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Mark Hulsether Curriculum Vitae

In this online version you can take advantage of hyperlinks and navigate using the menu on the left (only on laptops, not phones). For unknown reasons the techies can't fix, the nagivation only works correctly moving downward.

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Other versions of this C.V. in pdf form—two-page, five-page, and outrageously over-detailed for bean-counters—are available by request.    ​
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Education and Work History

  • Emeritus Professor, Department of Religious Studies, University of Tennessee, Since 2020.

  • Professor, Department of Religious Studies, University of Tennessee, 2008 to 2020. 

  • Earlier ranks and/or roles at Tennessee: Director of Interdisciplinary Program in American Studies, 2011-2017; Associate Head of Religious Studies, 2009-2011; Associate Professor from 1999; Assistant Professor from 1993.  Associated Faculty Status in History and Global Studies.

  • Visiting Instructor, Department of Religion, Carleton College, 1993.

  • Ph.D., Program in American Studies, University of Minnesota, 1992.

  • M.Div., Magna Cum Laude, Yale University Divinity School, 1984.

  • B.A., St. Olaf College, 1979.

Selected Honors and Awards

  • Fulbright Research Chair in the Arts and Humanities, University of Alberta, Canada, Spring Semester 2018.

  • Coolidge Fellowship for Residency at the Summer Symposium, Association for Religion in Intellectual Life (ARIL), New York City, 2017.

  • Fulbright International Conference, “Imperial Benevolence: U.S. Foreign Policy in American Popular Culture Since 9/11,” University of Hong Kong, 2016.

  • Founding Chair, Faculty Research Seminar on Religion in North America, Humanities Initiative, University of Tennessee, 2011 to 2013.

  • Two NEH Summer Institutes. "Oaxaca: Crossroads of a Continent,” 2007, and “Roots and Legacies of the 1960s,” 1996.

  • "Rethinking the Christian Studies Classroom," Collaborative Research Grant (with Carolyn Medine and Sandy Gravatt), Wabash Center, 2006.

  • Colloquy on Teaching and Learning for Mid-Career Religion Faculty, Wabash Center, 2005-2006.

  • "Learning to Look: Teaching With Visual Images and New Media," Summer Institute sponsored by the American Social History Project and National Endowment for the Humanities, 2003.

  • Francis Makemie Award, Presbyterian Historical Society, for the outstanding book in American Reformed history, 2000.

  • Chancellor’s Award for Professional Promise in Research and Creative Achievement, University of Tennessee, 1999—plus many other University of Tennessee awards for scholarship and course development, including research leaves in 1999 and 2015.

  • AAR/Lilly/NEH Workshop on Teaching Religion in the South, 1995-1996.

  • Three Awards from Louisville Institute: Summer Research Grant, Teaching Team Grant, and Dissertation Fellowship, 1996, 1994 and 1991.

  • Numerous honors in graduate school, including distinction in qualifying exams and the Anne Baxter Award for one of the four outstanding graduate student papers at the American Studies Association Annual Meeting, 1990.

  • Phi Beta Kappa, 1979.

Books

 

Articles and Invited Chapters

Review Essays

 

Blogging Experiment and Other Selected Writings

  • Beginning in 2017 as MBE: Mark's Blogging Experiment and continuing since 2023 as a blog subsection of markhulsether.com, I have published More than 100 essays on diverse topics.  Many of these have been public-facing scholarly interventions of varying ambition but perhaps averaging 1500 to 2500 words.  A full index is here and a page sorted into thematic tracks is here. Several essays listed in this section and a few in the review essay section are integrated into the blog archive.

  •  “The Top Five (Less Sensational But More Dangerous) Things to Remember about Pat Robertson,” ReligionDispatches.org, 6/8/2023. This was reprinted from 1/21/2010, when it was also excerpted in the Utne Reader, 1/25/2010, and republished in Progressive Christian, February 2010.

  • “The Study of Religion is Like a Workshop for Critical Thought: A Dramatization with Legos,” Wabash Center Blog on Teaching, 3/3/2020.  Click here for a more entertaining video lecture version of the same argument using real legos and other props.  

