It's hard to believe, but it is already time to submit my fall 2014 courses. I am planning on teaching "Religion in Southern Culture" and a new course that I am calling "The History of Evangelicalism."For the latter, I intend to use three of the IVP books in its "History of Evangelicalism" series and two sourcebooks:
- Mark Noll's The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesleys
- David Bebbington's The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody
- Brian Stanley's The Global Diffusion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Billy Graham and John Stott
- My Early Evangelicalism: A Reader
- Barry Hankins's Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism: A Documentary Reader
For "Religion in Southern Culture," I am in need of some help. I am not sure what texts to use for this course. I am wondering if I should have the class read Beth Barton Schweiger's and Donald Mathew's Religion in the American South: Protestants and Others in History and Culture and perhaps two or three primary sources. Does anyone have any suggestions on what primary and secondary sources I should have the class read?I have taught this course once before, but made the mistake of making it a discussion-oriented class. Although the class responded fairly well to this design, I realized afterwards that I need to integrate at least some lectures because of the large number of students enrolled in this course. This summer, I plan on poring through the books listed below in order to develop some lectures, but I could use your advice on any additional books that I should be reading and integrating into the course.
- Ed Blum's and Paul Harvey's The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America
- John Boles's The Great Revival: Beginnings of the Bible Belt and Black Southerners, 1619-1869
- Robert Calhoon's Evangelicals and Conservatives in the Early South, 1740-1861
- Erskine Clarke's Our Southern Zion: A History of Calvinism in the South Carolina Low County, 1690-1990
- Paul Harvey's Freedom's Coming: Religious Culture and the Shaping of the South from the Civil War through the Civil Rights Era
- Christine Heyrman's Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt
- E. Brooks Holifield's The Gentlemen Theologians: American Theology in Southern Culture, 1795-1860
- Cynthia Lynn Lyerly's Methodism and Southern Mind, 1770-1810
- Patrick Mason's The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South
- Philip Mulder's A Controversial Spirit: Evangelical Awakenings in the South
- Mike Pasquier's Fathers of the Frontiers: French Missionaries and the Roman Catholic Priesthood in the United States, 1789-1870
- Albert Raboteau's Slave Religion: The 'Invisible Institution' in the Antebellum South
- Randall Stephens's The Fire Spreads: Holiness and Pentecostalism in the American South
- Gregory Wills's Democratic Religion: Freedom, Authority, and Church Discipline in the Baptist South, 1785-1900
- Charles Reagan Wilson's Judgment and Grace in Dixie: Southern Faiths from Faulkner to Elvis and Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920
- Sylvia Frey's and Betty Wood's Come Shouting to Zion: African American Protestantism in the American South and British Caribbean to 1830
6 comments:
Looks like a great lineup! I'd add Erik Gellman and Jarod Roll's Gospel of the Working Class to the second list (heck, to the first one too, if you want more variety), both for yourself and for your students. It's a great read--I taught it to undergrads last semester, and most of them really enjoyed it, though they found it challenging (this was an American religion class with no prerequisites). It challenges conventional narratives about evangelicalism and southern religion, race, class, and politics in an engaging, thoughtful way. One of my very favorites in southern religious history.
Thanks Alison. I appreciate the help!
Hi Jonathan - Great looking class. For additional secondary sources for either you or your students, the Journal of Southern Religion posted a handful old articles from its 1970s predecessor two years ago, and one is a great essay by Peter Wood on Afro-American conversion in the 18th century South (http://jsr.fsu.edu/issues/vol14/). Also, the essay by John Hayes in Pasquier's edited Gods of the Mississippi on Johnny Cash is wonderful. As is Jon Sensbach's essay in that volume.
For primary sources, you could go with the Confessions of Nat Turner as told to Thomas Gray and have students unpack how Turner's supposed confessions and understanding of his task were refracted through the eyes and ears of a white man. You could also assign some excerpts from the American State Papers about the Redstick Revolt, or Creek Civil War of 1813-1814. There are some telling letters from US Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins about the "heathenism" of the Creek Indians.
Tracy Thompson, The New Mind of the South--a native Southern, journalist's take on the South.
Thank you all for those additional suggestions. I will be sure to take a look at these resources.
Hi thanks forr posting this
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