David Morgan's major interests are the history of religious visual and print culture and American religious and cultural history. At Duke he teaches courses in the areas of American religious history, visual theory, and media and religion.

Morgan edited and contributed to a volume of essays, Icons of American Protestantism: The Art of Warner Sallman (Yale University Press, 1996), which examined the history of the popular religious art of a commercial artist. The book was selected as one of the American Library Association's CHOICE Outstanding Books for 1996. Morgan's second book, Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images, published by the University of California Press (1998), assembles a historical overview and theoretical analysis of religious images. His Protestants and Pictures: Religion, Visual Culture, and the Age of American Mass Production, which examines the historical relations among mass production, commerce, millennialism, and popular religious images in nineteenth-century America, was published by Oxford University Press in 1999. This book received the 1999 Professional and Scholarly Publishing Award in the category of religion and philosophy from the Association of American Publishers. Morgan co-edited (with Prof. Sally M. Promey) and contributed to a volume of essays entitled The Visual Culture of American Religions, published by the University of California Press (2001). The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice (University of California Press, 2005): (http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10292.html) is an introduction to the study of the visual culture of religion. Intended for students as well as scholars of religion, history, art, and cultural studies, the book defines the field, identifies major theoretical issues and themes, and provides historical analysis of visual practices of belief from around the modern world.

For several years, Morgan chaired the International Study Commission on Media, Religion, and Culture, a group of scholars and media practitioners that met around the world with scholars, media producers, and religious teachers and leaders to study the intersections of the three fields. He is vice-president of the board of directors of The Media, Religion, and Culture Project, a not-for-profit corporation (http://MRCProject.org). Morgan co-edits a book series entitled "Religion & Media" published by Routledge. He is co-founder and co-editor of the international scholarly journal, Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief, published by Berg Publishers, Oxford: http://www.bergpublishers.com/uk/material/material_about.htm. He is also a member of the International Advisory Board of VISOR, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (Institute for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society), a member of the international advisory group of the Centre in Religion and Contemporary Society, Birkbeck College, University of London, and of the editorial board of the "Religions in the Americas" section of Religion Compass, the online journal published by Blackwell.

The Lure of Images: A History of Religion and Visual Media in America (Routledge, 2007) is a history of mass-produced religious visual media from 1800 to the present in the United States, ranging from tract illustrations to panoramas, photography, film, and television.

Two major projects that appeared in 2008 are: Key Words in Religion, Media, and Culture, which was published by Routledge in July and is a volume edited by Morgan; and Re-Enchantment, a volume he has co-edited with James Elkins, which appeared from Routledge in the fall. Morgan's next project is another edited volume, Religion and Material Culture: The Matter of Belief, a collection of essays by sixteen authors from around the world who investigate the relevance of materiality for understanding belief--not as creedal, propositional assent, but as embodied, material practice in several religious traditions.

•Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Professor in Christianity and the Arts, Valparaiso University, 2001 to present

•Professor of Humanities and Art History, Christ College (undergraduate humanities honors college)Valparaiso University, 2003 to present

•Associate Professor of Humanities and Art History, Christ College, 2001-2003

•Associate Professor of Art, Department of Art, College of Arts & Sciences, Valparaiso University, 1996 to 2001

•Chair, Department of Art, Valparaiso University, 1990 to 2000

•Assistant Professor of Art, Department of Art, Valparaiso University, 1990 to 1996
 

Ph.D., Art History, University of Chicago, 1990. Dissertation: "Concepts of Abstraction in German Art Theory, 1750 to 1914"

M.A., Art History, University of Arizona, 1984. Thesis: "Cosmology and Gesamtkunstwerk in Runge's 'Times of Day'."

