ACADEMIC POSITIONS

Yale University, Divinity School, American Studies, Religious Studies 2009 - Present

Professor, 2022-present

Associate Professor, tenured, 2017 - 2022

Associate Professor on term, 2014 - 2017

Assistant Professor, 2009 - 2014

Arizona State University, Department of Religious Studies, Assistant Professor 2004 - 2009

Princeton University, Center for the Study of Religion, Acting Associate Director 2003 - 2004

Southern Methodist University, Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Bill and Rita Clements Research Fellow 2002 - 2003

EDUCATION

Princeton University, Ph.D. in Religion (M.A. in passing, 1999) 2002

Claremont Graduate University, M.A. in Women’s Studies in Religion 1997

Eastern Mennonite University, B.A. in English, Summa cum Laude 1991

MAJOR PUBLICATIONS

MONOGRAPHS

How Settler Colonialism Made American Religion. Under contract with University of North Carolina Press for publication in 2025.

Religious Freedom: The Contested History of an American Ideal. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, October 2017. xi + 288pp.

We Have a Religion: The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom. Chapel Hill: Published in association with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University, by the University of North Carolina Press, 2009. 360pp

EDITED VOLUME

Religion and U.S. Empire: Critical New Histories. Volume of essays co-edited with Sylvester Johnson. New York: NYU Press, 2022.

Journal Articles (Refereed)

“Fighting for Oak Flat: Western Apaches and American Religious Freedom.” Journal of Law and Religion 39:2 (May 2024).

“Making Religion, Making the West: Introduction to Special Issue on Religion in the American West.” Special Issue Editor, Tisa Wenger. Pacific Historical Review, 92:3 (Summer 2023): 327-341.

“John Tanner, Colonial Credulity, and Comparative Religions: Theorizing Religion on the Borderlands of Empire.” Journal of Religion and American Culture 32:2 (Summer 2022): 149-201.

Co-authored with Gale Kenny, “Church, State, and ‘Native Liberty’ in the Interwar Belgian Congo,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 62:1 (January 2020): 156-185.

 “Unitarians in an Age of Empire: Settler Colonialism, Liberal Religion, and the World’s Parliament of Religions,” Journal of Unitarian Universalist History 42 (Winter 2018).

 “Indian Dances and the Politics of Religious Freedom, 1870-1930,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79:4 (December 2011): 850-878. doi: 10.1093/jaarel/lfr061.

“‘We Are Guaranteed Freedom’: Pueblo Indians and the Category of Religion in the 1920s.” History of Religions 45:2 (November 2005), 89-113.  Reprinted in Indigenous Religions, 4 volumes, edited by Graham Harvey and Amy Whitehead. Routledge Press, 2017.

“Land, Culture, and Sovereignty in the Pueblo Dance Controversy.” Journal of the Southwest 16:2 (Summer 2004), 381-412.

“Female Christ and Feminist Foremother: The Many Lives of Ann Lee.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 18:2 (Fall 2002), 5-32.

Book Chapters

“Spiriting the Johnstons: Producing Science and Religion on the Borderlands of Empire,” in Critical Approaches to Science and Religion, edited by Terence Keel, Ahmed Ragab, and Myrna Perez Sheldon. New York: Columbia University Press, 2023.

“Making Religion in Michilimackinac,” in Religion and U.S. Empire: Critical New Histories, edited by Tisa Wenger and Sylvester Johnson, 41-62. New York: NYU Press, 2022.

“Why does the title of this book use the phrase “Indigenous Religious Traditions” rather than “Indigenous Religions?” in Indigenous Religious Traditions in 5 Minutes, edited by Molly Harbour Bassett and Natalie Avalos. Equinox Publishing, 2022.

“Sovereignty,” in Religion, Law, U.S.A., edited by Joshua Dubler and Isaac Weiner, 108-128. New York: New York University Press, 2019.