  • “The Place of Popular Religion in Studies of Popular Culture: A Brief Test Case,” Quarterly Horse: A Journal of [brief] American Studies 3 (2019).

  • Three articles on Academe Blog: the Blog of Academe Magazine (AAUP): “‘Assessment’: Turning the Precious Public Resource of a University Into a Second Rate High School,” 3/7/2018; “‘Assessment’ Part II: Drones Vs. Teachers, Prisons Vs. Students, and Universities Vs. Another Tax Subsidized Hockey Stadium,” 3/7/2018; “‘Assessment’ Continued: Academic Success vs. Health and Well-Being,” 4/1/2018.

  • "Remembering Prince," Sacred Matters: Religious Currents in Culture, 5/17/2017.

  • “Religion Around Michael Bolton: a Modest Proposal," Sacred Matters: Religious Currents in Culture, 2/26/2016.

  • “Rumors of the Suicide of the Liberal Church Are Exaggerated: Response to Chris Hedges,” ReligionDispatches, 2/2/2016.  (Reposted on alternet.org).

  • “If I Only Knew Then... Tenured Scholars on Professionalization,” Bulletin for the Study of Religion, 1/18/2016.

  • “Under-the-Radar Religion for Nones: Bjork's Vulnicura” Sacred Matters: Religious Currents in Culture, 12/23/2015.

  • "The Ferguson Protests and the Limits of Liberal Multiculturalism," Religion in American History, 12/5/2014.

  • "Reflections on the Passing of a Giant: Beverly Wildung Harrison, the Mother of Christian Feminist Ethics,” ReligionDispatches, 1/21/2013.

  • “Contraception and Religious Rights in Conflict: Background Assumptions" The Immanent Frame, 2/23/2012.

  • “Country and Western Music,” in Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception,Volume 5, edited by Hans-Josef Klauck et. al. (Berlin: Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 2012), 887-890.

  • “Censorship in Hollywood.” in The Encyclopedia of Religion and Film, ed. Eric Mazur (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO Press, 2011), 115-123.

  • “Studying Religion is Suddenly Popular (But Is It Really an ‘Esoteric’ Field for ‘Do-Gooders’?)” ReligionDispatches.org, 9/29/ 2010.

  • “Pre-History of Protestant Debates on Abortion,” Religion in American History Blog, 10/2/2010.

  • Numerous Short Articles for ReligionDispatches.org including “Trayvon Martin and American Exceptionalism," 3/23/2012; “Remembering Gil Scott-Heron,” 5/31/2011; “Unhappy Campers: Jim Wallis Does Not Own the Big Tent,” 5/16/2011; “Aliens Are Fattening Us Up For the Rapture,” 10/18/2010; “Believing in Tiger Woods,” 2/22/2010; “Is Obama Satan's Warm-up Act?” 3/8/2009 (also linked here and here); “Hate Crimes Update: Killing 'Liberal Vermin' in Tennessee,” 2/10/2009; “School of (Patriotic) Rock,” 2/12/2008; “Youth and Liberal Religion” (co-written with Lucia Hulsether) 10/24/2008; “Spinning the Faith Forum,” 8/26/2008; “Religion in the Academy,” (co-written with Lucia Hulsether), 7/13/2008.

  • “Religion and American Politics and Culture--An Interview with Mark Hulsether,” co-published on Columbia University Press Blog and History News Network, 11/3/ 2008.

  • Invited response to Mark Toulouse, "Christian Responses to Vietnam," Religion and Culture Forum, University of Chicago Divinity School, June 2007.

  • Signed articles on “Religion and Popular Culture” and "The Gospel of Wealth," in Encyclopedia of American Studies, ed. Miles Orvell et. al., (Grolier Publishing and the American Studies Association, 2001), Vol. 4 pp. 27-29 and Vol. 2 pp. 275-276.

  • Soundings Interview, “Journals and Causes: Paul Ashdown Quizzes George Hutchinson and Mark Hulsether on the Role of Journals in the Life of Public Intellectuals,” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 83 #3-4 (Fall/Winter 2000), 581-598.