B.A., Studio Art (Sculpture), Concordia College, Nebraska, 1980
 

2009 Stewart Fellow, Princeton University

2008 Member, international advisory group, Centre in Religion and Contemporary Society, Birkbeck College, University of London

2008 Member, editorial board, "Religions in the Americas" section of Religion Compass, online journal published by Blackwell <http://www.religion-compass.com/>

2008 Member, international advisory board of VISOR, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (Institute for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society)

2005 Elected Life Member, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge

2004-05 research grant, "Visual Religion: The Intercultural Role of Images in the Modern History of Christian Missions," Stichting Porticus, Amsterdam

2004 Visiting Fellow, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

2002-2003 Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, Library Company of Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, "A History of the Religious Tract."

2002 Faculty Fellowship, Luther Institute, Washington, DC

2001-2002 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship: "A History of the Religious Tract in Nineteenth-Century America"

2001-2002 Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society, in support of "A History of the Religious Tract in Nineteenth-Century America"

The Professional and Scholarly Publishing Award for 1999 in the Category of Religion and Philosophy from the Association of American Publishers for Protestants and Pictures

1998-99 "Visual Media and the Protestant Church in Ethiopia: A Case Study of the Mekane Yesus," grant from the International Study Commission on Religion, Media, and Culture, Houston. Co-written with Prof. Charles Schaefer, Department of History, Valparaiso University

1997-2000 "The Visual Culture of American Religions," grant to Valparaiso University from the Lilly Endowment, co-directed with Prof. Sally M. Promey, University of Maryland

1997-98 American Historical Print Collectors Society Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society, for research on Protestants and Pictures

1996-97 Postdoctoral Fellow, J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Art and the Humanities, Protestants and Pictures

CHOICE Outstanding Academic Book for 1996, American Library Association: Icons of American Protestantism: The Art of Warner Sallman.

1996 "The Visual Culture of American Religions," grant to University of Maryland co-written and directed with Prof. Sally Promey, University of Maryland; from the Henry Luce Foundation, a three-year research project, culminating in a book of essays edited by Promey and Morgan.

1994-95 Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Pew Program in Religion and American History, Yale University, to research and write a book entitled Protestants and Pictures

1992-94 Principal Investigator, "Icons of American Protestantism: The Art of Warner Sallman." Funded by the Lilly Endowment. Director of Research for three-year project.

1992 Alpha Lambda Delta National Honors Society, VU Chapter, Award for Teaching Excellence at the Freshman Level

PUBLICATIONS

Books

Religion and Material Culture: The Matter of Belief, ed. David Morgan. London: Routledge, 2010

Re-Enchantment, ed. James Elkins and David Morgan. The Art Seminar, vol. 7. New York: Routledge, 2008

Key Words in Religion, Media, and Culture, ed. David Morgan. London: Routledge, 2008

The Lure of Images: A History of Religion and Visual Media in America. London: Routledge, 2007

The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005

The Visual Culture of American Religions, ed. David Morgan and Sally M. Promey. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001

Protestants and Pictures: Religion, Visual Culture, and the Age of American Mass Production. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999

Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998

Icons of American Protestantism: The Art of Warner Sallman, ed. David Morgan. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996  

Exhibiting the Visual Culture of American Religions, David Morgan and Sally M. Promey, exhibition catalogue, Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso University, 2000 (essay reprinted on-line: <http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/3aa/3aa433.htm>).

Monograph

"The Sacred Heart of Jesus: The Visual Evolution of a Devotion," Meertens Ethnology Cahier 4. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press; distributed by University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Chapters in books

"Religion and Visuality in America," Stephen J. Stein, ed., Cambridge History of Religions in America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

"Aura and the Inversion of Marian Pilgrimage: Fatima and Her Statues," in Moved by Mary: Pilgrimage in the Modern World, edited by Anna-Karina Hermkens, Willy Jansen and Caterine Notermans. Oxford: Ashgate, 2009.

"The Look of the Sacred," in Robert A. Orsi, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

"Painting as Visual Evidence," Using Visual Evidence, ed. Richard Howells and Robert W. Matson. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press, 2008.

