Conservatives vs. Liberals: Religion and Identity in America

This course explores how Americans have cultivated, articulated, and contested religious and cultural identities during the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. Identifying and interrogating apparent oppositions between religious conservatives and liberals, students will consider whether and why such oppositions have developed and persisted. Throughout the seminar, students will engage varied theoretical, historical, and thematic approaches to the study of religious identity, evaluating how attention to such issues as politics, ideology, gender, and class illumine the ways in which people come to understand themselves and others.