Curtis J. Evans
Assistant Professor of the History of Christianity
M.A. (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary)
Ph.D. (Harvard University)
Curtis Evans is a historian of American religion. His teaching interests include modern American religion, race and religion in US history, and slavery and Christianity. His first book, The Burden of Black Religion (Oxford University Press, 2008), was an historical analysis of debates about the role of religion in the lives of African Americans and the origins of the scholarly category of "the black church." His research emphases are interpretations and cultural images of African American religion and historical examinations of religion as a force for and obstacle to social and political reform. Evans' published essays have appeared in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Church History, Journal of Southern Religion, and Religion and American Culture. His current research project is a critical historical study of the Federal Council of Churches' Department of Race Relations from the 1920s the 1940s, with a focus on the internal dynamics of the FCC's emphasis on attitudinal change as a means of addressing racial prejudice and its broader structural critique of racial oppression in American society.
From Prof. Evans's interview in Circa (Winter 2009; Number 31). For the entire text of the interview, please click here.
