Walter Capps and the Study of Religion
A panel on Walter Capps’ scholarly contributions and the study of religion today, featuring renowned scholars of religion who were Walter’s graduate students
Friday, Nov. 10
1:00pm - 3:45pm
McCune Conference Room (HSSB 6020)
Introductions:
Juan Campo, Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, UCSB
Speakers:
Edward Linenthal, Professor Emeritus of History, Indiana University Bloomington
Wendy M. Wright, Professor Emerita of Theology, Creighton University
Tomoko Masuzawa, Professor Emerita of History and Comparative Literature, University of Michigan
Julie Ingersoll, Professor of Religious Studies, University of North Florida
Sarah McFarland Taylor, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Northwestern University
Brief Bios:
Edward T. Linenthal is Professor Emeritus of History at Indiana University, Bloomington. He served as editor of the Journal of American History from 2005-2016. Linenthal has served as a Visiting Scholar for the National Park Service and for almost a decade was a member of the Flight 93 Memorial Commission. For several years he co-directed a Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History summer Teacher Seminar, “9/11 and American Memory,” at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York. He is the author or editor of seven books.
Wendy M. Wright is Professor Emerita of Theology at Creighton University and presently Affiliate Faculty at Oblate School of Theology's Institute for the Study of Contemporary Spirituality. She earned her PhD in Religious Studies at UCSB in 1983. Her areas of expertise include the history of Christian spiritualities and the Catholic devotional traditions. Wright is the author of seventeen books and over sixty academic articles. She is a long-time spiritual director, working presently with the novitiate team of the Franciscans in California’s central coast.
Tomoko Masuzawa is Professor Emerita of History and of Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan. Born and educated in Tokyo, she holds an MA (Yale) and a PhD (UCSB) in Religious Studies. She is a scholar of European intellectual history, with a special interest in modern discourses on religion and the history of human sciences. She is the author of two books and many articles. She has held a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship as well as a membership at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ). She lives in New York City.
Julie Ingersoll is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Florida. She is the author of several articles and books on religion and politics, violence, and the religious right. As a former student of Walter Capps, Julie works to make scholarship available and accessible to the public. She has written for such outlets as The Conversation, Religion Dispatches, and Huffington Post. Her most recent book is Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction (2015).
Sarah McFarland Taylor is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, American Studies, and Environmental Policy and Culture at Northwestern University. She is the author of Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology (2007) and Ecopiety: Green Media and the Dilemma of Environmental Virtue (2019). After earning her doctorate from UCSB, Sarah went on to earn an additional advanced degree in Media Studies from The New School in New York City.
A public reception at McCune Conference Room (HSSB 6020) will follow the panel