UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies

Campus Talk: Prof. Robin Judd on "What’s Love Got To Do With It? Jewish War Brides, Soldier Husbands, and Postwar European History”
2013-03-05 14:30 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
“What’s Love Got To Do With It? Jewish War Brides, Soldier Husbands, and Postwar European Jewish History” explores the complicated relationships among some librated Jewish women and American, British, and Canadian victors. To do so, it will study an understudied population, namely the Jewish female survivors in postwar Europe who married American, Canadian, and British military personnel. It will examine the women and it will engage with their interactions with one another, with the Jewish and non-Jewish men they married, and with the different associations that strove to assist them. By studying Jewish war brides, this paper will provide unique insight into the transnational and gendered character of an understudied group of survivors of the Nazi persecution.
Light refreshments will be served.
Bio: Robin Judd (Phd, University of Michigan) has served on the faculty of the History Department of the Ohio State University since 2000. Currently the director of the Graduate Studies Program of the History Department, she also serves as an associate member of the Melton Center for Jewish Studies, the Women’s/Gender Studies Department, and the Center for the Study of Religion. Professor Judd is the author of Contested Rituals: Circumcision, Kosher Butchering, and German-Jewish Political Life in Germany, 1843-1933 (Cornell University Press) and a number of articles concerning Jewish history, gender history, and ritual behavior. She has received several research fellowships and grants including a Fulbright, NEH summer stipend, DAAD, Lady Davis Award, Coca Cola grant for Critical Difference, and the American Historical Association’s Schmidt award. She is the recipient of two teaching awards: the History Department’s Clio award and the College of Arts and Science’s Rodica Botoman Award

Circumcision as a Human Rights Issue: A Panel Discussion
2013-03-04 19:00 - 21:00
Circumcision as a Human Rights Issue
A Panel Discussion
Participants
Panelists:

Robin Judd
Thomas Schmidt
Bettina Shell-Duncan

Moderator:

Michael Rosenthal

Background
Is Circumcision a violation of the human right to bodily integrity? Or is it protected under the human right that guarantees freedom liberty of religion? Is it primarily a medical or is it a cultural practice? Recent events have brought these issues into the news. In Germany last year an appellate court criminalized the non-medical circumcision of children. In Africa the World Health Organization now advocates a policy of medical male circumcision in order to prevent the spread of HIV, at the same time as it works to stop female genital cutting. In 2011 a proposal to ban male circumcision was placed on the ballot in San Francisco. What is new about these current debates and what can we learn from the past? The panel of experts will approach current controversies from three different disciplines—anthropology, history, and philosophy—to start an informed conversation. Please join us.

Participant Bios
Robin Judd is an associate Professor of History at Ohio State University. She is the author of Contested Rituals: Circumcision, Kosher Butchering, and German-Jewish Political Life in Germany, 1843-1933, published by Cornell University Press.
Thomas Schmidt is Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany. He is the editor of the forthcoming Religion and Secularization: An Interdisciplinary Guide [in German], published by J. B. Metzler Verlag.
Bettina Shell Duncan is Professor of Anthropology and Adjunct Professor of Global Health at the University of Washington. She is the co-editor of Transcultural Bodies: Female Genital Cutting in Global Context, published by Rutgers University Press.
Michael Rosenthal is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Washington.

Main Sponsors
Stroum Jewish Studies Program
Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities

Co-Sponsors
Department of Philosophy

Seattle Jewish Film Festival: "Once Upon a Time at 55th and Hoover"
2013-03-03 13:05 - 14:30
Sephardic Echar Lashon Reception
Sunday, March 3 | 1:05 pm | amC Pacific Place
Andres Enrique | USA, Spain 2012 | 25m | English and Ladino w/subtitles | Doc
The Sephardic Jews who arrived in Los Angeles in the first half of the 20th brought a rich culture from the Island of Rhodes. Though they struggled with cultural assimilation and maintaining their identity, they built a thriving, lively community centered on unique traditions, foods, songs and Ladino.
Guest: Professor Devin Naar, UW Jewish Studies
Special Event: Join us for a Sephardic echar lashon (Ladino for coffee klatch) after the screening
Sponsor: Cathy Sarkowsky & Max Sarkowsky
Community Partners: Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, Seattle Sephardic Brotherhood, Sam and Althea Stroum Jewish Studies Program at UW

