About
I am a scholar of American religion, culture, and history. I finished up my Ph.D. in American Religious Cultures at Emory University this spring and in August I will begin teaching in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.
My work sits at the crossroads of American religious history and religious studies, using the theoretical insights of religious studies to dig deeper into what we mean by “religion” in religious history.
My current book project, Imagining Hindus: India and Religion in Nineteenth Century America, examines cultural constructions of Hinduism in 19th century America. Beginning with American interest in India in the early republic and ending with the World’s Parliament of Religion in 1893, I argue that Hinduism had an impact on American culture earlier than scholars have previously thought and that the ways Americans imagined the Hindu other shaped concepts of what counted as religion in America.
Along with this blog I also post regularly at Religion in American History and contributed to Religion Dispatches.
You can contact me by email: mjaltma@emory.edu