"Looking at Things: The Place of Visual Culture in Religion 101," in Brad Verter and Johannes Wolfart, eds., Rethinking Religion 101: Critical Issues in Religious Studies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

"Images of the Passion and the History of Protestant Visual Piety in America," in Marcia Kupfer, ed., The Passion Story: From Visual Representation to Social Drama. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008, pp. 131-45.

"The Study of Religion and Popular Culture: Prospects, Presuppositions, Procedures," in Gordon Lynch, ed., Between Sacred and Profane: Researching Religion and Popular Culture, London: I. B. Tauris & Co., 2007, pp. 21-33.

"The Visual Construction of the Sacred," in Matteo Stocchetti and Johanna Sumiala-Seppänen, eds., Images and Communities: The Visual Construction of the Social. Helsinki: Gaudeamus Helsinki University Press, 2007, pp. 53-74.

"Absent Fathers and Women with Beards: Religion and Gender in Popular Imagery of the Nineteenth Century," in American Visual Cultures, ed. David Holloway and John Beck. London: Continuum, 2005, pp. 39-47.

"Kuvat, sanat ja kääntyminen-painetun sanan kultturi ja uskonnollisten kuvien levittäminen protestanttisen lähestystyön historiassa," in Pyhä media, ed. Johanna Sumiala-Seppänen. Jyväskylä: Atena Kustannus, 2005, pp. 167-76. ["Print Culture and the Circulation of Imagery in Protestant Mission History," in Pious Media]

"Manly Pain and Motherly Love: Mel Gibson's Big Picture," in After The Passion is Gone: American Religious Consequences, ed. J. Shawn Landres and Michael Berenbaum. Lanham, Maryland: AltaMira Press/Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, pp. 149-57.

"Catholic Visual Piety and The Passion of the Christ," in Re-Viewing The Passion: Mel Gibson's Film and Its Critics, ed. S. Brent Plate. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp. 85-96.

"Spirit and Medium: The Art of Bill Viola," in Bill Viola, ed. Chris Townsend. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004, pp. 88-104.

"Toward a Modern Historiography of Art and Religion," in Reluctant Partners: Art and Religion in Dialogue, ed. Ena Heller. New York: The Gallery at the American Bible Society, 2004, pp. 16-47.

"Visual Media and the Case of Ethiopian Protestantism," in Belief in Media: Media and Christianity in a Cultural Perspective, ed. Mary Hess, Peter Horsfield, and Adán Medrano. Aldershot, Hampshire, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2004, pp. 91-106.

Spanish language edition: "Medios visuales en el caso del protestantismo etíope," in Juan-Carlos Henriquez, ed., Medios y Creencias: Perspectivas culturales del cristianismo en el entorno mediatico. Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana; Madrid, Spain: Plaza y Valdés, S.A. de C.V., 2007, pp. 141-60.

"Protestant Visual Piety and the Aesthetics of American Mass Culture," in Mediating Religion: Conversations in Media, Religion and Culture, ed. Jolyon Mitchell & Sophia Marriage. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2003, pp. 107-120.

"Would Jesus have sat for a Portrait?" reprinted in Religion, Art, & Visual Culture: A Cross-Cultural Reader, ed. S. Brent Plate. New York: Palgrave, 2002, pp. 81-86.

"Protestant Visual Culture and the Challenges of Urban America during the Progressive Era," in Faith in the Market: Religion and the Rise of Urban Commercial Culture, ed. John M. Giggie and Diane Winston. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002, pp. 37-56.

"Protestant Visual Practice and American Mass Culture," in Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media: Explorations in Media, Religion and Culture, ed. Stewart Hoover and Lynn Schofield Clark, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, pp. 37-62.

"The Image of Religion in American LIFE, 1936-1951" in Looking at LIFE, ed. Erika Doss. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001, pp. 139-57.

"For Christ and the Republic: Religious Illustration and the History of Literacy in Nineteenth-Century America," in David Morgan and Sally M. Promey, eds., The Visual Culture of American Religions. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001, pp. 49-67.

"Introduction," co-written with Sally M. Promey, in David Morgan and Sally M. Promey, eds., The Visual Culture of American Religions. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001, pp. 1-24.

