Religious Studies: Tracy Fessenden

Professor of Religious Studies
Ph.D., University of Virginia
Arrived at ASU: 1994

Office: ECA 347
Phone: (480) 965-0662 or 965-7145
E-mail: tracyf@asu.edu
CV: (PDF)

Research Interests

Gender and Religion, American Studies, Religion and Literature.

Biography

(Ph.D. University of Virginia) is Associate Professor of gender and religion,specializing in western religious traditions, religion and literature, and American religious and cultural history. Her recent work focuses on religion, race, gender, and sexuality in American cultural history, on the relationship between religion and the secular in American public life, and on questions of religion and violence.

Courses Taught

Undergraduate Courses
Approaches to the Study of Religion
From Slavery to Hurricane Katrina: Myth, Culture, and Catastrophe in New Orleans (CLAS Learning Community, lead faculty)
Gender and Sexuality in American Religious History
Myth, Symbol, and Ritual
Religion and Popular Culture
The Religious Imagination: Arts, Literature, Media, and Performance
War, Culture, and Memory: Vietnam (CLAS Learning Community)
War, Culture, and Memory: World War II (CLAS Learning Community)
Women and Religion

Graduate Courses
American Spiritual Marketplace

Selected Publications

Culture and Redemption: Religion, the Secular, and American Literature; Princeton University Press 2007.

The Puritan Origins of American Sex: Religion, Sexuality, and National Identity in American Literature (edited volume, Nicholas Radel and Magdalena Zaborowska, co-editors); Routledge 2001.

“The Nineteenth-Century Bible Wars and the Separation of Church and State,” in Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, 74.3 (December 2005): 1-28.

“F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Catholic Closet,” in U.S. Catholic Historian, 23.3 (Summer 2005): 19-40.

“Gendering Religion,” Journal of Women’s History 14.1 (Spring 2002): 163-169.

“The Convent, the Brothel, and the Protestant Woman's Sphere," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 25.2 (Winter 2000): 451-478.