Yale Bulletin and Calendar

May 3-17, 1999

Volume 27, Number 31

Institute's first resident scholars
to pursue projects on race and religion

Three scholars have been selected to pursue projects related to race and religion in America as Senior Residential Fellows of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion at Yale.

Established through a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts, the institute seeks to promote interdisciplinary research on themes related to how American religion is adapting to a rapidly changing world. The institute also offers opportunities for scholars throughout the world to confront issues about the role religion has played, and should play, nationally as well as globally.

By sponsoring fellowships, conferences and lectures on a particular theme or problem, the institute seeks to generate teams of scholars, both within and beyond Yale, who will share insights with each other, even as they pursue individual research projects.

The first theme being addressed by the institute is "Religion, Race and Ethnicity."

The Senior Residential Fellows will work on their individual research projects while living on campus, participating in institute activities, and interacting with Yale faculty, staff and students in formal and informal settings such as seminars, conferences and special lectures. Each fellow has the option of offering a course or class at the undergraduate and graduate level.

The first Senior Residential Fellows are:

* Nick Salvatore, professor of American studies and industrial and labor relations at Cornell University. He will continue his work on a biography of the Reverend Clarence LaVaughn Franklin (1915-1984), who as pastor of the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit established one of the largest black churches in the North and was politically active in the fight for civil rights.

* Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Associate Professor of Sociology and African American Studies and director of the African American studies program at Colby College. She will work on a book tentatively titled "Changing Black Churches in a Changing Society: Revolution, Revival and Adaptation," which will describe and analyze profound changes occurring across a broad spectrum of churches.

* Judith Weisenfeld, assistant professor of religion at Barnard College, a member of the Columbia University Faculty of Arts and Sciences and an adjunct assistant professor of American religious studies at Union Theological Seminary. She will continue her research on "Through a Glass Darkly: On Religion, Race and Gender in American Film, 1929-1950," which focuses on the union of religion, race and gender as components of American identity and examines the ways in which films narrate how these categories of identity function in relation to each other.

The Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion at Yale is located in the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St. For further information about the institute and its programs, call 432-4040 or send email to iasry@yale.edu.

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Institute's first resident scholars to pursue projects on race and religion
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