Guest Speaker to Address Apologetics, Class Inequality, and Study of Religion on Nov. 8

Religious Studies Professor Sean McCloud to speak at Wooster

WOOSTER, Ohio — Sean McCloud, associate professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, will present "Blessing the Rich, Damning the Poor, and Forgetting the Social: Divine Apologetics for Class Inequality and the Study of Religion in a Neoliberal Era" on Thursday, Nov. 8, at The College of Wooster. The lecture, which is free and open to the public will be held in Lean Lecture Room of Wishart Hall (303 E. University St.), beginning at 7 p.m.

McCloud teaches, researches, and writes about American religions and religion and culture. His research and teaching interests focus on the primary materials of American religions, the cultural history of the study of religion in the United States, and theories and methods for the study of religions. He is the author of Making the American Religious Fringe: Exotics, Subversives, and Journalists, 1955-93 (2004) and Divine Hierarchies: Class in American Religion and Religious Studies (2007). He is also a co-editor of Religion and Class in America: Culture, History, and Politics (2009). His current book project, titled American Possessions: Consuming Religions and Fighting Demons in the Contemporary United States, examines the nation’s fixation on consumer goods and spirit entities as well as the Third Wave movement and its practice of spiritual warfare.

McCloud’s lecture is sponsored by the departments of religious studies, history, and political science, with support from the Center for Diversity and Global Engagement and the Cultural Events Committee.

Additional information is available by phone (330-263-2098) or e-mail.