Religion in the American West Group at the AAR

We are excited about our upcoming gathering at the AAR in Atlanta! Our session is on Saturday, November 21, from 4:00 to 6:30pm in Hilton-307.

This year’s session is titled “Religious Promotion and Sacred Space in the American West.” The American West has long been known for innovative forms of religious self-promotion from the miracle-working snake oil salesman to the charismatic founders of new religious movements to the well-coiffed stage preacher. The four papers that make up this session explore how unique western spaces and sites have combined with religious self-promotion and self-definition to create new and often contested forms of religious practice.

As is the custom of the Group, all four papers will be pre-circulated, and presenters will give only short points of entry into their papers. This year, Prof. Sarah Pike of California State University, Chico, will respond to the papers before opening up the floor to lively Q & A. The papers will be available to AAR members by November 1 here. (https://www.aarweb.org/aar-full-paper-submission-program)

Presenters and their paper titles:

Jenna Gray-Hildenbrand, Middle Tennessee State University

“Religion, Fraud, and the American West: The ‘I AM’ Activity and Defining the Limits of Religious Freedom”

Justin Doran, University of Texas

“Bayou Revival: Houston as the Contact Zone between the New South and the American West”

Megan Goodwin, Bates College

“‘This Is Not About Religion’: The State of Texas v. Yearning For Zion”

Angela Tarango, Trinity University

Isaiah Ellis, University of North Carolina

“Hunting Buffalo in Oklahoma: Native American Casinos, Sacred Land, and Portrayals of of Native Culture and Religion”

We hope to see you all at the meeting and hope that you can stay for the business meeting afterward!

CFP: Religion in America at AAR-Western Region

Religion in America

Fitting into the larger 2016 Conference theme in the broadest of terms, the Religion in America Unit seeks papers that explore how faith has shaped the concept of Social Justice, both in theory and practice. Our Unit is also curious to better understand how 'ethical disaffiliation' (i.e. the act of leaving one's religion for moral reasons) is changing the landscape of both religion and social justice work. For instance, recent research indicates that over 30% of Millennials left the faith into which they were born because they believed it to be hostile to the LGBT community. Where are these and similar trends taking the US? Are there historical case studies (e.g. abolitionism, prohibitionism, etc.) that shed insight into current realities?

While this relationship between faith and social justice is a general topic of the larger conference, call for papers within the Religion in America Unit remains open to considering papers that go beyond this topic.

Please send title, abstract, and participant form to Konden R. Smith, Ph.D., at krsmith1@asu.edu and Chase Laurelle Way chase.laurelle.way@gmail.com

Call for Papers:

Race, Gender, and Power on the Mormon Borderlands

Announcement published by Dee Garceau on Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Date: October 15, 2015

Subject Fields:

African American History / Studies, Canadian History / Studies, Native American History / Studies, U.S. - Mexico Borderlands, Women's & Gender History / Studies

CALL FOR PAPERS:

Race, Gender, and Power in the Mormon Borderlands

Mormon history lies at the borders between subaltern and dominant cultures. On the one hand, due to their unusual family structure and theocratic government, Mormons were a persecuted minority for the better part of the nineteenth century. On the other, Mormons played a significant role as colonizers of the North American West, extending their reach to the borderlands of Mexico, Canada, and the Pacific Islands. There Mormon colonists intermarried with Native Americans, Mexicans, Hawaiians and Samoans, even as they placed exclusions on interracial sexual relations and marriage. During the nineteenth century, Mormons also discouraged Native peoples’ polygamous practices while encouraging plural marriage for white women. And for the better part of the twentieth century, Mormon religious doctrine subordinated persons of color within church hierarchy. African-American men, for example, could not hold the priesthood until 1978. Historically, then, Mormons have navigated multiple borders-- between colonizer and colonized, between white and Other, and between minority and imperial identities. This limnal position calls for further investigation. We propose an anthology of essays about race, gender, and power in the Mormon borderlands.

Over the past thirty years, historians of Mormon women have expanded our understanding of gender and power in Mormon society. However, most of these studies focus on white Mormon women, while Mormon women of color have remained largely invisible. This volume seeks not simply to make visible the lived experiences of Mormon women of color, but more importantly, to explore gender and race in the Mormon borderlands. Taken together, these essays will address how Mormon women and men navigated the complications of minority and colonizer status, interracial marriage and doctrinal race hierarchies, patriarchy and female agency, vigilante violence and religious responsibility, and plural identities. These metaphoric borders were brought into play on the geographic and cultural borders of the United States. Specifically, this volume will encompass the continental U.S. West, the borderlands of Canada and Mexico, and Pacific Rim islands such as Samoa and Hawaii, from the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries. A focus on intersectionality in the borderlands promises to open new directions for Mormon history in concert with recent trends in western history. 