Lunchtime Learning: Arie Dubnov of Stanford University, "What is Jewish (if anything) about Sir Isaiah Berlin's political philosophy?"
2013-02-21 13:30 - 14:30
Thursday, February 21, 2013
1:30-2:30 in Thomson 317, light lunch provided
Arie Dubnov of Stanford University will analyze Isaiah Berlin’s political thinking and consider the extent to which it can be considered “Jewish.”
This lecture has two central aims: First, to reappraise Isaiah Berlin’s political thought in a historically contextualized way, in particular to pay attention to central conceptual tensions between, on the one hand, his famous definition of liberalism as resting on a negative concept of liberty and, on the other, his defense of cultural nationalism in general and Zionism in particular. Second, to see what we gain and what we lose by dubbing his philosophy “Jewish.” Arie Dubnov will discuss Berlin’s Jewishness and Zionism and explain how he came to develop a position that can be characterized as “Diaspora Zionism” which later animated his Cold War liberal philosophy.
Arie Dubnov is an Acting Assistant Professor at Stanford University’s Department of history and (starting Fall 2013) a Senior Lecturer at the School of History at the University of Haifa, Israel. Dubnov holds a Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is a past George L. Mosse Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His fields of expertise are modern Jewish and European intellectual history, with a subsidiary interest in nationalism studies. He is the author, most recently, of Isaiah Berlin: The Journey of a Jewish Liberal (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), and he also edited the collection [in Hebrew] Zionism – A View from the Outside (The Bialik Institute, 2010), seeking to put Zionist history in a larger comparative trajectory. In addition, Dubnov has published essays in journals such as Nations & Nationalism, Modern Intellectual History, History of European Ideas, The Journal of Israeli History.

Traces of a Viennese Childhood: Uncovering the Early Life and Career of Edgar G. Ulmer
2013-02-15 13:30 - 14:30
The Department of Germanics presents a lecture by Noah Isenberg, Director of Screen Studies at the New School for Liberal Arts in New York City.

From Paganism to Christianity: Cultural Identities in Horbat Beit Loya, Israel
2013-02-14 12:30 - 13:30
In this talk Professor Gutfeld discusses a new and unknown site, Beit Loya, that he has been digging since 2005 and that has revealed new data regarding the Judean Lowlands. Beit Loya features burial caves with Hebrew inscriptions from the Iron Age II; and was an Edumites settlement in the Hellenistic period, a Jewish site until the destruction of the Second Temple, and a Christian site with beautiful Church and Mosaic Floor from the Byzantine period.

Discovering Seattle's Sephardic Treasures
2013-02-13 19:00 - 21:00
Temple De Hirsch Sinai Libraries presents Discovering Seattle’s Sephardic Treasures. Professor Devin Naar will offer a glimpse into Seattle’s Sephardic heritage by showcasing Sephardic treasures – unique Ladino books and documents – discovered in Seattle through the Stroum Jewish Studies Program’s groundbreaking Sephardic Studies Initiative at the University of Washington.
Reception to follow lecture and Q&A.

For more information please visit tdhs-nw.org

Lunchtime Learning: Hannah Mayne of University of Florida, “Making it Normal, Making it Safe: Women's Voices from a West Bank Settlement”
2013-02-13 13:30 - 14:30
Hannah Manye, PhD candidate in Department of Anthropology at University of Florida
Topic: What women in established Jewish settlements can tell us about underlying economic, cultural, and religious issues that make the topography of this conflict a lot more complicated than often imagined and represented. Hannah will share several ethnographic vignettes from her research and summarize some of the deeper issues that these conversations and stories reveal.

