Randall J. Stephens
Curriculum Vitae

Office: Department of History, Eastern Nazarene College, 23 East Elm Avenue
Quincy, Massachusetts 02170 

phone: (617) 847-5815
email: randall.stephens@enc.edu


EDUCATION 

2003 Ph.D., Phi Beta Kappa, American History
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Dissertation: "The Fire Spreads: The Origins of the Southern Holiness and Pentecostal Movements"
Chair: Bertram Wyatt-Brown
Committee Members: Grant Wacker, Duke University; W. Fitzhugh Brundage, University of North Carolina; David G. Hackett, University of Florida; John Sommerville, University of Florida 

1998 Master of Arts, History 
Emporia State University, Emporia, KS
Graduated summa cum laude

1998 Master of Arts, Theological Studies 
Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, MO 
Graduated magna cum laude 

1995 Bachelor of Arts, History 
MidAmerica Nazarene College, Olathe, KS
Graduated magna cum laude 

AREAS OF EXPERTISE
Late 19th and early 20th Century US History, Cultural History, American Religious History, the Populist Movement, Historical Theology, Gender, American Popular Music
EMPLOYMENT/TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Assistant Professor of History, Eastern Nazarene College (2004-)

University of Florida, History Department, Adjunct Professor (Spring-Summer 2004)

US History to 1877, US History Since 1877
University of Florida, History Department, Teaching Associate
US History Since 1877 (Fall 2003)
Santa Fe Community College, History Department, Adjunct
US History Since 1877 (Fall 2003)
University of Florida, History Department, Teaching Assistant 
US History to 1877 (Spring 2001) 
America in Vietnam (Fall 2000) 
Western Civilization, Middle Ages to the 18th Century (Spring 2000) 
US History Since 1877 (Fall 1999))
Emporia State University, Department of Social Sciences, Teaching Assistant
World Civilization I (Fall 1995, Spring 1996)
World Civilization II (Fall 1995, Spring 1996)
BOOKS: AUTHOR
The Fire Spreads: Holiness and Pentecostalism in the American South (Fall 2007, Harvard University Press)
BOOKS: CO-AUTHOR, EDITOR

The Anointed: American Evangelical Experts, co-authored with Karl Giberson (Under contract with Harvard University Press)

Bibliographic editor for The Columbia Guide to Religion in American History, eds. Paul Harvey and Edward Blum (Forthcoming Columbia University Press).

Editor, Recent Trends in Religious History, part of the series Historians in Conversation: Understanding the Past (Under contract with University of South Carolina Press).

ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS
Peer-Reviewed

Sam Jones' Own Book, 1886. With a new introduction by Randall J. Stephens. Southern Classics Series (Under contract with University of South Carolina Press).

"'There is Magic in Print': The Holiness Pentecostal Press and the Origins of Southern Pentecostalism,” in Southern Crossroads: Perspectives on Southern Religion and Culture (Forthcoming, University of Kentucky Press).

"Interpreting American Pentecostal Origins: Retrospect and Prospect" in Interpreting Denominational History: Perspectives on the Past, Prospects for the Future (Forthcoming, University of Alabama Press).

"'Ohio villains' and ‘pretenders to new revelations': Wesleyan Abolitionists in North Carolina and Virginia, 1847-1857," in a Festschrift for Bertram Wyatt-Brown (Forthcoming, University Press of Florida).

"'There is Magic in Print': The Holiness-Pentecostal Press and the Origins of Southern Pentecostalism," Journal of Southern Religion 5 (2002). 

"The Convergence of Populism, Religion, and the Holiness-Pentecostal Movements: A Review of the Historical Literature," Fides et Historia 32, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 2000): 51-64. 

Not Peer-Reviewed

"Hidden Under a Bushel: Sufjan Stevens and the Problem of Christian Music," with Delvyn Case, Books and Culture (Nov/Dec 2006).

“Pentecost for the Southland,” Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society (Jan/Feb 2008).

"Tell about the South: The 2005 Conference of the St. George Tucker Society," Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society (Sept/Oct 2005).

"Assessing the Roots of American Pentecostalism: A Historiographic Essay," The American Religious Experience (21 April 2000).

INTERVIEWS

An interview with Stephen Prothero on Religious Literacy and American Religious History, Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society (forthcoming).

An interview with Randall Balmer on Religion and the Modern Presidency, Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society (forthcoming).

An interview with Thomas Hine on America in the 1970s, Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society (forthcoming).

An interview with Wayne Flynt on Religion in the South and Southern Religious History, The Journal of Southern Religion (forthcoming).

"Reconstruction and the American West: An Interview with Heather Cox Richardson,"
Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society (Sept/Oct 2007).

"Jamestown Redivivus: An Interview with James P. Horn," Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society (March/April 2007).

"Beyond the Niebuhrs: A Conversation with Robert Orsi on Recent Trends in American Religious History," Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society (July/August 2006).