"The Masculinity of Jesus in Popular Religious Art," in Men's Bodies, Men's Gods: Male Identities in a [Post]Christian Culture, ed. Björn Krondorfer. New York: New York University Press, 1996, pp. 251-66.

"Warner Sallman and the Visual Culture of American Protestantism," in Icons of American Protestantism: The Art of Warner Sallman, ed. David Morgan, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 25-60

"'Would Jesus Have Sat for a Portrait?' The Likeness of Christ in the Popular Reception of Sallman's Art," in Icons of American Protestantism: The Art of Warner Sallman, ed. David Morgan, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 181-206.

Refereed articles

"The Look of Sympathy: Religion, Visual Culture, and the Social Life of Feeling," Material Religion 5, no. 2 (July 2009), forthcoming.

"Seeing Protestant Icons: The Popular Reception of Visual Media in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century America," in Elite and Popular Religion. Studies in Church History, vol. 42, 2006, pp. 406-428.

"Domestic Devotion and Ritual: Visual Piety in the Modern American Home," Art Journal, vol. 57, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 45-54.

"The Enchantment of Art: Abstraction and Empathy from German Romanticism to Expressionism," Journal of the History of Ideas 57, no. 2 (April 1996): 317-41.

"German Character and Artistic Form: The Cultural Politics of German Art Theory, 1773-1814," European Romantic Review, vol. 6, no. 2 (1996): 183-212.

"The Rise and Fall of Abstraction in 18th-Century Art Theory," Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 27, no. 3 (Spring 1994): 449-478.

"Imaging Protestant Piety: The Icons of Warner Sallman," Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 3, no. 1 (Winter 1993): 29-47.

"The Concept of Abstraction in French Art Theory from the Enlightenment to Modernism." The Journal of the History of Ideas 53, no. 4 (1992): 669-685.

"The Idea of Abstraction in German Theories of the Ornament from Kant to Kandinsky," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53 (Summer 1992): 231-42.

Selected essays

"American Holy Land: Tissot in the National Context," in Prodigal Son: James Tissot and the "Life of Christ," exhibition catalogue. New York: Brooklyn Museum, 2009.

"Material Belief," Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization. Oxford: Blackwell, 2009.

"Finding Fabiola," in Karen Kelly and Lynne Cook, eds., Francis Alÿs. Fabiola: An Investigation. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Dia Foundation, 2008, pp. 11-21.

"In Conversation: Material Religion," in Material Religion 4, no. 2, July 2008.

"Print and Evangelicalism: Notes on the Religious Tract," Common-Place: The Interactive Journal of Early American Life 6, no. 4 (July 2006) < http://www.common-place.org/>

"Art, Material Culture, and Popular Religion," in Frank Burch Brown, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

"The Allure of Electronic Media and the Study of Religion," Religion and American Culture, vol. 16, no. 1 (Winter 2006): 7-13.

"Kimsooja and the Discipline of Looking," Curator: The Museum Journal 49, no. 3 (2006): 295-300; reprinted in Kimsooja: To Breathe/Respirare, ed. Francesca Pasini (Milan: Charta, 2006), 56-69 (on-line at http://www.kimsooja.com/texts/morgan_david.html).

"Antigone's Wall: Magadalena Abakanowicz and the Allure of Images," Image, no. 43 (Fall 2004): 25-33.

"The Image of the Image of the Image," Image, no. 42 (Spring/Summer 2004): 53-57.

"Visual Culture and Religion: An Overview," essay in The Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd edition, ed. Lindsay Jones. New York: Macmillian, 2004, vol. 14, pp. 9620-24.

"Protestant Visual Piety in the American Home," in The House of God: Religious Observations within American Protestant Homes, ed. Margaret Bendroth and Henry Luttikhuisen, exhibition catalogue, Calvin College Art Gallery, 2003, pp. 9-28.

"Spirit and Medium: The Video Art of Bill Viola," Image, no. 26 (Spring 2000): 29-39.