New Voices in World Jewish Music: Galeet Dardashti
2013-02-10 19:00 - 20:30
New Voice in Persian Music: A Conversation with Galeet Dardashti and Jessika Kenney
As the granddaughter of Yona Dardashti, the most renowned singer of Persian classical music in Iran in his day, and daughter of highly esteemed cantor Farid Dardashti, Middle Eastern vocalist and composer Galeet Dardashti is the first woman in her family to continue her family tradition of distinguished Persian and Jewish musicianship. Galeet also pursues her passion for Jewish music and culture as an anthropologist. She recently completed her Ph.D. in anthropology on the performance of contemporary Mizrahi and Arab music in Israel.
Jessika Kenney
On February 10 at UW, Galeet will discuss the roots of her work with local scholar and music artist Jessika Kenney.
Jessika Kenney is a vocalist, composer, and faculty member at Cornish College of the Arts. She has performed and recorded internationally for the last 15 years, and studied many areas of vocal music, particularly classical Persian vocal music and Central Javanese vocal music.
Visit the New Voices in World Jewish Music page to learn more about Galeet Dardashti and other artists in this series.
Register for this event now:

Online event registration for New Voices in World Jewish Music: Galeet Dardashti powered by Eventbrite

The 2013 Israeli Elections: Domestic Dynamics, the Peace Process, and Prospects for the Future
2013-01-24 18:00 - 20:00
The Samuel & Althea Stroum Jewish Studies Program and the Middle East Center present
The 2013 Israeli Elections: Domestic Dynamics, the Peace Process, and Prospects for the Future
January 24, 6:00 pm, Thompson 101, UW Seattle
Panelists:
Joel Migdal, Robert F. Philip Professor of International Studies, UW.
Karam Dana, Assistant Professor of Middle East Politics, UW Bothell.
Yoav Duman, PhD Candidate, Political Science, UW.
Moderator:
Noam Pianko, Associate Professor and Samuel N. Stroum Chair of Jewish Studies, UW.
The Middle East Center’s sponsorship of this event does not imply that the Center endorses the content of the event.
For questions please contact duman@uw.edu.

New Voices in World Jewish Music: Sarah Aroeste
2013-01-17 19:00 - 20:30
New Voice in Ladino Music: A Conversation with Sarah Aroeste
Sarah Aroeste, inspired by her family’s Sephardic roots in Greece and Macedonia, has spent the last 10 years bringing her contemporary style of original and traditional Ladino music to audiences around the world. American born and trained in classical opera at Westminster Choir College and Yale University, Aroeste became drawn to her Sephardic musical past after spending a summer in 1997 performing at the Israel Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv. Aroeste has worked tirelessly to keep Ladino music alive for a new generation. Her style, whether with her original music or with interpreting Ladino folk repertoire, combines traditional Mediterranean Sephardic sounds with contemporary influences such as rock, funk jazz and blues.
Ms. Aroeste will demonstrate some of her music and speak about her work in conversation with Professor Devin Naar, Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and History at the University of Washington. Dr. Naar is a European Jewish historian with an emphasis in Sephardic history, specifically Salonica.
Visit the New Voices in World Jewish Music page to learn more about Sarah Aroeste and other artists in this series.
Register for this event now:

Event Registration Online for New Voices in World Jewish Music: Sarah Aroeste powered by Eventbrite

Global Rhythms: Gerard Edery Trio in Concert at Town Hall
2012-11-29 20:00 - 22:00
SJSP is pleased to offer tickets to this Sephardic music concert at the Town Hall member rate.

Click here to buy your discounted ticket!

Lunchtime Learning: Leah Garrett of Monash University in Australia, “Jewish American War Novels”
2012-11-14 00:30 - 13:30
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
12:30 – 1:30pm in Thomson 317, Light lunch provided
Leah Garrett of Monash University in Australia, expert in Yiddish and Jewish-American literature, will speak on “Jewish American War Novels”
In 1948 five books about the war dominated the New York Times bestseller list and were all written by Jews and made Jewish soldiers central protagonists: Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, Irwin Shaw’s The Young Lions, Ira Wolfert’s An Act of Love, Merle Miller’s That Winter, and Stefan Heym’s The Crusaders. A sixth book about a Jewish soldier also sold well that year (although it did not make the bestseller list), Martha Gellhorn’s The Wine of Astonishment. The critical and popular dominance of Jewish war novels in America extended into the early 1960s. For instance, Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny (1952) was the largest postwar bestseller, while Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1961) initiated the literary trend of satirizing and subverting America’s war aims.
Jewish writers argued in their novels that the Holocaust was a central, rather than ancillary, aspect of the war experience. Other themes that Jewish war novelists took up included a focus on the endemic antisemitism and racism in the military, the infusion of intellectualism into the figure of the ideal soldier hero, and the reversal of the standard American understanding of the Japanese enemy as a devil and the German as an European brother. In Jewish novels, the Japanese are fellow minorities, and the Germans are the true demons.
Yet the central role of Jews in fictionalizing War World II for a postwar readership has gone unnoticed in literary and historical studies. Either the Jewishness of the writers is uncommented on, or, the Jewishness of the text is negated. This factor is central, because as I will discuss, Jewish authors wrote about the war in very unique ways, and since their novels were bestsellers, they had a direct impact upon how postwar Americans understood the war effort.