"Full Gospel Churches and Murder Ballads: An Interview with Steve Haisman on Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus," The Journal of Southern Religion, vol. 9 (2006).

"An Interview with Philip L. Fradkin on Natural Disasters and the Great Quake of 1906," Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society (Nov/Dec 2005).

REVIEWS AND ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES
"Irving Lowery" and "W. E. Fuller," in African American National Biography, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. (Oxford University Press). 

"Assemblies of God," in Mississippi Encyclopedia, eds. Charles Reagan Wilson et al. (Forthcoming, University Press of Mississippi).

"'Confess Your Faults One to Another': Religion and Reform in the Antebellum Era," a review of Michael P. Young's Bearing Witness against Sin: The Evangelical Birth of the American Social Movement, H-SHEAR (December 2007).

Joe Creech, Righteous Indignation: Religion and the Populist Revolution, Journal of Peasant Studies (Forthcoming).

R. G. Robins, A. J. Tomlinson: Plainfolk Modernist, Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture (Forthcoming).

"Christian and Missionary Alliance," "Jones, Charles Price," and "Fire-Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas," in The Encyclopedia of Religion in the South, Revised Edition, eds. Samuel Hill and Charles H. Lippy (June 2005, Mercer University Press).

Tona J. Hangen, Redeeming the Dial: Radio Religion, and Popular Culture in America, Gulf South Historical Review (Spring 2005).

Douglas Carl Abrams, "Conformed to this World." Review of Douglas Carl Abrams, Selling the Old-Time Religion: American Fundamentalists and Mass Culture, 1920-1940, H-South (September 2004).

Deborah Vansau McCauley, Laura A. Porter, and Patricia Parker Brunner, Mountain Holiness: A Photographic Narrative, Religious Studies Review.

"More or Less than Conquerors: The Rise of Southern Gospel." Review of James R. Goff, Close Harmony: A History of Southern Gospel on H-South (August 2002).

Lillian Taiz, Hallelujah Lads and Lassies: Remaking the Salvation Army in America, 1880-1930, Religious Studies Review (July 2002).

Daniel W. Stowell, Rebuilding Zion: The Religious Reconstruction of the South, 1863-1877, Fides Et Historia (Winter/Spring 2002).

Fred Brown and Jeanne McDonald, The Serpent Handlers: Three Families and Their Faith, Southern Historian (Spring 2002).

Barry W. Hamilton, William Baxter Godbey: Itinerant Apostle of the Holiness Movement, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society (Autumn 2001).

Briane Turley, A Wheel within a Wheel: Southern Methodism and the Georgia Holiness Association, Fides Et Historia (Winter/Spring 2001).

Paul Harvey, Redeeming the South: Religious Cultures and Racial Identities among Southern Baptists, 1865-1925, Fides Et Historia (Winter/Spring 2000).

CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION AND LECTURES
2008  "The Politics of Apocalypse: The Politicization of American Pentecostals," Policy History Conference, St. Louis, MO (May 2008)

2008  Invited commentator,
"Discerning the Times," joint meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society and the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Duke University (March 2008).

2007  “Under the Guise of the True Wesleyan Church: Wesleyan Abolitionists and the Sectional Crisis in North Carolina and Virginia,” Southern Historians in New England seminar, Yale University (October 2007)

2007  Invited lecturer, “Religion in American History and Culture: The Pentecostal Example,” English and American Studies Lectures, University of Manchester, UK (April 2007).

2007  “Same as It Ever Was?: Southern Pentecostalism at 100,” The British Association of American Studies Annual Conference, University of Leicester, UK (April 2007).

2006  Invited presenter, "Writing for the Web," Southern Historical Association, Birmingham, AL (November 2006).

2006  Chair of “History and Meaning Revisited,” Conference on Faith and History, Oklahoma Baptist University, Shawnee, OK (September 2006).

2006  Comment for “Rethinking the Bible Belt: Modernization, Culture, and Religious Transformation in Twentieth Century America,” Boston College Conference on the History of Religion, Chestnut Hill, MA (March 2006).

2005  Invited chair, “Loving Segregation to Death: Reverend James Lawson and Nonviolent Direct Action in Moderate Nashville,” Southern Historical Association, Atlanta, GA (November 2005). 

2005  "'The mob was to kill a Wesleyan': Wesleyan Perfectionist Missionaries in Virginia and North Carolina, 1847-1851," Rethinking the History of the American South: A Conference in Honor of BertramWyatt-Brown, Gainesville, FL (October 2005).

2005  "'Jesus is Coming': Premillennialism and the Radicalization of the Southern Holiness Movement, 1896-1906," Presenter, The New England Historical Association, Weston, MA (April 2005). 

2005 Invited commentator on William Clair Turner (Associate Professor of the Practice of Homiletics, Duke University), "'This Is a Holy Church, This Is a Sanctified Church': On Tradition, Reform and Self-Identity Under God Within the United Holy Church of America," The Society For Pentecostal Studies, Virginia Beach, VA (March 2005). 

