History 110: Historical Approaches to Contemporary Issues Religion in American Politics and Society

Tuesday/Thursday, 2:40-4:00 A324 Wells Hall

Spring 2014

Prof. Emily Conroy-Krutz Email: conroyk5@msu.edu Office Hours: Wednesdays, 10-11:30am, 306A Old Horticulture Course Summary: The role of religion in American politics and society is a highly contested issue in the contemporary world, and has been so throughout American history. This course will open with the question of how religion figured into the founding of this country, and will discuss the role of religion in topics from American political and social history. We will proceed chronologically, spending the bulk of our time in the nineteenth century but ending in the twenty-first. Throughout the term, particular attention will be paid to the ways that religious arguments were used to challenge the status quo in both liberal and conservative ways. We will pay attention to the diversity of religious experience in America, and will ask what that diversity has meant historically to Americans. This course will also introduce you to some of the basics tools of the historian: how to read secondary and primary sources, what kinds of questions to ask, and how to write an argument-driven essay. Required Readings: The following books are available for purchase. Additional readings are available as noted in course outline below. • John Fea, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation: A Historical Introduction

(Westminster John Knox Press, 2011) 978-0664235048 • Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz, The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and

Salvation in 19th-Century America (Oxford, 2012) 978-0199892495 • Nancy Lusignan Schultz, Fire and Roses: The Burning of the Charlestown Convent,

1834 (Northeastern, 2000) 1-55553-514-3 • Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey, The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the

Saga of Race in America (University of North Carolina, 2012) 978-0807835722 Assignments and Grading: There will be two short papers, one longer paper, a midterm, and final exam in this class. There will also be six pop quizzes over the course of the semester dealing with topics from reading. Only five of these quizzes will count for the transcript (I will drop the lowest grade). You will also write one longer (5 page) paper about a primary source from MSU’s digital library collections of Sunday School books. The details of this are provided later in the syllabus. This will be graded on a letter scale.

Fea Evidence Paper: 10% Sunday School Primary Source Paper: 15% Current Events Paper: 10% Quizzes: 15% Midterm: 25% Final: 25% Absences: I will not be taking attendance in this course, though you will find that your presence in class will be essential to good performance on the exams. If you have an emergency that keeps you from class on more than one of the pop quiz days, come see me with documentation (doctor’s note, etc.) and we can discuss making up this portion of your grade. Grade Scale: Papers will be graded on a letter scale, using a rubric that will be posted onto the class ANGEL website. My grading scale between letters, percentages, and the 4-point system is below:

Weekly Schedule Tuesday, Jan. 7: Course Overview Thursday, Jan. 9: NO CLASS

Reading: Fea, Introduction and Part I (xxi-75) Unit One: The Founding and American Religion Weeks One and Two: The Faith of the Founders Tuesday, Jan. 14: The Religious Landscape of Colonial America Thursday, Jan. 16: Religion and the American Revolution

Reading: Fea, Part II (79-167) Week Three: Religion and the Early United States Tuesday, Jan. 21: Disestablishment—Local, State, and Federal Thursday, Jan. 23: Religion in the Founding Documents

Reading: Fea, Part III (171-242)

Letter-Grade Scale: A 100 A- 93 B+ 88 B 85 B- 81 C+ 78 C 75 C- 71 D 68 F 60

4-Point Scale: 4.0 92-100% 3.5 86-91% 3.0 80-85% 2.5 75-79% 2.0 70-74% 1.5 65-69% 1.0 60-64% 0 0-59%

Writing: Fea Response Paper due at start of class on Tuesday, Jan. 28. John Fea asks “Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?” Write a brief response paper in which you discuss the ways that he goes about answering that question. What is his conclusion? On what evidence does he base his assertions? What types of evidence that he uses do you find most convincing? Why?

Unit Two: Religious Diversity and Pluralism in America Week Four: Slavery and Religion Tuesday, Jan. 28: Religion on the Plantation: African Continuities Thursday, Jan. 30: Religion on the Plantation: Christian Developments Reading: Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, ch. 13 (1861) Thomas Gray, Confessions of Nat Turner, the Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, Virginia (1831) (Jacobs available online at http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/jacobs/menu.html) (Turner available online at http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/turner/turner.html) Week Five: Religious Diversity in the Nineteenth Century Tuesday, Feb. 4: Islam in America Thursday, Feb. 6: Judaism in America Reading: Schultz, 1-146 Week Six: Non-Protestant Christianity Tuesday, Feb. 11: Immigration, Catholicism, and Nativism Thursday, Feb. 13: Mormonism Reading: Schultz, 147-278 Week Seven: “Civilization” and the Missionary Impulse Tuesday, Feb. 18: Home and Foreign Missions Thursday, Feb. 20: Cherokee Removal and American Religion Reading: Blum and Harvey, chs. 3-6, 76-172 Week Eight: Pluralism Tuesday, Feb. 25: Diversity at the turn of the Twentieth Century Thursday, Feb. 27: Midterm Exam Reading: Blum and Harvey, ch. 7, 173-204 Unit Three: Religion in Reform and Social Movements Week Nine: Awakenings and Benevolence Tuesday, Mar. 11: Religion, Charity, and Reform in Early America

Thursday, Mar. 13: The Great Awakenings and Perfection Reading: Johnson and Wilentz, 3-90

Week Ten: Nineteenth-Century Religious Reform, I Tuesday, Mar. 18: The Sunday School Collection Thursday, Mar. 20: Religion and Abolitionism Reading:

Johnson and Wilentz, 91-192

Writing: Sunday School Paper: Due at the start of class on Tuesday, April 8. We will begin this project in class on Tuesday. You will select one of the Sunday School books available at the “Shaping the Values of Youth” digital collection from the MSU library. After reading the book, you will write a paper that discusses what the book was supposed to teach the children who read it and how it was connected to American religion.

Week Eleven: Nineteenth Century Religious Reform, II Tuesday, Mar. 25: The Grimkés and the Beechers: Seeking Biblical Political Authority Thursday, Mar. 27: Religious Critiques of Marriage Reading: Angelina Grimke, “Appeal to Christian Women of the South” Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Women’s Bible, Introduction (Grimke online: http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abesaegat.html) (Stanton online: http://www.sacred-texts.com/wmn/wb/wb02.htm) Week Twelve: The Twentieth Century Tuesday, Apr. 1: The Social Gospel Thursday, Apr. 3: The Rise of Fundamentalism and the Moral Majority

Reading: William Jennings Bryan, “The Inspiration of the Bible” in Seven Questions in Dispute. Flip through the rest of the text and be sure to note the illustrations (you can download a full pdf at the link below).

(Bryan: http://archive.org/details/sevenquestionsin011570mbp) Week Thirteen: Religion and Civil Rights Tuesday, Apr. 8: Religion and Civil Rights Thursday, Apr. 10: NO CLASS Reading: Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (King: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html) Blum and Harvey, ch. 8, 205-233 Unit Four: The Separation of Church and State in the Courts Week Fourteen: Religion in the Schools

Tuesday, Apr. 15: Bibles and Prayer Thursday, Apr. 17: Evolution—in-class film, “Monkey Trial”

Reading and Writing: Current Events Assignment: Due at start of class Thursday, April 24. Locate a current events article dealing with themes from the course. Prepare a summary and response paper on the article (include a copy of it), due in class on

Week Fifteen: Family and Marriage Tuesday, Apr. 22: Polygamy and Reynolds Thursday, Apr. 24: Reflections on Contemporary America Writing:

Current Events Paper due at start of class on Thursday. FINAL EXAM: Thursday, May 1, 12:45-2:45pm