JewDUB Talks Premiere!
2012-11-08 19:00 - 20:30
One room. Four talks. Endless possibilities.
Experience Jewish Studies in a dynamic new format: short talks offering quick windows onto fascinating topics. Inspired by the style of TED talks, these pocket-sized public lectures will open up new avenues of discovery.
Date: Thursday, November 8th, 7:00 pm
Location: UW Tower Auditorium
Cost: Free! Reception will follow.
RSVP / Registration: jewdubtalks.eventbrite.com
The first-ever JewDUB Talks will feature four of our terrific faculty members. Here’s who is on tap:

Prof. Devin Naar – “In Search of Uncle Salomon”
Prof. Sarah Stroup – “The Myth of Tradition”
Prof. Shalom Sabar – “Where do our rituals come from?”
Prof. Barbara Henry – “So why Yiddish?”

Come out on November 8th and hear what everyone’s talking about.
JewDUB Talks is made possible in part by a generous grant from the Special Initiatives Fund of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.
For continuing coverage of the Stroum Jewish Studies Program’s public programming, check out JewDub.org!

Lunchtime Learning: Amelia Glaser, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Fair: Jewish-Slavic Relations through Literary History"
2012-11-02 12:30 - 13:30
Co-sponsored by the Stroum Jewish Studies Program and Slavic Languages and Literatures
Light lunch will be provided.
Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries, Jews, Ukrainians, Poles, and Russians lived together in the territory known as the Pale of Settlement, a region of Eastern Europe that now covers much of Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic States. Although these communities spoke different languages, followed distinct cultural habits, and practiced different religions, members of these communities did meet at markets and fairs. The stories that Jewish, Russian, and Ukrainian writers tell about these marketplace encounters help us to understand a complex history of coexistence and antagonism in the nineteenth century and after. Amelia Glaser will be discussing Jewish-Slavic relations, as told through stories of these marketplace encounters by Nikolai Gogol, Hrihorii Kvitka, Sholem Aleichem, Isaac Babel, and others. She will base her talk on her recent book, Jews and Ukrainians in Russia’s Literary Borderlands: From the Shtetl Fair to the Petersburg Bookshop.
Amelia Glaser is an associate professor of Russian and comparative literature at the University of California, San Diego, and is currently the director of Russian and Soviet Studies at UCSD. In addition to Jews and Ukrainians (Northwestern U. Press, 2012), she is the translator of a collection of American Yiddish poets, Proletpen: America’s Rebel-Yiddish Poets (U. of Wisconsin Press, 2005), which recently appeared in paperback. She is currently editing a collected volume of essays on literary representations of the Cossack uprisings of 1648, as well as a book about American Yiddish poets from Eastern Europe. Professor Glaser grew up in Northern California, received a BA from Oberlin College, an MA in Yiddish from the University of Oxford, and a Ph.D in Comparative Literature from Stanford University.

Stroum Lectures by Prof. David Ruderman
2012-10-24 19:30 - 21:00
Stroum Lectures Fall 2012
Professor David B. Ruderman of University of Pennsylvania
October 22nd and 24th, 2012
7:30pm at Kane Hall, UW Campus
Register to attend here: https://stroumlectures12-13.eventbrite.com

Behind a Best Seller: Kabbalah, Science, and Universal Ethics in Phineas Hurwitz’s Sefer Ha-Brit – Introduction to the Book and its Author

The Book of the Covenant [Sefer ha-Brit] was one of the most popular Hebrew books read by modern Jews, reflected in its thirty-eight editions spanning two centuries, including three Yiddish and five Ladino translations. Part scientific encyclopedia, part manual of mystical ascent, and part prescription of a universalizing ethics, the work was widely influential in an era of radical change and internal debate for Jews as well as for others. The amazing popularity of the author, the eastern European Jew Phineas Hurwitz (1765-1821), stemmed from his kabbalistic pedigree. He offered his readers an exciting compendium of scientific knowledge they could read in their holy language under the pretext that is acquisition fulfilled their highest spiritual goals. The reception of The Book of the Covenant among modern Jewish readers allows us to understand more profoundly the ways in which a traditional society absorbed and creatively adopted aspects of modern science and cosmopolitanism. The book and its author open a wonderful window in studying the complex interplay of tradition, science, and inter-group relations in the modern era.

