Books that I Bought at the AHA Conference

Every time that I attend the AHA and ASCH conferences I always visit the main book exhibit. Even though the AHA book exhibit pales by comparison to that of the annual American Academy of Religion, I relish the idea of wandering the booths and reading blurbs of new historical works. As a religious historian, however, I try to limit my purchases to books in that specific discipline.

On this occasion, I limited my purchased to two books, which I can't wait to read. My first purchase was John Corrigan's new book on Emptiness: Feeling Christian in America, published recently by the University of Chicago Press. I had planned on attending the ASCH session devoted to a discussion on Corrigan's new book, but ended up missing it for various reasons. One of my former students at UTC is currently in the graduate program at FSU and has told me about a class that he took with Corrigan on "space" and religion. This intrigued me to buy the book and read his interpretation of how space (or the lack thereof) relates to Christianity.

Secondly, I bought a copy of Robert Love's Warnings: Searching for Strangers in Colonial Boston by Cornelia Dayton and Sharon Salinger. I have mentioned before in this blog how there are surprisingly very few modern books on colonial Boston. This book is about Boston's unwanted residents, namely poor immigrants who were pushed out of the city so that the established members of the community would not have to provide them with financial relief. This should be a great book, and helpful for my research on life in colonial Boston. Salinger wrote an excellent monograph on Taverns and Drinking in Early America that included lots of great material on Boston, and so I anticipate that this will be another solid piece of scholarship.

Now that I am back from the AHA and ASCH conferences it is time to get ready for the start of the spring 2016 semester, which begins for me on Tuesday.