Colleen McDannell – författare

The specter of polygamy haunts Mormonism. More than a century after the practice was banned, it casts a long shadow that obscures people's perceptions of the lives of today's Latter-day Saint women. Many still see them as second-class citizens, oppressed by the church and their husbands, and forced to stay home and take care of their many children.Sister Saints offers a history of modern Mormon women that takes aim at these stereotypes, showing that their stories are much more complex than previously thought. Women in the Utah territory received the right to vote in 1870—fifty years before the nineteenth amendment—only to have it taken away by the same federal legislation that forced the end of polygamy. Progressive and politically active, Mormon women had a profound impact on public life in the first few decades of the twentieth century. They then turned inward, creating a domestic ideal that shaped Mormon culture for generations. The women's movement of the 1970s sparked a new, vigorous—and hotly contested—Mormon feminism that divided Latter-day Saint women. By the twenty-first century more than half of all Mormons lived outside the United States, and what had once been a small community of pioneer women had grown into a diverse global sisterhood. Colleen McDannell argues that we are on the verge of an era in which women are likely to play a greater role in the Mormon church. Well-educated, outspoken, and deeply committed to their faith, these women are defying labels like liberal and conservative, traditional and modern.This deeply researched and eye-opening book ranges over more than a century of history to tell the stories of extraordinary—and ordinary—Latter-day Saint women with empathy and narrative flair.

The common admission that 'everything I know about religion I learned from the movies' is true for believers as much as for unbelievers. And at the movies, Catholicism is the American religion. As an intensely visual faith with a well-defined ritual and authority structure, Catholicism lends itself to the drama and pageantry of film. Beginning with the 1915 silent movie Regeneration and ending with Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, eleven prominent scholars explore how Catholic characters, spaces, and rituals are represented in cinema. Each of the contributors to Catholics in the Movies has chosen one movie from over one hundred years of moviemaking to discuss what happens when an organized religion - not just Bible stories or spiritual themes - enter into a film. Arranged chronologically, Catholics in the Movies sets the films within a wider historical narrative while providing close readings of critical themes and images that go beyond the conventional. Several chapters focus on the many directors and screenwriters who were raised in Catholic families, and who explore this faith in complex and compelling ways. Authors look at film classics like Going My Way and The Song of Bernadette to reveal how Catholic characters simultaneously reflect outsider status as well as the 'American way-of-life.' They consider the violence of The Godfather and the physicality of The Exorcist not simply as antonyms for religion but as tightly linked to Catholic sensibilities. Lesser known films like Seven Cities of Gold and Santitos are examined for their connection to historical movements like anti-communism and Mexican immigration. Tracing the story of American Catholic history through popular films, Catholics in the Movies should be a valuable resource for anyone interested in American Catholicism and religion and film.

At the movies, catholicism is the American religion. Eleven prominent scholars explore how catholic characteres, spaces and rituals are represented in film. With chapters on movies ranging from Going My Way to Dogma, contributors provide close readings that illuminate critical themes and images as they set the films their historical context.

" . . . wonderfully imaginative and provocative in its interdisciplinary approach to the study of nineteenth-century American religion and women's role within it." —Choice" . . . an important addition to the fields of religious studies, women's history, and American cultural history." —Journal of the American Academy of Religion" . . . a complete and complex portrait of the Christian home." —The Journal of American History

What do Christians believe they will experience after a virtuous life? What will an eternity in the hereafter be like? In this copiously illustrated, lively book, Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang describe and interpret the ways in which believers—from biblical authors to medieval mystics, from Jesus to present-day religious thinkers—have pictured Heaven, not just in doctrine but also in poetry, art, literature, and popular culture. In so doing, they shed new light on both the private and public dimensions of western culture. This second edition includes a substantial new preface relating the book to changing views of life after death in the new century.Praise for the earlier edition:“[A] fascinating new study. . . . It is a rich and provocative subject and the authors use it as a springboard from which to examine shifting attitudes toward man and God, within the Judeo-Christian tradition.”—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times“The next best thing to going.”—Carlin Romano, Philadelphia Inquirer“Heaven: A History offers a whistlestop tour, thoroughly researched and engagingly written, of the extraordinary things Christians and others have believed about life after death. . . . A compendium of fascinating finds from the past.”—John Barton, London Review of Books“A fascinating survey of Western culture and a delightful tour of the histories of art, literature and theology.”—Christian Century“Heaven: A History provides a rich opportunity for theological reflection. This book can help in constructing a language for the hereafter that will encourage the best hopes of the living and, heaven knows, perhaps guide the reader to a vision of eternal bliss.”—St. Anthony Messenger

In the midst of the Great Depression, the American government initiated one of the most ambitious national photographic projects ever undertaken. Such photographers as Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Gordon Parks—all then virtually unknown—were commissioned to chronicle in pictures the economic struggle and social dislocation of the Depression era. They explored every facet of rural life in an effort to document the troubles, as well as the spirit, of the nation. Fanning out across the country, these photographers captured a nation alive with religious faith—from Dust Bowl migrants singing hymns to orthodox Jews praying in rural Connecticut. In Picturing Faith, the preeminent historian of religion Colleen McDannell recounts the history of this extraordinary project, telling the stories of the men and women who participated in it and exploring these little-known images of America.Lavishly illustrated, Picturing Faith teases out the various and conflicting ways that these photographers portrayed American religion and enhances our understanding of how religion was practiced during this critical period of American history.

Religions of the United States in Practice is a rich anthology of primary sources with accompanying essays that examines religious behavior in America. From praying in an early American synagogue to performing Mormon healing rituals to debating cremation, Volume 1 explores faith through action from Colonial times through the nineteenth century. The documents and essays consider the religious practices of average people--praying, singing, healing, teaching, imagining, and persuading. Some documents are formal liturgies while other texts describe more spontaneous religious actions. Because religious practices also take place in the imagination, dreams, visions, and fictional accounts are also included. Accompanying each primary document is an essay that sets the religious practice in its historical and theological context--making this volume ideal for classroom use and accessible to any reader. The introductory essays explain the various meanings of religious practices as lived out in churches and synagogues, in parlors and fields, beside rivers, on lecture platforms, and in the streets.Religions of the United States in Practice offers a sampling of religious perspectives in order to approximate the living texture of popular religious thought and practice in the United States. The history of religion in America is more than the story of institutions and famous people. This anthology presents a more nuanced story composed of the everyday actions and thoughts of lay men and women.