“Freedom to Worship,” in The Four Freedoms: FDR’s Legacy of Liberty for the United States and the World, edited by Jeffrey Engel, 73-110. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

“’A New Form of Government’: Religious-Secular Distinctions in Pueblo Indian History,” in Religion as a Category of Governance and Sovereignty, edited by Trevor Stack, Naomi Goldenberg and Timothy Fitzgerald, 68-89. Leiden: Brill, 2015.

“Religious Thought in America, 1945 to the Present,” in Cambridge History of Religions in America, vol. 3, edited by Stephen J. Stein, 674-697. Cambridge University Press, 2012.

 “The God-in-the-Constitution Controversy: American Secularisms in Historical Perspective,” in Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age, edited by Linell Cady and Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, 87-105. Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.

“The Practice of Dance for the Future of Christianity: ‘Eurythmic Worship’ in New York’s Roaring Twenties,” in Practicing Protestants: Histories of Christian Life in America, edited by Laurie Maffly-Kipp, Leigh Schmidt, and Mark Valeri, 222-249. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.

“Modernists, Pueblo Indians, and the Politics of Primitivism,” in Race, Religion, Region: Landscapes of Encounter in the American West, edited by Fay Botham and Sara Patterson, 101-114. University of Arizona Press, 2006.

EDITORIAL

Book series

2019- Religion, Politics, and Law in the United States. University Press of Kansas Book Series
Co-edited with Laura Olson and Leslie Griffin

ACADEMIC JOURNALS

2023- Co-editor, with Mitsutoshi Horii, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion.

2023 Guest editor for a special issue on Religion in the Nineteenth-century American West. Pacific Historical Review
92:3 (Summer 2023).

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS  

2021 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, 2021-2022

2019      Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies Faculty Fellowship, 2019-2020 ($5000)

2019      Research Travel Grant, Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, University of Notre Dame ($1500)         

2019      Griswold Research Award, Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University ($4000)          

2018      Griswold Research Award, Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University ($1000)          

2013      Selected Participant, Religion and U.S. Empire Collaborative Project, 2013-2015, Directors Sylvester Johnson and Tracy Leavelle. Funding from the Kripke Center, Creighton University

2012      Lynn E. May Study Grant, Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives, Summer 2012

2011      Lilly Theological Research Grant, Association of Theological Schools, 2011-2012

2010      Griswold Research Award, Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University ($900)

2007      Selected Participant, Young Scholars in American Religion Program, Center for the Study of American Religion and Culture, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, 2007-2009

2006      Summer Stipend, “We the People” Initiative, National Endowment for the Humanities                

2005      Co-Convener, “Race, Ethnicity, and Modernity: Re-Envisioning the Religious History of the American West.” A collaborative research project supported by a $10,000 seed grant from Arizona State University’s Institute for Humanities Research, 2005-2006

2002     Early Career Associate, History of American Christian Practice Project, 2002-2004 Directors Laurie Maffly-Kipp, Leigh Schmidt, and Mark Valeri, funded by the Lilly Foundation

2002     Bill and Rita Clements Research Fellowship, Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University, 2002-2003

2002     New Scholars Award, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion   

2001      Harold P. Dodds Honorific Fellowship, Princeton University, 2001-2002

INVITED LECTURES  (Selected)       

2021 “How Settler Colonialism Made American Religion.” Invited Lecture via Zoom. Loeb Institute for Religious Freedom, The George Washington University.
April 15, 2021.

2019      “African Americans and Religious Freedom.” Keynote Address. Symposium: Disrupt the Narrative: Centering African American Perspectives on
Religious Freedom. Religious Freedom Center, Freedom Forum Institute. Newseum, Washington, D.C. June 7.

2019      “Religious Freedom: The Contested History of an American Ideal.” Keynote Address. Conference on Religion and Law in Canada and the United States. Chester Ronning Centre for the Study of Religion and Public Life, University of Alberta, Augustana Campus. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. April 13.

2019      “Making Sense of Missions: History and Ethics in the Hawai’i Mission Bicentennial.” Simpson-Hewett Lectures. Andover Newton Seminary at Yale.
New Haven, Connecticut, March 29.

