research, 2003. (See bibliographies for individual "families.")

Mark A. Noll. A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1992. (See bibliography.)

Daniel G. Reid, et al. Dictionary of Christianity in America. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1990. (See bibliographies at end of individual entries.)

Peter W. Williams. America's Religions: From Their Origins to the Twenty-First Century. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. (See bibliography.)

Other Information

· Students are to supply small‑size Scantron sheets and no. 2 pencils for midterm and final examinations.

· Office is located in 3001G Humanities and Social Sciences Building. Telephone in instructor’s office is 893-3564. E-mail address is albanese@religion.ucsb.edu. N.B. No papers or other assignments may be submitted by e-mail.

· Office hours are Mondays, 3:00-4:00 pm, and Thursdays, 3:00– 4:00 pm.

· Students with disabilities who would like to discuss special academic accommodations should contact the instructor.

· Incompletes will be given only under the rarest of circumstances—a serious illness, a family death, and the like. Incompletes must be made up during the period allotted according to university rules. If a student allows an Incomplete grade to revert to an F by not completing the paper on time, the grade will not be changed—even if the student later submits a paper.

RS 151A: COURSE READER—SELECTIONS (Winter 2008)

1. (From) Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African.

2. John Eliot, “Dialog 1,” in Indian Dialogues.

3. (From) William Bradford, Bradford's History: "Of Plimoth Plantation."

4. Force's Collection of Historical Tracts, Virginia's Cure.

John Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity."

5. (From) William Penn, The Select Works of William Penn, v. 3.

6. (From) George Whitefield, George Whitefield's Journals (Sixth Journal).

7. (From) Elizabeth Ashbridge, Some Account of the Fore-Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge.

8. (From) Steven C. Bullock, Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730-1840.

9. (From) Jacob Bower, The Autobiography of Jacob Bower.

10. (From) Alexander Campbell, Memoirs of Elder Thomas Campbell.

(From) Sylvester Bliss, Memoirs of William Miller.

11. (From) Klaus J. Hansen, Mormonism and the American Experience.

12. (From) Thomas Olman Todd, Hydesville: The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism.

(From) John Humphrey Noyes, Male Continence.

13. (From) Jay P. Dolan, The Immigrant Church: New York's Irish and German Catholics, 1815-1865.

14. (From) Isaac Mayer Wise, Reminiscences by Isaac M. Wise, 2d ed.