Teaching Southern Religious History: An Interview with Charles Reagan Wilson
Conducted by Randall J. Stephens
Many scholars study religion in the U.S. South. Few, though, ever get a chance to teach a course on the subject. Not Charles Reagan Wilson. For a number of years he has offered a popular course on religion in the South.
In the Youtube clips embedded below Randall Stephens, editor of the Journal of Southern Religion, interviews Wilson at the American Historical Association’s annual meeting, San Diego, January 2010. Wilson describes his course on southern religious history, curriculum, student projects, the challenges and rewards of teaching southern religion, and more.
Wilson is the Kelly Gene Cook, Sr. professor of history and southern studies at the University of Mississippi. He’s the author of a variety of books and essays, including Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920 (1980; reprint, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009); Judgment and Grace in Dixie: Southern Faiths from Faulkner to Elvis (1995; reprint, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007); and Southern Missions: The Religion of the American South in Global Perspective (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007).