2004 "Neither Rich nor Poor, Northern nor Southern, Black nor White, Male nor Female: Cultural and Social Patterns of the Late Nineteenth-Century Southern Holiness Movement," The St. George Tucker Society, Augusta, GA (August 2004).

2004  "'Angels' from the North: The South and the Holiness Movement," Presenter, American Society of Church History, Harrisburg, PA (April 2004).

2002 Coordinator under Bertram Wyatt-Brown for the Douglas Southall Freeman and Southern Intellectual History Conferences, University of Richmond, VA.  Helped organize panels, created webpage, attended to conference details. (February 2002).

2001 "Pentecostalism Comes to the South," Presenter, The Southern Historical Association, New Orleans, LA (November 2001).

2001 "The Fire Spreads: The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement and the Origins of Southern Pentecostalism," Presenter, The Society For Pentecostal Studies, Tulsa, OK (March 2001).

2001 "The Fire Spreads: The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement and the Origins of Southern Pentecostalism," Presenter, The Sixth Annual Barnes Club Conference, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA (February 2001). 

AWARDS AND HONORS
2007 Young Scholars in American Religion Fellowship, Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, Indiana University/Purdue University at Indianapolis, 2007-2009

2007 Professional Achievement Award, Eastern Nazarene College

2004 The St. George Tucker Society's Bradford Prize for best dissertation in southern studies

2004 One of fifteen semifinalists for the Allan Nevins Prize for the best dissertation in American history, Society of American Historians

2004 Richard J. Milbauer Dissertation Prize for best dissertation in history, University of Florida 

2004 Elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa

2003 History department nominee for university-wide Graduate Teaching Award, University of Florida 

2003 Journal of Southern Religion's Sam Hill Award

2002-2003 Dissertation Fellowship, Louisville Institute for the Study of Protestantism and American Culture (Funded by the Lilly Endowment)

2001 Finalist, Newcombe Dissertation fellowship, Princeton University

2001 Participant in the Pew Younger Scholars Seminar on the Civil War and Reconstruction, University of Notre Dame

2001 Jack and Celia Proctor Award for best essay on Southern History, University of Florida

2001 Hanger Research Fellowship, University of Florida

2001 Graduate Student Travel Award, University of Florida

1998 Laurence C. Boylan Outstanding Masters Thesis Award, Emporia State University

1994 Elected to Who's Who Among Students in American Colleges and Universities

OTHER EXPERIENCE
2004- Web deisgn, oversight, maintenance:

Eastern Nazarene College (webmaster, September 2006-May 2007)

Journal of Southern Religion


The Historical Society

History Department, Eastern Nazarene College

The Polkinghorne Society

Open Theology and Science


British Abolitionism, Moral Progress, & Big Questions in History, A conference jointly funded by the John Templeton Foundation and the Historical Society, 26-28 April 2007, Crowne Plaza St. James, London

David Brion Davis, "Slavery, Emancipation and Human Progress," a free public lecture, 26 April 2007, Central Hall Westminster, London

Tidal Wave Magazine

2008 Membership Committee, the Southern Historical Association

2007- Contributing editor, Religion and American History blog

2006- Co-editor, Journal of Southern Religion

2004-06 Associate editor, Journal of Southern Religion

2005- Associate editor, Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society

2005- Manuscript reviewer, HarperCollins, Oxford University Press, Harvard University Press, the Journal of Policy History, Wiley-Blackwell,
University of Alabama Press, The Public Historian, The Journal of the Historical Society

2005- Layout and design for the Historical Society's two publications, The Journal of the Historical Society and Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society 

2001-2002 Research Assistant to Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Richard J. Milbauer Professor of History, University of Florida 

2001-2004 Editor, Tidal Wave Magazine (a music, film, and indie-culture publication)

1999 Research Assistant to W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Professor of History, University of Florida

1998-1999 Research Assistant to Robert H. Zieger, Professor of History, University of Florida

1998-2002 Music writer for Skyscraper Magazine (NY), Harp Magazine (MD), Satellite Magazine (FL), Tidal Wave Magazine (FL), and Ink19 (FL)

1996- Member of indie rock outfit Jetenderpaul, which released three full length cds, one e.p., and two 7" records on Velvet Blue Music (Huntington Beach, CA), Burnt Toast Vinyl (Philadelphia, PA), and Hype City Records (Norway). 

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
The American Historical Association
The American Society of Church History
The Conference on Faith and History
The Historical Society
The Organization of American Historians
Southern Intellectual History Circle
The St. George Tucker Society
Phi Alpha Theta
Phi Beta Kappa
The Southern Historical Association
The Wesleyan Theological Society

The James R. Cameron Center for History, Law, & Governrnent  | Eastern Nazarene College | 23 East Elm Avenue  | Quincy, Massachusetts 02170  | Phone: 1-617-745-3000  |  email: r a n d a l l . s t e p h e n s @ e n c . e d u


Site designed by Randall J. Stephens

Maps & Directions