"Ambiguous Icons: The Art of Ed Paschke," Image, no. 17 (Fall 1997): 31-44.

"Secret Wisdom and Self-Effacement: The Spiritual in Art in the Modern Age," catalog essay, Negotiating Rapture, ed. Richard Francis, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1996, pp. 34-47.

"Empathy and the Experience of 'Otherness' in Pechstein's Depictions of Women: The Expressionist Search for Immediacy." The Smart Museum of Art Bulletin, University of Chicago, vol. 4 (1992-1993): 12-22.

"Varieties of Expression in German Art, 1890-1922," principal catalog essay in A Breadth of Vision: The Ritz Collection, edited by Sue Taylor, Milwaukee Art Museum, 1992, pp. 11-27.

Recent and selected shorter essays and reviews

"Materiality," The Encyclopedia of Missions and Missionaries ( New York: Routledge, 2007), 233-36.

"Pamphlets," The Encyclopedia of Religion, Communication, and Media. London and New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 315-18.

Book review, Stephen Pattison, Seeing Things: Deepening Relations with Visual Artefacts. London: SCM Press, 2007, in Material Religion 4, no. 2, July, 2008.

Book review, Paolo Apolito, The Internet and the Madonna: Religious Visionary Experience on the Web, tr. Antony Shugaar (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), in The Journal of Religion, forthcoming.

Book review, Susan Strasser, ed., Commodifying Everything: Relationships of the Market (Routledge, 2003), in Gulf South Historical Review 21, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 124-26.

Book review, David Chidester, Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture (University of California Press, 2005), in Church History 74, no. 4 (December 2005): 897-98.

Book review, William A. Dyrness, Reformed Theology and Visual Culture: The Protestant Imagination from Calvin to Edwards (Cambridge University Press, 2004), in Church History, vol. 74, no. 2 (June 2005): 384-85.

Book review, Anne C. Loveland and Otis B. Wheeler, From Meetinghouse to Megachurch (University of Missouri Press, 2003), in American Historical Review, February 2005, p. 124.

Review essay, Elaine Scarry, Denis Donoghue, and Virginia Postrel, in Winterthur Portfolio 38, no. 4 (Winter 2003): 279-85.

"Aesthetics" and "Iconography," entries in Encyclopedia of Protestantism, 4 vols., ed. Hans Hillerbrand. New York: Routledge, 2003, vol. 1, pp. 7-8, and vol. 2, pp. 926-32.

Review essay, "The Vicissitudes of Seeing: Iconoclasm and Idolatry," Religion 33, no. 2 (April 2003): 170-80.

Book review, Donald J. Cosentino, Vodou Things: The Art of Pierre Barra and Marie Cassaise (University Press of Mississippi, 1998) and Patrick Arthur Polk, Haitian Vodou Flags (University Press of Mississippi, 1997) in The North Star, vol. 5, no. 2 (Spring 2002), on-line: http://northstar.vassar.edu/volume5/consentino_polk.html

Review essay, "Visual Religion," in Religion 30 (2000): 41-53.

Review essay, "Making American Bibles," Paul C. Gutjahr, An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777-1880. Stanford: University of Stanford Press, 1999, in Evangelical Studies Bulletin, vol. 16, no. 3 (Fall 1999): 1-5.

Selected international conference papers, lectures, and symposia presentations

"Visual Mediation and the Body: The Cultural Work of Seeing and Feeling in Protestantism," Conference on Religion, Media, and Culture, Methodist University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paolo, Brazil, August 11-14, 2008

"The Look of the Sacred," keynote address, Religionsästhetik section, Deutsche Vereinigung der Religionswissenschaft, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität, Heidelberg, Germany, May 16, 2008

"A Visual History of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus," university seminar, Porticus Fellows, Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya, August 7, 2007

"Print & Piety: Evangelical Protestantism and the Redefinition of Christendom," at the MRCP Global Seminar, The Mediation of Religion: Historical Perspectives from the Ancient World to the Present, Manila, Philippines, June 25, 2007.

