Lecture Series to Examine "Religion in America"

Four pre-eminent scholars in the field of American religion will visit Smith College this fall for "Religion in America," a lecture series jointly coordinated by the American Studies Program and the department of religion and biblical literature.

The series--which is free, open to the public and wheelchair-accessible--will kick off Thursday, Sept. 16, when Robert Orsi, professor of religious studies at Indiana University, presents "It's Good, But Is It History? The Cultural Turn in the Study of American Religions" at 7:30 p.m. in Seelye Hall 201.

Orsi, who has published several books and articles on women in Roman Catholic history, is the winner of the 1998 Merle Curti Award in American Social History from the Organization of American Historians.

"We invited Robert Orsi because he culls a certain style of cultural anthropology to illuminate the piety of Roman Catholic women," says Daniel Horowitz, Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman Professor of American Studies, a coordinator of the series.

"Religion in America" originated when Horowitz, in conversations with Karl Donfried, professor of religion, determined it essential to focus attention on the fast-changing academic field and, if possible, discern in what direction the field is headed. "In recent years the study of American religion has gone through exciting changes," Horowitz says, "in part in response to a more capacious sense of the range of topics that could be studied-more multicultural, more comparative internationally and more influenced by advances in a number of other fields."

One of the most notable speakers in the series is Martin Marty, "surely the most eminent scholar in the field of American religion, someone whose work covers an enormous range," says Horowitz. Marty, who directs the Public Religion Project at the University of Chicago where he is Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, has written 50 books in his field including a three-volume religious compendium, "Modern American Religion." Marty will speak on "Getting 'Spiritual' about 'Religion' and Getting 'Religious' about 'Spirituality': American Trends and Urgencies" on Thursday, Oct. 7, at 7:30 p.m. in Neilson Library Browsing Room.

On Tuesday, Oct. 19, the series will continue with a talk by Ann Braude, director of the Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School, titled "From the Salem Witch Trials to Black Elk: American Religion in the Liberal Arts Curriculum" at 5 p.m. in Seelye Hall 106. The series will conclude on Thursday, Nov. 11, with "American Religion as Seen Through a Comparative and Cross-Cultural Kaleidoscope" by N. J. Demerath III, professor of sociology at UMass, Amherst, at 7:30 p.m. in Seelye Hall 201.

For more information about the "Religion in America" series, call Barbara Day at (413) 585-3520.

September 3, 1999