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Ph.D. Program in American Religious History

Assistant Director of Graduate Studies: Harry Stout
Teaching Group in American Religious History: Jon Butler, Harry Stout

Introduction

These guidelines are intended to provide information concerning the program in American Religious History within the Department of Religious Studies. The aim is to provide a series of norms and expectations to serve as points of reference from which a program of study can be developed. It is also to explain the requirements for the degree in this particular field and the procedures for meeting them. All students must work with the faculty, the Assistant Director of Graduate Studies for American Religious History and Chair of the department (Harry Stout), and the Dean of the Graduate School (Jon Butler) to define their own particular program. Students are strongly encouraged to meet with the American Religious History faculty early in their academic program to define their needs and to design a course of study (formal as well as informal) which will best prepare them for their qualifying examination and subsequent work. Adjustments in students' programs can be made to accommodate newly developing interests and changing course offerings.

Academic Nature of Program

The course of study in American religious history is designed to prepare Ph.D. candidates for professional careers in Religious Studies. Students are expected to work in four different fields: American religious history from 1600-1865; American religious history from 1865 to 1980; and two additional fields, both possibly in any of the major Religious Studies graduate fields at Yale, though one might also be in a field outside Religious Studies. The curriculum is designed to serve student intellectual needs through a combination of flexibility and concentration and is worked out with each student individually.

Recent dissertation topics in American Religious History include: Mainline Religion and Counterculture in America, 1968-1975; The Reformation of Women Religious: Catholic Nuns, Vatican II, and the Remaking of the Catholic Religious Experience, 1950-1980; In Search of Power: Healing and the Evangelical Tradition, 1870-1920; Epistles to the Gentiles: Teaching Judaism and Jewishness to America, 1900-1955; Madalyn's America: From the Secularization Conspiracy to the Reagan Revival; Moral Rebels: Christian Pacifists and the Making of Modern American Liberalism, 1914-1956; Planned Parenthood, Marriage Counseling, and the Family, 1940-1970; The Second Methodist Transformation: Old Stock, Immigrants, and Class among Chicago Methodists, 1870-1940; Women Preachers in 19th Century America; Religion and Diplomacy in the Cold War; White European and Native American Missions; and Religion and the Rise of Economic Liberalism.

Language Requirements

Students admitted to the Ph.D. program are expected to possess or quickly acquire a proficiency in two scholarly languages, normally German and French. For further description of policy and procedure, see the departmental brochure. There are no additional requirements for the American Religious History program.

Course Work

Students are required to take twelve courses, and this is normally done during the first two years of study. A minimum quality requirement, set by the Graduate School, must be met. This stipulates that a student must earn a grade of Honors in two graduate courses.

The course of study in American Religious History is designed to prepare Ph.D. candidates for professional careers in Religious Studies. Students are expected to prepare themselves in four principal areas:

In the field of American religious history 1600-1865, students are expected to have read in the history of Puritanism, revivalism, religion and the American Revolution, the rise of denominationalism, religion and antebellum reform, slave religion, and religion and the coming of the Civil War.

In the field of American religious history 1865-1980, students are expected to have read in the history of American religious pluralism including the expansion of American Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism; the problem of religion, science, and American intellectual life; religion and urbanization; religion and American foreign policy; the rise of American fundamentalism, neo-orthodoxy, and conservative evangelicalism; religion, the cold war, and the piety of the 1950s; religion, civil rights, feminism, and 1960s radicalism; and the emergence of conservative evangelicalism in the 1970s.

Students should be aware that a functional aim of work in Fields 1 and 2 is the preparation of readings and research for teaching the introductory upper-level undergraduate course in American religious history offered by virtually all departments of Religious Studies in the United States. The student is not required to produce a syllabus for such a course. But every successful Ph.D. candidate will teach a similar course after graduation, and the readings encountered in Fields 1 and 2 should serve as a foundation for preparing it.

