Reading Content for a Course on American Evangelicalism

Heather Curtis

The following is a guest post from Heather Curtis, associate professor of history at Tufts University.  Heather is the author of Faith in the Great Physician: Suffering and Divine Healing in American Culture, 1860-1900 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), which won the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer prize from the American Society of Church History for the best first book in the History of Christianity. Her current project is titled Holy Humanitarians: American Evangelicals and Global Aid (under contract with Harvard University Press).

This coming fall I'll be teaching an upper-level undergraduate research seminar: Evangelicalism in America.  The course will meet weekly for two and half hours throughout the semester (13 sessions total), and is open to experienced students who have taken at least one previous class in the history of religion in America or the history of Christianity (most of them have taken these prerequisites with me since our department is so small).  All students should therefore have some familiarity with the history of evangelicalism, with analyzing primary source materials, and with the discipline of religious studies and/or history.  Here is the description:

This course explores the history of evangelical Christianity in and beyond North America from the seventeenth-century to the present. We will consider how and why evangelical traditions emerged in continental Europe and Great Britain, spread to the American colonies, flourished in the fledgling United States during the early national period, fractured and diversified around the turn of the twentieth century, and have continued to transform and expand into new global contexts over the last one hundred years. Throughout, we will pay attention to the ways in which evangelicalism has influenced American culture, politics, gender norms, constructions of racial identities, and class dynamics. We will also ask how cultural, political, and social forces have shaped evangelical theology and practice. Students will develop a command of the scholarly debates that animate the study of evangelicalism, and undertake independent, semester-long research projects grounded in primary source materials.

Some questions I've been mulling over: What books and articles should I assign? I have many ideas - so many great works have come out over the past several years that I'd love to read more closely--it's hard to make choices!  I'm also considering integrating scholarly works on the evangelical tradition with substantive primary sources--especially novels like Uncle Tom's Cabin, or the Damnation of Theron Ware.

I look forward to any recommendations!  Many thanks in advance.