Charles L. Cohen
Professor of History/Religious Studies; Director, Lubar Institute for the Study of the Abrahamic Religions

eMail: clcohen@wisc.edu
Phone: (608)263-1956
Office: 4115 Mosse Humanities
Mailbox: 4037 Mosse Humanities

Website: http://history.wisc.edu/cohen/

Office Hours: Tuesdays 12:00 - 1:00, Wednesdays 11:00 - 12:00

Education: PhD: University of California - Berkeley; BA: Yale

Bio Sketch:

Trained as an historian of Anglo-America, I have become increasingly interested in American religious history and, as both former director of the UW-Madison Religious Studies Program and current director of the Lubar Institute for the Study of the Abrahamic Religions, comparative religion. At this point my projects are eclectic: they include work on theology and the liberal state, and pluralism in modern America.

Research Interests:

American Religious History, Colonial America, Native Peoples of the Eastern Woodlands, 1500-1800.

Selected Publications:

• Charles L. Cohen and Paul S. Boyer, Religion and the Culture of Print in Modern America (Madison, WI, 2008).
  
• “The Construction of the Mormon People,” Journal of Mormon History 32 (2006): 25-64
• “Religion,” in James Ciment, ed., Colonial America: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural, and Economic History, 5 vols. (Armonk, NY, 2006), 1.58-69
• “No Man Knows My Psychology: Fawn Brodie, Joseph Smith, and Psychoanalysis,” BYU Studies, 44, 1 (2005), 55-78
• “Max Weber in New England,” in David Libby and Paul Spickard, eds., Affect and Power: Essays on Sex, Slavery, Race, and Religion in Appreciation of Winthrop D. Jordan, (n.p., 2005), 170-82
• “The Colonization of North America as an Episode in the History of Christianity,” Church History, 72 (September, 2003), 553-68
• “A Middle Way for Religious Studies,” Bulletin of the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion, 32, 1 (February, 2003), 11-13
• “Was the Great Awakening a factor leading to the American Revolution? - No,” in Keith Krawczynski, ed., History in Dispute, vol. 12: The American Revolution (Columbia, S.C., 2003), 149-53
  

Awards:

Research

• co-recipient, Metanexus Global Societies Initiative Grant, 2008-13
• co-recipient, Metanexus Local Societies Initiative Grant, 2005-08
• Joseph Fielding Smith Institute Research Fellowship, 2004
• Asia-Pacific Study Fund Short-Term Research Fellowship, Japan, 2004
• Osaka University of Foreign Studies International Academic Exchange Fellowship, 2004
• Anonymous Fund, UW-Madison, 2002, 2006
• Romnes Fellowship, UW-Madison, 1990-95
• Vilas Associateship, 1991-93
• Institute for Research in the Humanities, Visiting Fellow, 1986
• Allan Nevins Prize, Society of American Historians.

Teaching

• Phi Beta Kappa Distinguished Teaching Award, 2002
• Emil H. Steiger Distinguished Teaching Award, 1997
• F.F. Johnson Teaching Award, History Department, 1995, 1996
• Elected UW-Madison Teaching Academy, 1996
• Karen F. F. Johnson Award (UW History Dept.), 1995, 1996
• N.E.H. Younger Scholars Award (faculty co-recipient), 1995
• UW Faculty/Student Hilldale Research Award, 1992, 1995

Courses Taught:

Lecture Courses:

• History 101 - American History to Civil War Era - Syllabus 2008 (pdf)
• History 343 - Colonial British North America - Syllabus 2009 (pdf)
• History 451 - American Religious History to the Mid-Nineteenth Century - Syllabus 2007 (pdf)

Undergraduate Colloquia:

• History 200 - Research in Colonial America - Syllabus 1999 (pdf)
• History 500 - Reading Seminar in History
• History 600 - Advanced Seminar in History - Topics: "Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomian Controversy" - Syllabus 2000 (pdf); "Amerindians and Europeans in the Colonial Eastern Woodlands" - Syllabus 2001 (pdf)
• Religious Studies 600, "Religion in Critical Perspective" - Syllabus 2006 (pdf)

Graduate Courses:

• History 910 - Colonial North America - Syllabus 2009 (pdf)
• History 963 - American Religious History to 1860 - Syllabus 2007 (pdf)
• History 974 - Readings and Practicum in U.S. History for Advanced Placement Teachers - Syllabus 2009