More on Prof. Ruderman:
David B. Ruderman is the Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History and Ella Darivoff Director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to coming to Pennsylvania, he taught at the University of Maryland [1974-83] and at Yale University [1983-94]. He is the author of many books and articles including The World of a Renaissance Jew, 1981; Kabbalah, Magic, and Science, 1988; A Valley of Vision, 1990; Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe, 1995, 2001, published also in Italian and Hebrew; Jewish Enlightenment in an English Key: Anglo-Jewry’s Construction of Modern Jewish Thought, 2000; Connecting the Covenants: Judaism and the Search for Christian Identity in Eighteenth Century England, 2007, and Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History, 2010. Three of these books, including the last, won national book awards in Jewish history. He has also edited or co-edited five other books and co-edited two popular textbooks. He is a past president of the American Academy for Jewish Research. The Teaching Company has produced two of his Jewish history courses, each in 24 lectures. In 2001, the National Foundation for Jewish Culture honored him with its lifetime achievement award for his work in Jewish history.
Register to attend here: https://stroumlectures12-13.eventbrite.com

Stroum Lectures: Prof. David Ruderman
2012-10-22 19:30 - 21:30
Stroum Lectures Fall 2012
Professor David B. Ruderman of University of Pennsylvania
October 22nd and 24th, 2012
7:30pm at Kane Hall, UW Campus
Reception to follow first lecture on Oct. 22nd
Register to attend here: https://stroumlectures12-13.eventbrite.com
Behind a Best Seller: Kabbalah, Science, and Universal Ethics in Phineas Hurwitz’s Sefer Ha-Brit – Introduction to the Book and its Author

The Book of the Covenant [Sefer ha-Brit] was one of the most popular Hebrew books read by modern Jews, reflected in its thirty-eight editions spanning two centuries, including three Yiddish and five Ladino translations. Part scientific encyclopedia, part manual of mystical ascent, and part prescription of a universalizing ethics, the work was widely influential in an era of radical change and internal debate for Jews as well as for others. The amazing popularity of the author, the eastern European Jew Phineas Hurwitz (1765-1821), stemmed from his kabbalistic pedigree. He offered his readers an exciting compendium of scientific knowledge they could read in their holy language under the pretext that is acquisition fulfilled their highest spiritual goals. The reception of The Book of the Covenant among modern Jewish readers allows us to understand more profoundly the ways in which a traditional society absorbed and creatively adopted aspects of modern science and cosmopolitanism. The book and its author open a wonderful window in studying the complex interplay of tradition, science, and inter-group relations in the modern era.

More on Prof. Ruderman:
David B. Ruderman is the Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History and Ella Darivoff Director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to coming to Pennsylvania, he taught at the University of Maryland [1974-83] and at Yale University [1983-94]. He is the author of many books and articles including The World of a Renaissance Jew, 1981; Kabbalah, Magic, and Science, 1988; A Valley of Vision, 1990; Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe, 1995, 2001, published also in Italian and Hebrew; Jewish Enlightenment in an English Key: Anglo-Jewry’s Construction of Modern Jewish Thought, 2000; Connecting the Covenants: Judaism and the Search for Christian Identity in Eighteenth Century England, 2007, and Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History, 2010. Three of these books, including the last, won national book awards in Jewish history. He has also edited or co-edited five other books and co-edited two popular textbooks. He is a past president of the American Academy for Jewish Research. The Teaching Company has produced two of his Jewish history courses, each in 24 lectures. In 2001, the National Foundation for Jewish Culture honored him with its lifetime achievement award for his work in Jewish history.