The anthology will be co-edited by Dee Garceau, Rhodes College, garceau@rhodes.edu, Andrea Radke-Moss, Brigham Young University-Rexburg, radkea@byui.edu, and Sujey Vega, Arizona State University, sujeyvega@asu.edu . Please feel free to contact us with any questions you have. 

Please send your article abstract or manuscript as an email attachment by October 15, 2015 to Dee Garceau garceau@rhodes.edu , phone: 901-484-1837.

Contact Email: garceau@rhodes.edu

Job Announcement: VAP in American Religions @ University of Wyoming

The Religious Studies department at the University of Wyoming announces a one-year position in American religions at the rank of Visiting Assistant Professor or instructor, beginning in August 2015.  Responsibilities include five undergraduate-level courses over the academic year, with at least one of these taught online.

Required qualifications: Ph.D. in Religious Studies or related discipline, or evidence of imminent completion of the degree; demonstrated expertise in American religions.

Preferred qualifications: Specialization in religion in the American West; ample experience in undergraduate teaching.

To apply: Submit a cover letter and CV, as email attachments to: relstudies@uwyo.edu.  Please include names and contact information for three recommenders in cover letter.

Review of applications begins May 5, 2015, and will continue until the position is filled.

Direct any inquiries regarding this position to Quincy D. Newell, qdnewell@uwyo.edu.

The full job ad can be found here.

The University of Wyoming is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability or protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law and University policy.  Please see www.uwyo.edu/diversity/fairness.

We conduct background investigations for all final candidates being considered for employment. Offers of employment are contingent upon the completion of the background check.

OAH Presidential Address: On Social Amnesia and Neutrality as Public Performance

This past weekend Patty Limerick, Faculty Director and Chair of the Board of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado, delivered the presidential address at the OAH 2015 annual meeting. Her address, "Historians as Public Intellectuals: A Cost-Benefit Analysis, Seen from the Interior" considered how historians can help society avoid amnesia.

To revive the profession and its place in American culture, Limerick encouraged members of the Organization of American Historians to think less about professors and the academy and more about the story, or stories, that bring life to their work. Limerick used herself as an example of a historian who lived the kind transition she is encouraging: moving from an early career scholar focused on speaking to her field (with monographs like Legacy of Conquest) to a historian who speaks to a larger public audience about the importance of historical context (writing briefs for Congress, hosting public events and forums through the Center of the American West, and applying historical methods to endeavors other writing books).  In both kinds of efforts, Limerick sees her role as supplying historical perspective in order to better understand and shape the future. Rather than detract from her role or status as a scholar, Limerick argues that her work engaging the public brings greater credibility to her scholarship and enhances her purpose as a historian.

Limerick's speech is well timed as as the April 2015 issue of Perspectives on History also considers the current state of the profession. Perspectives provide a roundtable on a related concern: "History as a Book Discipline. It's worth reading after watching the entire presidential address, which can be found here courtesy of History News Network. 

Meet Me in St. Louis

Daniel Schwen, "St. Louis on the Mississippi River by night," January 27, 2008.

 The 2015 meeting of the Organization of American Historians is coming up this weekend: April 16-19.  (The program can be found here.) The theme is this year is "Taboos" with panels that promise to discuss "what historians miss when we avoid topics that have come to be regarded as taboo."

Readers of Religion in the American West will not be disappointed. Here's a brief round up of panels that may be of interest.

Thursday, April 16, 12:00-1:30PM
Citizenship, Nationhood, and Power in Indian Country

Constitutional Law and History or Constitutional Law in History

Friday, April 17 9:00-10:30AM
The Civil War Era and the American West: Unifying Concepts for Scholars, Students, and Museum Goers

Tradition and Taboo in Asian American History

Writing U.S. History: The View from Mexico

Friday, April 17 10:50AM-12:20PM
New Directions in Asian American History

Indigenous Perceptions of Nineteenth Century Treaty Making

Friday, April 17 1:50PM-3:20PM
State of the Field: 19th Century Indigenous and American Indian History

Challenges of Indigenous Women’s and Gender History


Saturday, April 18, 9:00AM-10:30AM
Looking North and West: New Directions in the Study of Free African Americans

The Limits of Freedom: Labor, Violence, and Coercion in the American West
 
Saturday, April 18, 10:50AM-12:20PM 

Rediscovering the Lost World of Midwestern History

Sex, Religion, and the Outlaw Teachers: Taboo Topics in the History of American Education

