AAR is Coming Soon!

...And that means we're getting ready for our session, which will be on Sunday, November 20, from 9:00 to 11:30 in the Parc 55 Wyndham hotel's Sutro room. We hope you all will be able to join us!

The theme for our session this year is "Land, Identity, and Transnational Wests." We'll read and discuss four papers: "City Jew, Country Jew: Immigration, Masculinity, and American Zionism," by Sarah Imhoff of Indiana University; "Civilizing the American Frontier: Utah, Kansas, Nicaragua, and American Millenarianism, 1856-1858," by Konden Smith of Arizona State University; "'Playing Indian': Defining American Religion through Ute Land Religion, 1910-1940," by Brandi Denison of the University of North Florida; and "Faith, Place, and Power: Catholicism and the Making of the United States Pacific," by Katherine Moran of the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. In addition to discussing the critical issues that each paper raises, the seminar discussion will also focus on ways that the four papers taken together highlight the distinct contributions the American West makes to understanding American religion and the ways in which religion helps us understand the American West. As in the past, our session will open with brief summaries of the papers from each author, followed by a response to the papers, this year given by Greg Johnson of the University of Colorado, Boulder. That will get the ball rolling for our discussion.

Seminar attendees are asked to read the four papers in advance; they are now posted on the Seminar’s website. Click on the "members only" tab, which should take you to the class management system at Yale where the papers are posted. (This link will take you directly to that site.) Click on the appropriate log-in tab, which for most of us will be the non-Yale log-in. If you have been enrolled as a member of the seminar, you should be able to use the log-in from last year. If you do not remember your password (your log-in should be your email address), there is a "forgot your password" link that should enable you to recover access. Once you have successfully logged onto yaleclassv2 you should see a tab that says "Rel American West" Click that tab and then the "papers" link on the left and should see the folders. If you are not yet enrolled as a member of the seminar, please contact Tisa Wenger to be enrolled.