Register to attend here: https://stroumlectures12-13.eventbrite.com

The Invisible Men
2012-10-18 18:30 - 20:30
The Invisible Men Screening
Thursday, October 18th, 6:30-8:30pm
presented by Hillel at UW
The Invisible Men is an award-winning 2012 documentary that tells the story of gay Palestinian men who flee the West Bank. In fear of their lives, they enter Israel illegally and hide out in Tel Aviv. These men are the heroes of the film. The movie describes the challenges and hardships they face, the painful choices that confront them, and the courageous Israelis who work to help them. It also shines some light on some policies of the Israeli government that play an important part in the difficulties faced by the men portrayed in the film.
View the trailer

"Rabbi Judah and the Caesar: Unlikely Stories about an Unlikely Friendship."
2012-10-18 12:30 - 13:30
Rabbi Oren Hayon, Director of Hillel at UW, will be giving a lunchtime talk in the Classics Dept. on Thursday, October 18th, at 12:30 held in Paccar 290. The talk is titled, “Rabbi Judah and the Caesar: Unlikely Stories about an Unlikely Friendship.”
To locate Paccar Hall, visit https://www.washington.edu/maps/.

Lunchtime Learning: “The Myth of the Khazar Conversion” by Shaul Stampfer of Hebrew University in Jerusalem
2012-10-15 12:30 - 13:30
Monday, October 15, 2012
“The Myth of the Khazar Conversion” by Shaul Stampfer
12:30-1:30pm in Thomson 317
Shaul Stampfer of Hebrew University in Jerusalem will speak on “The Myth of the Khazar Conversion” as part of the Stroum Jewish Studies Program’s Lunchtime Learning Series. Light lunch will be provided.
Much has been written and said about the conversion of the Khazars (a Turkic
people) to Judaism and the consequences of this conversion. However, it has been
decades since there was a systematic examination of the event’s historical evidence.
This talk presents the occasionally surprising results of a critical investigation
into the Khazari conversion mystery. The discussion will address
two classic dilemmas of the modern historian: how to balance between
belief and proof, and the problem of trying to prove that something did not happen.
Co-sponsored by the Ellison Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies

Summer Instruction Ends
2012-08-17
Summer quarter 2012

Summer Instruction B
2012-07-19
Summer quarter B 2012

Independence Day
2012-07-04
No classes

Summer Instruction A
2012-06-18
Summer quarter A 2012

Joshua Sobol Play Reading
2012-05-15 19:00 - 21:00

First Day of Autumn Registration
2012-05-04

What Will it Take to End Poverty in Seattle?
2012-04-03 07:30 - 21:00

What is Religion’s Place in Food Politics?
2012-02-23 19:30 - 21:00

Presidents Day
2012-02-21

Why the Antichrist Matters in American Politics for 2012
2012-02-07 19:30 - 21:00
Founders Annual Lecture in Comparative Religion and Contemporary Life, will be presented by Prof. Matthew Sutton, Prof. of History at Washington State University.
Sutton’s research explores the twentieth-century history of Christian apocalyptic thought in the United States. His talk will focus on the ways in which international events including the World Wars and the global economic depression of the 1930s fueled American fundamentalists’ fears of Armageddon. These fears in turn shaped fundamentalists’ opposition to Franklin Roosevelt and New Deal liberalism, driving them to the political right. Finally, Sutton suggests that the apocalyptic anxieties the fueled fundamentalist hostility to FDR may well be playing a role in the 2012 presidential campaign.
Sutton’s first book, “Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America” (Harvard University Press, 2007), won the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize from Harvard University Press, awarded annually to the best book in any discipline by a first-time author. The book also served as the basis for the Public Broadcasting Service documentary Sister Aimee, part of PBS’s American Experience series. Sutton has been featured on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition among many other news shows. He has an article forthcoming in the Journal of American History entitled “Was FDR the Antichrist? The Birth of Fundamentalist Anti-liberalism in a Global Age,” and has previously published articles in Church History, the Journal of Policy History, and the Public Historian. He has received research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Sutton has also written for the New York Times.
Sutton’s current book project, tentatively entitled American Evangelicals and the Politics of Apocalypse (Harvard University Press) examines relationships among American evangelicalism, apocalyptic thought, and political activism during times of national crisis and war. He is also completing a textbook, Jerry Falwell and the Origins of the Religious Right, which will be part of the popular Bedford “History and Culture” series (Bedford/St. Martin’s).
