RS 151B: RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY SINCE 1865

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

Spring 2008 Phelps 1508

Course Description

This course surveys American religious history since 1865. We discover, after the Civil War, a religious landscape that becomes increasingly crowded and subject to change. Older Protestant evangelical initiatives adapt to new and urbanizing situations. Growing metaphysical religions carry forward themes from the past and express them in new and more clearly visible forms. Increasing pluralism means Eastern religions, brought by immigrants and adopted, too, by non-immigrant Americans. A stronger presence than before for Catholics, Jews, and numerous others adds to the emerging mix. Meanwhile, in a mood of cultural anxiety, Protestants stake out liberal and conservative positions while they work to shape a new social form of the Christian gospel. We watch as mainstream Protestants yield their hegemony to the "others" and begin to feel themselves outsiders in the religious culture that they had the principal role in creating. We also acknowledge the continuing importance of Protestantism even as it is challenged: The course examines the impact of the Protestant and pluralistic experience in American history and culture and looks for the mutual lines of influence between American Protestant Christianity, American religious pluralism, and general American history and culture.

Course Texts (Required)

Butler, Jon; Wacker, Grant; and Balmer, Randall. Religion in American Life: A Short History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Course Reader (Grafikart, 6550 Pardall Road, Isla Vista). See class schedule below for contents as assigned.

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 Tuesday, June 10, from 12:00 noon to 3:00 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 post-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, June 4). 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 post-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 7-8—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) CLAS will schedule workshops specifically designed to aid you in this research project.

(3) 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.

(4) 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. Besides these, the graduate requirement will be a major research paper on some aspect of religion in United States history in the period from the end of the Civil War until the present (90 percent of course grade). The paper should demonstrate historical thinking. It should be sensitive to U.S. social and cultural context and seek to explain changes and continuities regarding its American 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, June 9.

Class Schedule

Much of the learning in this course should occur through your careful reading of assigned writings, through my lectures, and through our focused discussion. Hence, you are expected to come to class with reading completed and with some questions about it.

April 2 Orientation: The American Religious Landscape since 1865

April 4 Death and Life in the Post-Civil-War Era

How did Northerners and Southerners create religious meaning after the Civil War?

Reading: Reader #1 (Bushnell, Wilson).

April 9 Evangelical Piety in the Later Nineteenth Century

How was evangelical piety related to new historical circumstances after the Civil War?

Reading: Text, 292-306, 321-26, 341-43; Reader #2 (Moody in McLoughlin, ed.).

April 11 Reforming the Body Social: Temperance Tales

How did the temperance movement express the beliefs and stresses of Anglo-Protestants?

Reading: Text, 318-21; Reader #3 (Nation).

April 16 Metaphysics and American Healing: Body Cure/Mind Cure

What are the basic ideas of the American metaphysical movement, and why do you think it experienced rapid growth in the late nineteenth century?

Reading: Text, 311-15, 327; Reader #4 (Trine).

April 18 American Religious Thought and the Pragmatic Theory of Truth

What is pragmatism, how can it be religious, and how does it relate to American culture?

Reading: Text, 279-91; Reader #5 (James).

April 23 All That Glitters Is Not Gold: Gilded Age Spirituality on Trial

What was the religious response to Darwinian evolution?

Reading: Text, 350-53; Reader #6 (Boller).

April 25 Catholic Life in Protestant America

What were the distinctive religio-cultural challenges that Catholics faced from the time after the Civil War through the twentieth century?

Reading: Text, 263-78, 353-54, 381-83, 385-93.

April 30 Jewish Life in Protestant America

What were the distinctive religio-cultural challenges that Jews faced from the time after the Civil War through the twentieth century?

Reading: Text, 339-41, 354-55, 384, 414-15; Reader #7 (Glazer).

May 2 Midterm Examination

May 7 Protestantism and Pluralism: The Long View

How did pluralism affect mainstream Protestants from the Civil-War-era and afterward? What were Protestant fears, and what were Protestant hopes?

Reading: Text, 331-39, 358-63, 364-74; Reader #8 (Strong).

May 9 The Social Gospel: What Would Jesus Do?

How did the Social Gospel express Protestant and middle-class concerns?

Reading: Text, 315-18, 343-44; Reader #9 (Sheldon).

May 14 Speaking in Tongues: Pentecostal Revival in American Culture

What is pentecostalism, how did it arise, and how can it be explained in cultural terms?

Reading: Text, 345; Reader #10 (Blumhofer).

May 16 Standing by Fundamentals: The Role of Fundamentalism in American Culture

What is fundamentalism, how did it arise, and how can it be explained in cultural terms?

Reading: Text, 346-50; Reader #11 (Marsden).

May 21 African American Religion in the Old and New Century

What major religious changes did African Americans experience from the late nineteenth century through the twentieth? How were they related to racism?

Reading: Text, 356-58, 374-80, 393-406.

May 23 Religion and the Native American "Other"

What major religious changes did Native Americans experience from the late nineteenth century until the present, and how were they related to Christianity?

Reading: Text, 306-9, 338-39; Reader #12 (Radin).

May 28 East Meets West: Eastern Peoples and Eastern Religions

What are the differences between the ethnic and export versions of Eastern traditions in America, and how did these traditions grow and change in the United States?

Reading: Reader #13 (Albanese).

May 30 The "New" Religious Woman Spanning the Centuries

What did it mean to be a new religious woman during the period under consideration?

Reading: Reader #14 (Stanton; Bednarowski).

June 4 Second Coming or New Age? The Acids of Modernity in the Late Twentieth Century

What did premillennial dispensationalism and the New Age movement have in common in the late twentieth century and beyond?

Reading: Text, 407-22; Reader #15 (Albanese). FINAL PAPERS DUE.

June 6 The Religious Politics and Performance of Pluralism

What did an evolving pluralism do to transform the face of religious America in the late twentieth century?

Reading: Text, 423-59.

Course Evaluation.

June 10 Tuesday, 12:00 noon‑3:00 pm. Final Examination.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHICAL RESOURCES

Sydney E. Ahlstrom. A Religious History of the American People (1972). 2d ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

Catherine L. Albanese. America: Religions and Religion. 4^th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing, 2007.

George C. Bedell, Leo Sandon, Jr., and Charles T. Wellborn. Religion in America. 2d ed. New York: Macmillan, 1982.

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.

Edwin S. Gaustad, ed., A Documentary History of Religion in America. 2 vols. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1982-83.

________ and Leigh E. Schmidt. A Religious History of America. Rev. ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002.

Charles H. Lippy. Being Religious, American Style: A History of Popular Religiosity in the United States. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994.

________ 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.

George M. Marsden. Religion and American Culture. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990.

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. Encyclopedia of American Religions. 7th ed. Detroit: Gale Research, 2003.

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

Daniel G. Reid, et al. Dictionary of Christianity in America. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1990.

Peter W. Williams. America's Religions: From Their Origins to the Twenty-First Century. 2d ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.

Other Information

1) This course satisfies requirements in General Education, American History and Institutions, and Writing.

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

3) My office is located in 3001G Humanities and Social Sciences Building. Office hours for this class are on Mondays and Thursdays from 2:30-3:30 pm.

4) Telephone is 893-3564 (Chair’s office).

5) E-mail address (preferred form of communication) is albanese@religion.ucsb.edu.

N.B. This e-mail address DOES NOT RECEIVE ATTACHMENTS. Also, please DO NOT submit papers via e-mail under any circumstances.

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

7) 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 become an F by not completing the paper on time, the grade will not be changed—even if the student later submits a paper.