"Marian Visual Piety and the Economy of Belief," University of Toronto Sawyer Seminar, "Spiritual Economies," March 2, 2007

"Aura and the Inversion of Marian Pilgrimage: Fatima and Her Statues," keynote address at The Power of Marian Pilgrimage: Religious Objects, Narratives and Performances, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands February 1-3, 2007.

"Rethinking the Gaze," International Seminar on Media, Religion, Culture, Basel, Switzerland, July 10-12, 2006.

"The Felt-Life of Belief in Material and Visual Culture," Fifth International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture, Sigtuna, Sweden, July 5-9, 2006.

"The Material Culture of Lived Relgion," Conference on Modern Mass Media, Religion and the Postcolonial State, University of Amsterdam, June 28-30, 2006.

"The Visual Construction of the Sacred," key note address at The Future of the Religious Past: Religion and Power, University of Amsterdam, June 26-27, 2006.

"The Iconicity of Print: Word and Image in Evangelical Illustrated Publications, 1795-1845," 7th International Conference on Word and Image Studies, University of Pennsylvania, September 26, 2005.

"The Place of Images in British Evangelical Missions in Asia, 1795-1825," presented in a research symposium entitled Emerging Research in Media, Religion, and Culture, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, July 12, 2005.

"Visual Cultures of Belonging: Nationalism and Religion in the United States," paper presented at the at the international workshop, "Icons, Idols, and Ideologies: Visual Cultures in the US and Israel," University of Haifa, June 8, 2005

"Bibles, Flags, and Jesus: The Material Culture of American Nationalism," paper presented in the Department of Practical Theology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, May 12, 2005

"Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice," Korea Institute for Advanced Theological Studies, Seoul, Korea, April 8, 2005

"Visual Piety and The Passion of the Christ," "America's Nationalist Icons: A History of the Material Culture of Assimilation," and "Evangelical Print Culture and the Birth of British Missions," three lectures in New College, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, January 27 & February 1, 2005.

"From Panoramas to the Passion of the Christ: The Popular Reception of Religious Visual Media in the US from 1880 to the Present," Department of Anthropology, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, November 9, 2004.

"National Icons and American Material Culture," Pitt Rivers Museum Material Culture Seminar, University of Oxford, October 29, 2004.

"Toward a Christendom of Print: Late Eighteenth-century British Evangelicalism and Print Culture," in the Christianity and the Book seminar, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, October 20, 2004.

"Print Culture, Missions, and the Invention of an Evangelical Christendom in the 1790s," Fourth International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture, Louisville, Kentucky, September 4, 2004.

"Seeing Protestant Icons: The Popular Reception of Visual Media in 19th and 20th Century America," Ecclesiastical History Society conference, University of Liverpool, England, July 24, 2004.

"Manly Pain and Motherly Love: The Passion of the Christ and the History of American Christianity," Crossroads 2004, Cultural Studies Conference, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois, June 27, 2004.

"The Success and Failure of Print Culture in American Protestant Missions in Burma," at Windows and Mirrors: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on American Popular Culture at Home and Abroad, Munk Centre for the Study of the United States, University of Toronto, March 19, 2004.

"Print Culture and the Circulation of Imagery in Protestant Mission History," paper presented at Sacred Media, an international conference on religion and media, Jyvaskyla, Finland, July 12, 2003.

"Bibles, Flags, and Jesus: Religion and National Identity in the United States," International Association for Media and Communication Research, Barcelona, Spain, July 24, 2002. Organizer of panel, "The Visual Culture of Public Commemoration."