Saturday, April 18, 1:50PM-3:20PM
Indigenous Rights and Resistance in Alaska (Twentieth Century)

Memorializing Massacres in the American West
Radical Political HIstories of the Midwest


Saturday, April 18, 5:15PM
Presidential Address: Historians as Public Intellectuals: A Cost-Benefit Analysis, Seen from the Interior

In addition to the panels, St. Louis includes plenty of opportunity for research. According to St. Louis Public Radio, the Missouri History Museum holds the largest collection of Native American artifacts outside the Native American Museum in Washington, D.C. Nancy Kranzberg's "St. Louis is Rich With Art Collections of the American West" gives other suggestions for research as well, like Washington University's Kemper Art Museum and the St. Louis Art Museum (which has the memorable url slam.org).

AAR Deadline Extension

The AAR has performed its annual ritual of extending the deadline for paper proposals (until Wednesday, March 4, at 4:59 pm EST).

It's not too late to submit yours to the Religion in the American West group!

Call for Papers:

Proposals for individual papers or a full session are solicited on the following topics:

• The wielding and negotiation of power and authority in religious contexts in the North American West. Specifically, we seek papers that critically interrogate the various and distinctive forms religious authority has taken in the American West, and the consequences of the exercise of that authority. Possible areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to, discussions of power in relation to land disputes, religious groups and governmental entities, institutional vs. popular religious practices, and the establishment and maintenance of religious authority in the West. Topics for papers should not only be situated in the North American West but should also deal significantly with unique aspects of the region or novel analytical approaches. Papers for this session will be precirculated.

• The post-1965 religious and ethnic demographic changes and realities in the North American West (for a possible co-sponsored session).

• The history and impact of Asian religions and the religions of Asian Americans in the Pacific Rim and the North American West (for possible quad-sponsorship with the Buddhism in the West Group, the Japanese Religions Group, and the North American Hinduism Group).

Link to CFP: https://papers.aarweb.org/content/religion-american-west-group

WHA Arrington-Prucha Prize

In recognition of the role played by Leonard Arrington and Father Francis Paul Prucha in Western American religious history, the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University funds this $500 cash prize for the best essay of the year on religious history in the West. The cash prize and a plaque are awarded to the author and a certificate is awarded to the publisher. No time period, geographic restrictions, or questions of religious persuasion apply. To be eligible, articles must have appeared in the prior year in a journal, magazine, or edited volume. Any WHA member, as well as the publisher or author of the essay, may nominate an essay. A copy of the journal, an offprint, or a photocopy must be submitted to each member of the award committee.

To be eligible for award in 2015, the article must have appeared in 2014. Deadline to submit to Awards Committee is April 1, 2015. 

More information at http://www.westernhistoryassociation.wildapricot.org/awards/articles&essays/arrington-prucha.

Digital American West: A Round-Up

Every week Wiki Education Foundation features articles contributed by student editors in its "The Round Up" Series. Earlier this month, they featured contributions made about the American West in The Round-Up: History of The American West. Highlighting contributions made by students in Dr. Marilynn Johnson's American History West of the Mississippi class, the article features content related to gender and race as well as technology, consumer culture, and violence.

Many thanks to Dr. Johnson's students for contributing content about the American West to the public! Here on the blog we will be featuring student content of our own, especially content that considers religion alongside other social formations. If your class is contributing new digital resources about the American West, then we'd like to add that to our own round-up. Please bring your work to our attention at relamwest [at] gamil [dot] com.

"A pack train," Appleton's Guide to Mexico [1884], found here

From the Archives: A 19th-Century San Francisco Chinese Woman's Autobiography

We are pleased to include below the first post in an ongoing occasional series titled "From the Archives." Our first contribution comes from Joshua Paddison.

Autobiography of an Unnamed Chinese Woman

Introduced and Transcribed by Joshua Paddison

The following unnamed Chinese woman’s life story, written “in her own words,” was published in San Francisco’s Presbyterian newspaper, The Occident, on August 5, 1885. At the time, she was an interpreter and resident at the local Presbyterian Mission Home for Girls. Presbyterian missionaries had been working with Chinese immigrants in San Francisco since the 1850s.

In the 1870s, California’s politicians had seized on the figure of the “sinful” and “diseased” Chinese prostitute to urge the necessity of halting immigration from China. This resulted in the Page Act of 1875, the federal government’s first restriction of immigration, which forbade Chinese “coolies” and prostitutes from entering the United States. Protestant missionaries in California generally supported the Page Act but argued that Chinese women could and should be cared for, “uplifted,” and transformed into “useful Christian women.” “What maketh us to differ from them?” asked Presbyterian missionary Samantha Condit in 1874. “God’s grace alone.”

