Michael J. Altman Associate Professor

Research:

• I research and teach courses about the category “religion” in American history and culture. More specifically, I use examples of religion in America to explore larger questions about how people and groups use “religion” to separate “us” from “them.”
• His areas of interest are American religious history, colonialism, theory and method in the study of religion, and Asian religions in American culture. Trained in the field of American religious cultures, he is interested in the ways religion is constructed through difference, conflict, and contact.
• I am interested in the ways both scholars, journalists, and everyday Americans argue over who counts as an evangelical and why. I am also interested in the ways the term has been constructed and deployed in America history.

Research Interests

• American religious history, colonialism, identity, Asian religions in American culture, and the Digital Humanities