“What is the Visual Culture of Religion?”— invited paper for a symposium at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, entitled “Popular Religion and Visual Culture,” organized by the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Center for Brazilian Studies, University of Oxford, February 1, 2002

"Mass-Produced Religious Imagery and the Visual Discourse of National Identity in the United States," invited paper for international conference on Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere, organized by the Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World and the Research Centre for Religion and Society (Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam), University of Amsterdam, December 9, 2001

"Protestants and Pictures: The Rise of the Devotional Image in American Protestantism," Faculty of Divinity, New College, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, May 17, 2001

"Visual Media and the History of Christian Missiology" and "The Visual Practice of Protestantism in the United States and Ethiopia," presentations at the 18th Quinquennial World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions, Durban, South Africa, August 5-12, 2000

"The Visual Crusade for a Protestant America, 1825-1995," Salzburg Seminar, Salzburg, Austria, September 4-10, 1999

"Visual Piety and the Aesthetics of Mass Culture," University of Edinburgh, Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture, July 20-23, 1999, panel organizer: "Studying the Visual Aspects of Media, Religion, and Culture"

Professional conference papers and panels

"The Circulation of Wood Engravings among British and American Evangelicals in the early Nineteenth Century," Organization of American Historians, annual meeting, Minneapolis, March 30, 2007

"The Sacred Gaze," subject of author-meets-critics panel, North American Religions Section, American Academy of Religion, Washington, DC, November 20, 2006

Panel Chair and respondent, "Retelling America: The Material Culture of Religion," American Studies Association, Oakland, October 12, 2006

"Desiderata in the Study of Popular Religious Culture," invited paper for panel, Exploring the Research Agena for the Study of Religion and Popular Culture, American Academy of Religion, Philadelphia, November 20, 2005.

"The Passion of the Christ in the Context of American Religious History," Association of Jewish Studies, Chicago, December 20, 2004.

"Print Culture and Protestant Mission History," American Anthropological Association, Chicago, November 22, 2003.

"Interdisciplinary Border-Crossing in the Study of Religion and Media," paper presented at the International Communication Association, San Diego, May 25, 2003.

Respondent to panel, "Proselytic Media," Society for the Anthropology of Religion, Providence, April 24, 2003.

Respondent to panel, "Printed Piety: Popular Religious Images in Context," College Art Association, New York, February 20, 2003.

Respondent and presiding in panel, "Catholic Visual Culture: Dress, Cinema, and Art in America," American Catholic Historical Association, January 5, 2003, Chicago.

Respondent to panel, "Consuming is Believing: Consumer Culture and Religious Identity in the United States in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries," American Historical Association, January 3, 2003, Chicago.

Respondent to panel, "What is Visual Culture and What Does it Have to Do with the Study of Religion?", American Academy of Religion, Toronto, November 24, 2002.

“The Visual Culture of Christian Missiology: A Model for Cultural and Historical Analysis,” American Society of Church History/American Historical Association, January 4, 2002

"Expanding the Field of Inquiry," Religion, Culture, and Communication consultation, American Academy of Religion, November 16, 2001

Chaired and commented on a panel called "Memory, Death, and Material Culture" at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association, October 13, 2000

Co-organizer of panel and respondent, "Art History and the Visual Culture of American Religions," annual conference of the College Art Association, New York, February 2000

"Absent Fathers and Women with Beards: Religion and Gender in American Popular Imagery," and "The Visual Culture Paradigm," Visiting Scholar, Department of Art History, University of Arizona, September 21-22, 2000

"Protestant Material Culture in the United States and Africa," 4th Annual Irwin C. Schroedl, Jr. Lecture in the Decorative Arts and Material Culture, Goucher College, Baltimore, April 10, 2000

Symposia and guest lecturing

"Religion, Media, and Culture: The Shape of the Field," key note address, Authorizing Inscriptions: Religion, Aesthetics and Global Media, University of California-Davis, April 18, 2008.

"Looking Beyond the Modern Bubble: Medieval Art and the Study of Modern Visual Culture," Looking Beyond, Visions, Dreams and Insights in Medieval Art and History, Index of Christian Art, Princeton University, March 15, 2008.

"Religious Visual Culture: The Social Production of Visibility," paper presented in "Visualizing Religion," An Interdisciplinary Seminar for Faculty and Graduate Students, Center for the Study of Religion and Civic Culture, University of Southern California, February 8, 2008.