  • "Reflections on the Future of the Protestant Left.” Religious Socialism: a Journal for People of Faith and Socialism (Spring 2000), 9-11.

  • Syllabus on "Religion and Culture in the United States" featured in special issue on syllabus development, American Academy of Religion’s Spotlight on Teaching 7 #1 (May 1999), 1-5.

  • "Shifting Views on Gays and Lesbians in Christianity and Crisis," The Witness 80 #6 (June 1997), 21-23.

 

Briefer Scholarly Reviews​

  • On Jereme Baggett, The Varieties of Nonreligious Experience: Atheism in American Culture, in The Journal of Religion 102 #1 (2022), 128-129

  • On Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, in Reading Religion (American Academy of Religion), 5/9/2019. This is the best place to access it, since it links to further reflections on my blog. 

  • On Rhys Williams, Ruth Brainstein, and Todd Fuist, eds., Religion and Progressive Activism: New Stories about Faith and Politics, in Reading Religion (American Academy of Religion), 2/12/2018.

  • On Joseph Witt, Religion and Resistance in Appalachia: Faith and the Fight Against Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining, in Reading Religion (American Academy of Religion,), 4/13/2017.

  • On Elizabeth and Ken Fones-Wolf, Struggle for the Soul of the Postwar South: White Evangelical Protestants and Operation Dixie, in North Carolina Historical Review 93 #4 (2016): 425-426.

  • On Kate Bowler, Blessed: a History of Prosperity Gospel, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 66 #2 (2015), 458-460.

  • Seven booknotes in Religious Studies Review (includes only the past few years.)

    • Jason Bivins, Spirits Rejoice: Jazz and American Religion, 42#2 (2016), 131-132; Nancy Ammerman, Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes: Finding Religion in Everyday Life, 42#2 (2016), 131; Lynn Schofield Clark, ed., Religion, Media, and the Marketplace; Paul Harvey and Philip Goff, Columbia Documentary History of Religion in America Since 1945, 35 #3 (2009), 200; Charles Reagan Wilson and Mark Silk, eds., Religion and Public Life in the South, 33#3 (2007), 259; Esther Kaplan, With God on Their Side, 32#2 (2006), 205; Alan Wolfe, Transformation of American Religion, 31 #1, (2005), 115.

  • Five reviews in the Journal of American History:

    • Elesha Coffman, The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline, Vol 101 #3 (2014), 966-967; David Stowe, No Sympathy for the Devil: Christian Pop Music and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism, Vol. 98 (2011), 908-909; William Hutchison, Religious Pluralism in America: The Contentious History of a Founding Ideal. Vol. 91#2 (2004), 719-720; Charles Lippy, Pluralism Comes of Age: American Religious Culture in the Twentieth Century, Vol. 88 #4 (2002), 1604-1605, and Michael Friedland, Lift Up Your Voice Like a Trumpet: White Clergy and the Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements, 1954-1973, Vol. 86 #3 (1999), 111.

  • Thirteen Reviews in American Studies:

    • Sarah Ruble, The Gospel of Freedom and Power, 54 #1 (2015), 121-122; David Cantwell, Merle Haggard: the Running Kind, 53 #4 (2014), 92-93; Joseph Kip Kosek, Acts of Conscience: Christian Nonviolence and Modern American Democracy, 51 #2 (2010), 132-133; William Inboden, Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945-1960: the Soul of Containment, 51 #2 (2010), 126-128; T. Jeremy Gunn, Spiritual Weapons: the Cold War and the Forging of an American National Religion, 50 #3/4 (2009), 182-183; Patrick Allitt, Religion in America Since 1945: a History 47 #1 (2006), 193-194; Martin Marty, The Protestant Voice in American Pluralism. 47#1 (2006), 167-168; Randall Balmer and Lauren Winner, Protestantism in America, 44 #3 (2003),154; Margaret Lamberts Bendroth and Virginia Lieson Brereton, eds., Women and Twentieth-Century Protestantism, 44 #1/2 (2003), 297-298; Daniel Wojcik, The End of the World as We Know It, 42 #1 (2001), 213-215; William Swatos and James Wellman, eds., The Power of Religious Publics, 42 #1 (2001), 156-157; Thomas Tweed, ed., Retelling U.S. Religious History, 40 #3 (1999), 171-173; Betty DeBerg, Ungodly Women, 35 #1 (1994), 164-165.