2019      “The Contested History of American Religious Freedom.” Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
February 13, 2019.

2018      “The Contested History of American Religious Freedom.” Keynote address. Conceptions of Law: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the American Legal Landscape. Princeton University. Princeton, New Jersey. October 29.

2018      “Religious Freedom and US Empire.” Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. October 18.

2018      “Religious Freedom: The Contested History of an American Ideal.” Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, Missouri. September 12.

2018      “The Contested History of Religious Freedom.” Wright Lecture, UU History and Heritage Society. Unitarian Universalist General Assembly,
Kansas City, Missouri. June 22.

2018      “The Contested History of American Religious Freedom: A Conversation with Dr. Tisa Wenger.” Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York. March 28.

2018      “African Americans, Quakers, and the Racial Limits of Religious Freedom.” Haverford College Distinguished Lecture Series. Haverford, Pennsylvania. March 20, 2018.

2018      “Race, Empire, and American Religious Freedom.” Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. March 12.

2017      "Race, Empire, and American Religious Freedom." Armstrong Lecture. Department of Religion, Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Michigan. February 16.

2016      “Unitarians in an Age of Empire,” Unitarian Universalist History and Heritage Society Keynote Speaker. UU History Convocation 2016,
Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. October 28.

2015      “Mapping Religion in the Philippines: Religious Freedom and the Unsettled Secularisms of U.S. Empire.” Religion and Media Pre-Conference Workshop, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia. November 20.

2015      "Indian Dances and the Settler Secular: Making Religion on the Reservation.” Colgate University, Hamilton, New York. October 19.

2013      “Freedom of Worship.” Public panel on The Four Freedoms: FDR’s Legacy of Liberty for the United States and the World. Center for Presidential History,
Southern Methodist University. Dallas, Texas. November 7.

2013      “Race, Racism, and American Religious Freedom.” Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan. March 20.

2010       “We Have a Religion: The Ironies of Religious Freedom in Native American History,” and “Sacred Places and Same-Sex Marriage: American Models of Religion and the Secular.” Guest Scholar. Center for the Study of Religion, Law, and Democracy, Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. March 11.

2010       “The Ironies of Religious Freedom: ‘Religion’ and ‘Religious’ Minorities in the U.S.” Invited paper, Religious-Secular Distinctions Conference,
British Academy, London. January 15.

2009       “We Have a Religion: The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom.” Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, Albuquerque,
New Mexico. August 9.

CONFERENCE PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS (Selected)

2024 “‘This Not our Notion of Christian Liberty’: Baptist Formations in a Settler State.” American Society of Church History Annual Meeting. San Francisco, California, January 4-7.

2023 Panelist: Author Meets Critics Roundtable on Barton Scott's Slandering the Sacred. Law, Religion, and Culture Group. American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting. San Antonio, Texas, November 18-21.

2023 “‘He Has Not Instructed Them by Books:’ Divine Authority on Kiikapoi Lands.” Invited Paper for conference, “By the Mouth of His Holy Prophets”: Sacred Discourse in Nineteenth-Century America, Heidelberg Center for American Studies, University of Heidelberg, Germany. May 26.

2022 Panelist. “Religious Freedom in the Age of Pandemic.” 7th Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture. Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. June 4.

2021 “Settler Secularism: Baptist Missions, Indian Removals, and the Structures of American Religion.” Session on The United States as a Settler State. Religion, Colonialism, and Postcolonialism Unit, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting. San Antonio, Texas, November 20-22.

2021      Panelist. Roundtable on Peter Coviello’s Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism. San Juan, Puerto Rico, October 7-10.

2021      Panelist. “Settler Colonialism and American Religion.” American Historical Association. Online. https://bit.ly/AHA21ColonialReligion. January 6.

2019      “Settler Secularism and the Study of Religion.” Panel Organizer: Decolonizing the Study of Religion. American Studies Association Annual Meeting. Honolulu, Hawaii, November 9.