"The Authorized Version: The Power of Word and Image in Text, Utterance, and Display," keynote address, Between Word and Image, symposium held at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Nashville, October 26, 2007.

"American 'Iconic Bibles' in Cross-Cultural Perspective," Ray Smith Symposium on Iconic Books, Syracuse University, October 18, 2007.

"Search for the American Jesus," University of Tennessee at Knoxville, April 18, 2007

"Religious Visual Culture and the Conditions of Visibility," Department of Religion, Boston University, April 10, 2007

"The American Jesus," Department of Religion, University of Richmond, March 13, 2007

"The Fitful Career of God in the Art of the Modern Age: Reflections on the History of Seeing," keynote address at a symposium entitled Pious Pictures: Christian Iconography and Personal Expression, Brigham Young University Museum of Art, November 16, 2006.

"Seeing Nationhood: The Visual Culture of American National Identity" and "The Commercial Quest for the Face of Jesus in late Victorian America," Religious Studies Program, University of Texas at Austin, October 25, 2006.

"God and Contemporary Art: On the Practice of Seeing," Border Zones: Art History in an Age of Visual Culture, New York University, October 6, 2006.

"Visuality and the Question of God in Contemporary Art," Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Nashville, April 6, 2006

"From Bibles to Flags: 19th Century American Sacred Imagery of Nationhood," presented at Intersections: Scriptures, Prints, and Paintings in Antebellum America, Library Company of Philadelphia, May 2, 2005.

"The Formation of National Icons in American Civil Religion," Center for Religion and Civic Culture, University of Southern California, March 12, 2004.

"Art and Religion: A Modern Romance," Naples Museum of Art, Naples, Florida, January 22, 2004.

"The Visual Culture of American Piety: Absent Fathers and Women with Beards," The Edward Puff, Sr., and Edith Kottmeyer Puff Lecture on the Study of Christianity for 2003-2004, Department of Comparative Religions, University of Miami, Oxford, Ohio, September 19, 2003.

"Visual Piety: Seeing Truth in the Medium of Belief," paper presented at a public symposium entitled "Global Saints, Local Lives: Images and Icons in Urban Space," UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles, April 12, 2003.

"Word, Image, Tone," lecture in the Department of Ethnic Studies, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, February 10, 2003.

"From German Art Theory to Cardboard Icons: The Making of an Americanist," presentation at American Art at the Crossroads: A Symposium, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, April 20, 2002

"Absent Fathers and Women with Beards," fourth annual James C. Spaulding Memorial Lecture, School of Religion, University of Iowa, October 1, 2001

"What is the Visual Culture of American Religions and Why Should We Care?," Teaching the New American History, conference at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School, June 5-7, 2001

"Absent Fathers and Women with Beards: Images of Christ and the History of Masculinity in Modern America," Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, March 31, 2001

"Popular Religious Images and the Modern American Home," University of Northern Iowa, February 23, 2001.

"The Visual Culture of Christian Missiology," presentation at "Sacred Images/Sacred Spaces," sponsored by The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, January 26, 2001.

"Exhibiting the Visual Culture of American Religions," presentation at the Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University, November 10, 2000.

"Concepts of Likeness and the Power of Images in Modern Visual Piety," presented to the Colloquium of the Center for the Study of Religion, University of California at Los Angeles, October 4, 2000.

Manuscript reviewer:

•Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

•Religion and American Culture

•Art Bulletin

•Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

•Review of Religious Research

•American Quarterly

•Church History

•Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses

•Cornell University Press

•Yale University Press

•Rutgers University Press

•University of Pennsylvania Press

•Harvard University Press

•Routledge

•Rowan & Littlefield

•University of North Carolina Press

•Palgrave Macmillan

•University of Kansas Press

•Indiana University Press

•Oxford University Press

•Princeton University Press

•University of California Press

•Smithsonian Institution Press

•University of Minnesota Press

•Westminster/John Knox Press
 

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