  • Three reviews in Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture:

    • H.B. Cavalcanti, The United Church of Christ in the Shenandoah Valley: Liberal Church, Traditional Congregation, 81 #1 (2012), 260; Paul Flesher and Robert Torry, Film and Religion: An Introduction, 77#4 (2008), 1103-110; Warren Goldstein, William Sloane Coffin: a Holy Impatience, 74 #1 (March 2005), 190.

  • C. John Sommerville, Religion in the National Agenda: What We Mean by Religious, Spiritual, and Secular, in Journal of Church and State 51 #3 (2009), 524-526.

  • Hugh Urban, Secrets of the Kingdom: Religion and Concealment in the Bush Administration, in Journal of the American Academy of Religion 76 #4 (2008), 1010-1013.

  • James Lang, Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year, in Teaching Theology and Religion 10 #3 (2007), 208-209.

  • John Carlos Rowe, ed., Post-Nationalist American Studies, in European Journal of Cultural Studies. 5 #2 (2002), 244-246.

  • Mark Kleinman, A World of Hope, a World of Fear: Henry A. Wallace, Reinhold Niebuhr and American Liberalism, in American Historical Review 106 #4 (October 2001), 1414-1415.

  • Two reviews in Borderlines: Studies in American Culture: Clyde Holler, Black Elk's Religion, Vol. 3 #4 (1996), 430-432, and Tom Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture, Vol. 3 #3 (1996), 331-333.

  • About twenty additional booknotes in Religious Studies Review prior to 2005.

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National and International Conferences

  • "'I Got So High That I Saw Jesus' and the Complexities of Religious Irony in Country Music," International Association for the Study of Popular Music, Minneapolis, 2023. 

  • “The Music of Bob Dylan and the Cultural Meanings of Christianity,” American Academy of Religion, Denver, November 2018.

  • “Four Levels of Religious Meaning in Bob Dylan’s Music and Why It Matters to Hear Them All," International Conference on New Approaches to Bob Dylan, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, October 2018. 

  • Panelist, “Research Discussions: Identities,” Fulbright Canada Fall Orientation, Ottawa, September 2017.

  • Can Christian Social Thought Be Both 'Liberal' and 'Revolutionary?': the Case of Dorothee Soelle,” American Academy of Religion, San Antonio, November 2016.

  • “The Axis of Lesser Evils: the Ambivalence of Popular Religious Rhetoric About US Empire in the Age of Obama,” Conference on Imperial Benevolence: US Foreign Policy in Popular Culture, University of Hong Kong, May 2016.

  • "The 'Neo-Native' Transcendentalist Sublime, Traumas of Racialized Empire, and How White Liberals Can Learn from Native Americans," American Academy of Religion, San Diego, November 2014.

  • “Stealth Religious Discourse in the Overlapping Territory Between Cultural Critique and Popular Music,” Canadian Association for American Studies, September 2014.

  • “Liberalism After Neoliberalism,” American Academy of Religion, Baltimore, November 2013.

  • “Narrativity in the Study of North American Religions,” American Academy of Religion, San Francisco, November 2011.

  • “‘Folk’ Music and ‘Religiously-Grounded’ Cultural Critique: Reflections on Definitions, Genealogies, and Trends” International Association for the Study of Popular Music, Cincinnati, March 2011.

  • “If Some Forms of Popular Music are More ‘Religious’ Than Others, How Can We Tell?” Symposium on Sound In/As Religion, International Association for the History of Religions, Toronto, Canada, August 2010.

  • Respondent, “Putting Faith in American Democracy: Remembering Liberal Protestantism in the Twentieth Century,” Organization of American Historians, Washington D.C., April 2010.

  • Respondent, "Religion and the Left,"  American Studies Association, Albuquerque, October 2008.

  • “The Category of 'Religion' in the Reception of Bob Dylan's Music,” National Symposium on Bob Dylan, University of Minnesota, March 2007.

