Paul Harvey, Ph.D., will present the 2008 Lamar Memorial Lecture Series of Mercer University, on Tuesday, Nov. 4, on the University’s Macon campus. Harvey, a history professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, will present lectures around the theme: “Moses, Jesus and the Trickster in the Evangelical South.” All lectures are free and open to the public.
Harvey will present a lecture titled “Religion, Race, and Southern Ideas of Freedom,” on Nov. 4 – to be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Medical School Auditorium.
In its 51 years, the Lamar Lecture Series has become one of the most prominent Lectures series on Southern Culture and History, and has included presentations by renowned historians, sociologists and literary scholars.
“Harvey continues this legacy of engaging Southern culture with an intriguing series of lectures that center on religious experiences in the American South,” said lecture series director Sarah Gardner, Ph.D., associate professor of History at Mercer. “Harvey is the first scholar to address the religious experience of the South since Sam Hill gave the lectures in 1979.”
Dr. Harvey is the author of two books, including: “Redeeming the South: Religious Cultures and Racial Identities Among Southern Baptists, 1865-1925” and “Freedom’s Coming: Religious Culture and the Shaping of the South from the Civil War through the Civil Rights Era.” Harvey has three books that are under contract to be published as well: “Jesus in Red, White and Black” (co-authored with Edward J. Blum), “A History of African American Religion,” and the book “Moses, Jesus and the Trickster in the Evangelical South” based on his Lamar Lectures.
Dr. Harvey has also edited several works, including: “Themes in Religion and American Culture,” “The Columbia Documentary History of Religion in America since 1945” and “The Columbia Guide to Religion in American History.” Dr. Harvey has two editing projects underway: “Sources in Religion and American Culture and Religion, Race” and “American Ideas of Freedom: From the 17th Century to the Present.”
Dr. Harvey has published numerous papers, articles and book chapters in the areas of Southern history, culture and religion. He earned his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley, 1992.
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Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
From Mounds to Megachurches - A New Book on Religion in Georgia
David S. Williams, director of the Honors Program and Meigs Professor of Religion at the University of Georgia, offers a sweeping overview of the role religion has played in Georgia’s historical and cultural heritage in a new book From Mounds to Megachurches (University of Georgia Press, $26.95). Spanning precolonial days to the modern era, Williams sheds light on what it means to be a Georgian by exploring an issue that remains central to life in the Sunbelt South.
Williams, whose primary field of study is biblical studies, has a long academic career at the university. He started research on the book five years ago when he was head of the department of religion and thought it would take two years to complete. In 2004, he took over director of the Honors Program and considered shelving the project, but he found himself drawn back to the research.
“The book really tugged at me and, ultimately, I decided that I had to finish it,” Williams said. “I wanted to provide a partial explanation of why daily life in Georgia looks and feels the way it does.The influence of religion, especially evangelical Christianity, is pervasive in the state. I think to understand Georgia deeply demands attention to not only the influence of evangelicalism but also the legacy of religious expressions that have existed beyond the borders of the recognized denominations.”
“Williams has written a masterful and remarkably concise synthesis of Georgia’s religious odyssey,” said James C. Cobb, the Spalding Distinguished Professor of History at UGA and a widely-recognized authority on the history of the south. “His title is no mere artifice of alliteration, for he does indeed take us from thousand-year old moundbuilders to modern megachurches, and from Moravians to Muslims as well, reminding us of a persistent strain of religious diversity while placing the emergence and evolution of a Protestant evangelical ethos at the center of Georgia’s historical experience.”
Williams was especially interested in how the story of race is intimately entwined with that of religion. “I have long been struck by Dr. King’s observation that Sunday morning is the most segregated time in American life,” he said. “I wanted to explore more deeply how this came to be. I wanted to provide an extended thought piece about how our religious heritage is tied up with racial matters as well as the role played by evangelicalism.”
Williams previously has published two books, three biblical commentaries and an array of journal articles for scholars of religious studies. From Mounds to Megachurches may seem like a departure from this more specialized work, but Williams sees it as a logical step in a career that has included teaching religious studies to undergraduates at UGA for nearly two decades.
Firmly rooting religious history in a social, cultural and political context, Williams presents a balanced and accessible account of Georgia’s religious heritage that also includes timely commentary, such as how the state has taken center stage in some of America’s culture wars.
“I know no other book that covers such a range of material, with such chronological sweep, in such short compass, for any southern state,” said John B. Boles, William Pettus Hobby Professor of history at Rice University and editor of the Journal of Southern History. “Georgia and its citizens are privileged to have such an accessible survey of their religious heritage available.”
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Williams, whose primary field of study is biblical studies, has a long academic career at the university. He started research on the book five years ago when he was head of the department of religion and thought it would take two years to complete. In 2004, he took over director of the Honors Program and considered shelving the project, but he found himself drawn back to the research.
“The book really tugged at me and, ultimately, I decided that I had to finish it,” Williams said. “I wanted to provide a partial explanation of why daily life in Georgia looks and feels the way it does.The influence of religion, especially evangelical Christianity, is pervasive in the state. I think to understand Georgia deeply demands attention to not only the influence of evangelicalism but also the legacy of religious expressions that have existed beyond the borders of the recognized denominations.”
“Williams has written a masterful and remarkably concise synthesis of Georgia’s religious odyssey,” said James C. Cobb, the Spalding Distinguished Professor of History at UGA and a widely-recognized authority on the history of the south. “His title is no mere artifice of alliteration, for he does indeed take us from thousand-year old moundbuilders to modern megachurches, and from Moravians to Muslims as well, reminding us of a persistent strain of religious diversity while placing the emergence and evolution of a Protestant evangelical ethos at the center of Georgia’s historical experience.”
Williams was especially interested in how the story of race is intimately entwined with that of religion. “I have long been struck by Dr. King’s observation that Sunday morning is the most segregated time in American life,” he said. “I wanted to explore more deeply how this came to be. I wanted to provide an extended thought piece about how our religious heritage is tied up with racial matters as well as the role played by evangelicalism.”
Williams previously has published two books, three biblical commentaries and an array of journal articles for scholars of religious studies. From Mounds to Megachurches may seem like a departure from this more specialized work, but Williams sees it as a logical step in a career that has included teaching religious studies to undergraduates at UGA for nearly two decades.
Firmly rooting religious history in a social, cultural and political context, Williams presents a balanced and accessible account of Georgia’s religious heritage that also includes timely commentary, such as how the state has taken center stage in some of America’s culture wars.
“I know no other book that covers such a range of material, with such chronological sweep, in such short compass, for any southern state,” said John B. Boles, William Pettus Hobby Professor of history at Rice University and editor of the Journal of Southern History. “Georgia and its citizens are privileged to have such an accessible survey of their religious heritage available.”
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