2019      “Religious Freedom Under U.S. Empire.” Invited to present. Panel Organizer: How Religious Freedom Makes Religion. Conceptualising Religion/Konzeptualisierungen von Religion. Deutschen Vereinigung für Religionswissenschaft. International Association for the History of Religions. Leibniz Universität Hannover. Hannover, Germany, September 3-6.

2019      “Spiriting the Johnstons: The Production of Science and Religion on a Settler Colonial Frontier.” Symposium on Critical Approaches to Science and Religion. Ohio University, Akron, Ohio, August 16-17.

2019      “Making Settler Religion: Missionary Benevolence in the Early Republic.” Making a Republic Imperial: Program in Early American Economy & Society 2019 Conference, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, Library Company of Philadelphia, March 28.

2019      Roundtable Panel. The Oxford Handbook of Race and Religion in America. American Society of Church History Winter Meeting. Chicago, January 4.

2018      Plenary Panel. Beyond Identity Politics? Scholars Conference on American Jewish History. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. June 17-19.

2017      Respondent. Author Meets Critics Roundtable. Tisa Wenger, Religious Freedom: The Contested History of an American Ideal. Law, Religion, and Culture Group. American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts. November.

2017      Panelist. Cultural Production and American Religion. 5th Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture. Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, IUPUI, Indianapolis, Indiana. June 3.

2015      “Religious Freedom and U.S. Empire.” Religious Cultures of U.S. Imperialism Panel. American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Toronto, Ontario. October 10.      

2015      “Pluralism, Secularism, and Religious Freedom in the Southern Baptist Convention.” Jointly sponsored session at the annual meetings of the American Historical Association and American Society of Church History, New York City. January 4.

2013      Panelist, “What Can the Study of American Judaism Bring to Religious Studies? A Roundtable on Theory and Methods,” Study of Judaism Section, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting. Baltimore, Maryland. November 25.

2013      Panelist, “Religion and U.S. Empire,” North American Religions Section, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting. Baltimore, Maryland. November 25.

2013      “The Cult Scare and the Shifting Politics of American Religious Freedom, 1975-1985.” No Person Shall Bee Any Wise Molested: Religious Freedom Cultural Conflict, and the Moral Role of the State. A conference for the collaborative project “The Spectacle of Toleration: Learning from the Lively Experiment.” Newport, Rhode Island. October 3.

2013      Panelist, “Preparing for 2050: The Changing Face of Race in America,” International Festival of Arts & Ideas, New Haven, Connecticut. June 16.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE          

Museum Consulting

2020-2022 Convener, Public Fellows in Religion and the American West. Fellowship program for junior scholars, accompanying the New-York Historical Society exhibit, Acts of Faith: Religion in the American West

2019-2022         Advisory Panel for the Exhibit, Acts of Faith: Religion in the American West (Fall 2022), New-York Historical Society

Boards and Committees

2021- Steering Committee, Colonialism and Postcolonialism Group, American Academy of Religion

2020- Pelikan Award Committee, Yale University Press

2017-2021          Editorial Board, Journal of the American Academy of Religion         

2016-2018          Advisory Board, Religio et Lex (Center for the Study of Religious Freedom, Virginia Wesleyan University)

2016-2018          Religion and Law Editorial Board, Religious Studies Review       

2014-2018          Steering Committee, Religion and US Empire Seminar, American Academy of Religion

2013-2016          Council Member, American Society of Church History

2013-2015          Arrington-Prucha Prize Committee, Western History Association       

2012-2013          Visiting Scholar, “Out of Many: Religious Pluralism in America: An NEH Bridging Cultures in Community Colleges Program,”
Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois, Seminar workshop June 25-29, 2012

2010-2013          Co-Chair, Law, Religion and Culture Group, American Academy of Religion       

2009-2012         Steering Committee, Cultural History of the Study of Religion Group, American Academy of Religion

2007-2012         Steering Committee Member and Website Editor, Religion in the American West Seminar, American Academy of Religion

2012                    Program Committee, American Society of Church History Winter Meeting        

2011                     Program Committee, North American Association for the Study of Religion Annual Meeting