With the exception noted below, the third field will be drawn from among the other major graduate fields in Religious Studies at Yale. These include scriptural and textual studies; the historical study of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, or Judaism; theological studies; philosophical studies; ethics; and any new fields subsequently added to the Department's curriculum. In practice, a student would work with a faculty member in the relevant field to develop a topic and reading list suitable for discussion in the student's oral examination. The field also would be more precise than those described above. For example, rather than reading in the history of Judaism in its entirety, the student might more likely prepare in the history of American Judaism or modern Judaism; or rather than reading in the history of Christianity in its entirety, the student might prepare in Medieval or Reformation history or in the religious history of early modern or modern Europe.

The fourth field may be drawn from the same list of fields suitable for Field 3, that is, one of the major graduate fields offered by Religious Studies at Yale, or it may be drawn from an appropriate area of the curriculum offered elsewhere in Yale's graduate programs. In practice, this field is arranged much in the way Field 3 is arranged—by developing an appropriate topic and reading with a faculty member in the area desired. The sociology of religion, history of architecture, and American immigration history constitute relevant examples of such fields.

One exception to the requirements for Fields 3 and 4 may be approved in certain appropriate cases: both Fields 3 and 4 may be taken outside the current Religious Studies graduate curriculum. Such an arrangement must be approved by the student's adviser, the DGS, and the Department's Graduate Program Committee. These added approvals are deemed wise because the lack of work in traditional religious studies fields would have important implications for the student's possible career in the discipline. Still, the exception is offered for students who want to pursue interdisciplinary studies or want to integrate the study of secular and religious issues in a particularly full way.

Courses

Popular Religion in Europe and America, 1500-1900 (RS) Butler

Readings in Religion and Society, 1600-1980 (RS/YDS) Butler and Stout

Anglo-American Preaching (YDS) Stout

Jonathan Edwards and American Revivalism (RS/YDS) Stout

The Jonathan Edwards Seminar (RS) Stout

Puritanism and the American Experience (YDS) Stout

Research Seminar in American Religious and Social History (RS) Faculty

Nature and Purpose of Qualifying Examinations

The qualifying examination in American Religious History is taken after the conclusion of required course work and must be completed before admission to candidacy. Ordinarily, students take their exam in their third year of residence. Preparation for the qualifying examination is comprised of a combination of course work and supplementary individual readings, as described above. The examination is not meant to test the students' ability as a research scholar. Course work, research papers, and the dissertation will do that. Passage of the qualifying exam is one requirement demanded of all students seeking the Ph.D., but it is not the only requirement, nor is it the most important. The dissertation is. Therefore, the exam should be kept within its proper proportion.

Qualifying Examination Procedure

Each student will be tested in the required four fields in a two-hour oral examination. The student's adviser will chair the committee, and the committee will normally contain four persons, one to examine the student in each of the four required fields.

Dissertation Proposal

The dissertation proposal is prepared following the completion of the qualifying exam. It is worked out in consultation with the faculty, and submitted to the teaching group in American Religious History, who meet with the student for a colloquium to assess the scope, significance, and feasibility of the topic and the student's preparation to accomplish it in a reasonable time. After approval by the teaching group, a two-page, single-spaced summary of the proposal is submitted to the entire graduate faculty in Religious Studies and thence, if none object, to the Dean of the Graduate School. Once accepted this prospectus becomes the basis for the eventual assessment of the completed dissertation. After acceptance of the prospectus, the student is admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. Students must be admitted to candidacy by the beginning of the fourth year of study.

Dissertation

Students normally begin writing their dissertation in the fourth year and normally will have finished by the end of the sixth. The completed dissertation must be evaluated in writing and approved by a committee of three readers and the departmental faculty. There is no oral examination on the dissertation.

Contact Information

The Department of Religious Studies
P.O. Box 208287
New Haven, CT 06520-8287
Phone: (203) 432-0828
harry.stout@yale.edu

 

 
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