Chinese women’s autobiographical stories such as this one appeared occasionally in California’s Protestant publications, offered as evidence of the progress missionaries were making as well as the redeemability of all of the world’s “races.” These narratives are a largely untapped resource for historians of Asian American history, offering evidence of both the benefits and costs accrued when Chinese Americans joined Protestant churches in the nineteenth century.

AAR Call of Papers: Religion in the American West Group

It's that time again...

AAR has posted CFPs and is now accepting submissions for this year's annual conference, which will be held November 21-24, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Below find information for paper submissions to the Religion in the American West Group:

Religion in the American West Group

Call for Papers: Proposals for individual papers or a full session are solicited on the following topics:

• The wielding and negotiation of power and authority in religious contexts in the North American West. Specifically, we seek papers that critically interrogate the various and distinctive forms religious authority has taken in the American West, and the consequences of the exercise of that authority. Possible areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to, discussions of power in relation to land disputes, religious groups and governmental entities, institutional vs. popular religious practices, and the establishment and maintenance of religious authority in the West. Topics for papers should not only be situated in the North American West but should also deal significantly with unique aspects of the region or novel analytical approaches. Papers for this session will be precirculated.

• The post-1965 religious and ethnic demographic changes and realities in the North American West (for a possible co-sponsored session).

• The history and impact of Asian religions and the religions of Asian Americans in the Pacific Rim and the North American West (for possible quad-sponsorship with the Buddhism in the West Group, the Japanese Religions Group, and the North American Hinduism Group).

Link to CFP: https://papers.aarweb.org/content/religion-american-west-group

Call for Papers: What should a book on religions in California contain? for CASA 2015 Annual Meeting

Call for Papers: What should a book on religions in California contain? for the 2015 Annual Meeting of the California American Studies Association, held April 24-25 on the campus of California State University, Fullerton.

It goes without saying that religions play a dynamic role in the drama that is the story of California from the beginning through the present. Yet, no one volume yet exists to tell this story in the twenty-first century. Perhaps now, the time is right to for this new project.

What should a book on religion in California contain? What should be its scope, its loci and its foci? What should be its structure? Who should be its author(s)? Three to four presentations are invited to provide a roundtable conversation to explore this topic.

Presentations need not be lengthy (no more than fifteen minutes maximum) nor conclusive (as they are meant to initiate conversation). This detail is important so as not to tax the efforts of any wishing to contribute their proposal to this exploration.

In fact, a quick reply will be sufficient. By January 14 (so that the January 15 deadline can be met), please e-mail a 250 word abstract and a brief (one to two page) c.v. to the panel organizer at ray.kibler.iii@ecunet.org. Questions in advance are welcomed.

Western History Association Awards - Accepting Submissions

Award submission information for 2015 is now available online. Click here to view, or visit www.westernhistoryassociation.wildapricot.org and select the "Awards" tab. The deadline for awards submissions is April 1, 2015. Awards will be announced in October at the 55th Annual WHA Conference in Portland, Oregon.

If you have any questions, please email Matt Robinson at whagradstudent1@gmail.com or call the WHA office at (907)474-6509.

OAH Workshop: Diversity in the American West

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
January 5 - February 27, 2015

NEW 2015 SUMMER REGIONAL WORKSHOP
Glendale, California
July 17 - July 19, 2015

The Organization of American Historians is pleased to announce a Call for Proposals for its new Summer 2015 Regional Workshop.

The 3-day workshop, titled Diversity in the American West, will be held on the campus of Glendale Community College, located ten miles north of downtown Los Angeles, from Friday, July 17 through Sunday, July 19, 2015.

The Program Committee invites proposals from college faculty (from both two-year and four-year institutions); high school faculty, including AP History instructors; historical researchers and writers; librarians: museum curators; public historians; advanced graduate students; and other educational professionals.

The purpose of this workshop is to offer history educators a meaningful opportunity to learn more about the diverse people, places, and historical themes of the American West. Some questions to consider include the following: What are the major trends in contemporary research and historiography of the American West, particularly as they relate to the theme of diversity? What strategies can be used to engage students and the general public in the history of the American West? How might instructors build and enhance their teaching of American History survey courses to include the history of the American West?


Submissions will be accepted between January 5, 2015 and February 27, 2015.

For further information and submission instructions please click here.