  • "Rethinking the Common Wisdom About the Christian Right in the United States," International Conference on Fundamentalism and the Media, University of Colorado, October 2006.

  • “Evangelicals and the Protestant Left,” American Studies Association, Washington, D.C. November 2005.

  • “Thoughts on Approaches to the Study of Popular Religion, with examples from Madonna's Anti-war Video ‘American Life'” American Academy of Religion, Philadelphia, November 2005.

  • “Studying Popular Religion in the Context of American Studies,” Fourth International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture, Louisville, KY, September 2004.

  • “The Problem of ‘Religion’ in Cultural Studies,” Crossroads International Conference in Cultural Studies, Champaign-Urbana, June 2004.

  • "The Role of Method and Theory in the Religious Studies Curriculum," American Academy of Religion, November 2003.

  • Roundtable, “The Death of a National Landscape: Counternarratives to the Discourse of Bourgeois Nationalism,” American Studies Association, Washington, D.C., November 2001.

  • “Bridging the Gap Between Cultural Studies and the Study of Religion,” Congress of the International Association of History of Religions, Durban, South Africa, August 2000.

  • “From American Studies to Religious Studies,” American Studies Association, November 1999.

  • Panelist, Symposium sponsored by the Committee on the Public Understanding of Religion, American Academy of Religion, November 1998.

  • “Relations Among Popular Religion, Christian Values, and Hollywood Films” Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, November 1998.

  • “Bill Graham, Billy Graham and the Religious Left: Why American Studies Should Pay More Attention to Public Religions,” American Studies Association, November 1997.

  • “The Future of Religions (as Cultural Identities in American Studies),” Summer Institute on the Futures of American Studies, Dartmouth College, August 1997.

  • “‘Priestesses,’ Playboy, and the Prehistory of Feminist Theology in Christianity and Crisis Magazine,” Congress of the International Association of History of Religions, Mexico City, August 1995.

  • More than a dozen additional papers at American Academy of Religion, American Studies Association, American Society of Church History. Global Studies Association, or national conferences at held the University of Minnesota, Stanford, University of Missouri, University of Wales, and University of Colorado.

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Additional Skills and Experience

  • External Referee for Tenure and Promotion for a dozen departments of American Studies, History, or Religious Studies—including at Emory, Harvard, University of Kansas, and William and Mary.

  • Sixteen papers at regional meetings of the American Academy of Religion, American Studies Association, or American Historical Association. (Includes invited presentations at two featured symposiums of Mid-America American Studies Association in 1996 and 2010.)

  • Chair and/or respondent for more than a dozen additional panels at American Studies Association, American Academy of Religion, Organization of American Historians, American Society of Church History, and Congress of the International Association of History of Religions,

  • Numerous lectures or consultations including at Youngstown State University, Butler University,Washington University, University of Alberta, Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Minnesota, Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Wales, Auburn Theological Seminary Louisville Institute, Maryville College, Baker Center for Public Policy, Saint Paul School of Theology, Christianity and Crisis Board of Directors, Hastings College, Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College, and Carleton College.

  • Service on several dozen Ph.D or M.A. committees in American Studies, Anthropology, Cultural Studies in Education, English, Geography, History, Religious Studies, Sociology, or Sport Studies.

  • Referee for Manuscripts: Journal of American History; Journal of the American Academy of Religion; Religion and American Culture; university presses of Baylor, NYU, Oxford, Princeton, Rutgers, University of California, University of North Carolina, and Yale; Bloomsbury Press; Palgrave MacMillan; Routledge; Rowman and Littlefield; plus several more presses or academic journals. Numerous book manuscripts for the University of Tennessee Press both during a stint on the editorial board in 2023-2026 and in earlier years.

  • Program Director, University of Tennessee Semester in Wales, University of Wales at Swansea, Fall 2000.

  • Editor for Booknotes on 20th Century North America, Religious Studies Review, 1999-2008.

  • Longstanding service on editorial boards of American Studies (AMSJ) and Soundings: an Interdisciplinary Journal, an advisory board for Religion and American Culture Caucus of the American Studies Association, and several program committees of the American Academy of Religion.

© 2023 by Mark Hulsether

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