Department of Sociology
University of Minnesota
1074 Social Sciences
19th Ave. S.
Minneapolis MN 55401

email: edgell@umn.edu

This site is a gateway for my research, teaching, and related interests (see my C.V.). I am a professor in the sociology department at the University of Minnesota.

I study religion in the United States. My main interest is in how religion shapes moral culture -- ideas of right and wrong, of what is a "good" family, how we think about race and racial inequality, or about good citizenship. My recent work looks at religion and family. How have religious communities adapted to rapid and fundamental changes in family life? How does a person's family context shape the way she thinks about -- or participates in -- a religious community? I've also been working on a project on religion and race in the U.S. -- how we come to have, and value, a sense of religious or racial identity, and how Americans think about religious and racial diversity. These projects have allowed me to continue to work on the "big questions" that have motivated my research since graduate school:

How does religion shape the way we think about "the good" in public and private life?

When and how and why is religion powerful? When does it shape individual lives, local communities, our laws and institutions, and national debates?

How does religion bring people together in our society, and when does it reinforce the boundaries that separate us?

Recently, I've explored these issues in a review of Daniel Dennet's book Breaking the Spell for Contexts, and in an entry on religion in the current Presidential race for SSRC's religion blog, "The Immanent Frame."

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For me, being a professor in a state University means being part of the community. I live in Minneapolis, and like spending time in the Warehouse District and along the Mississippi River. I'm the proud owner of Max, a tabby cat who, thanks to a recent diet, is now quite healthy. I enjoy being part of a book group and a theater group (theater-going, not acting), and getting out to the many state parks and natural areas nearby.

I like all kinds of travel, including poking around backroads in Minnesota, which is where I got this shot of the bluffs near Redwing last October . . .

And nearby, which is where I got this shot with dusk coming on in the Badlands . . .

Racial and Religious Diversity in the U.S.

I am working on the American Mosaic project, a study of how racial and religious identities influence conceptions of citizenship and American identity with colleagues Joseph Gerteis and Douglas Hartmann. You can read about one of our papers -- a study of Americans' attitudes toward atheists -- in the Star Tribune or in Newsweek or The Wilson Quaterly.

Recently, there was an interesting article in Science about religions and the origins of pro-social behavior that cited our AMP work. Check it out here.

Religion and Family

The first is a study of how congregations have adapted to changes in work and family. What model of “the family�? are congregations organized around? What moral discourses about family life do they promote? How do religious institutions fit – or not fit - with contemporary men’s and women’s lives after a period of rapid social change in work and family?

Click here to read an interview transcript describing this research; the interview was used as background for two episodes of Religion and Ethics Newsweekly (Oct. 28 and Nov. 18, 2005.) You can also listen to an interview given on Midmorning with Kerri Miller (Dec. 29, 2005), or read about this work in CLA Today or the Star Tribune.

New Projects

Religion and Rationality -- the Formation of Legal and Scientific Consciousness

Mainstream American religion is organized around two imperatives – to do “what is right,�? and to do “what is caring.�? And yet some would argue that late modernity is pervaded by a kind of rational-legal logic that underpins the market, the law, the state, and science.

In such a context, there are elaborate demands placed on individuals to construct the self as a rational, competent social agent. How do religious communities and institutions provide individuals with the tools to understand and act within the highly rationalized institutions that shape late modern life?

I am planning a collaborative project with my colleague at the University of Minnesota, Kathy Hull, that will focus on the relationship between religious belief and the formation of scientific and legal consciousness. How do religious beliefs shape what is understood as a “legal�? issue and views of the authority or legitimacy of the law? How do people reconcile religious beliefs with secular law when these appear to conflict? How do people use religious values to guide or justify their political and legal views in the context of a socially sanctioned ideology of the separation of church and state? And to what extent are the views of everyday religious believers influenced by the discourses of organizations and interest groups that address legal questions from an explicitly religious perspective? We will also ask how religion shapes scientific consciousness, including knowledge about and attitudes toward such issues as environmental management (e.g. biodiversity, recycling, sustainable agriculture) and genetics (human cloning, the choice of personality and physical traits for one’s children)? When presented with vignettes which dramatize the need to make a choice regarding one of these issues, how does religion shape both the individual’s understanding of the science involved and their narrative of the appropriate relationship between science and social policy?

To see a list of publications . . .

My C.V.

For a general introduction to a wide variety of faith traditions and some good commentary, see Belief Net

There are two good blogs that I visit a lot. One is The Immanent Frame, sponsored by SSRC -- it's intellectual, interdisciplinary, but directed to the "general educated reader."

Religion in American History is also directed toward the general educated reader but a very different and more accessible style of commentary.

For data and research ideas, see:

American Religion Data Archive

The Material History of American Religion Project

The Pluralism Project

Public Radio and TV sources:

Religion and Ethics Newsweekly

Speaking of Faith

Sunday on BBC

Sociology and Related Links:

American Sociological Association

ASA Culture Section

Midwest Sociological Society

SOC 4309 -- Religion and Public Life in the U.S.
Click here for the syllabus.

SOC 8821 -- Research Practicum
Go to the Class Website.

SOC 3701 -- Social Theory
Go to the Class Website

SOC8790 -- Graduate Seminar, Sociology of Religion
Click here for the syllabus.

Resources for Students, Staff, and Professors at the University of Minnesota

The University provides support services to meet a variety of teaching- and learning-related needs of students, faculty, and staff.

The Mental Health Clinic at Boynton Health Service is available to students who have paid the Student Services Fee (http://www.bhs.umn.edu/services/mentalhealth.htm). The Mental Health Clinic provides phone and walk-in assessment on an urgent basis, as well as scheduled medication evaluations and management, chemical health assessment and counseling, and individual, couples, and group therapy. Additional resources for the management of stress are available through the Health Promotion Department at Boynton Health Service.

University Counseling & Consulting Services (http://www.ucs.umn.edu/) provides confidential counseling programs with professional counselors who can help students address academic stresses, personal and relationship concerns, or feelings of anxiety or depression. Walk in counseling is available as is consultation for faculty and staff who are concerned about a student.

Disability Services (http://ds.umn.edu) provides assistance with academic accommodations for students with diagnosed, severe, and persistent mental health conditions. Consultation and problem-solving regarding disability issues is available for faculty, staff, and supervisors.

The "Assisting Students in Distress" (http://www.ucs.umn.edu/help/) website provides advice for faculty and staff to use when assisting students who are experiencing distress due to a variety of issues.

The "Understanding Today's Student" (http://www.osa.umn.edu/resources/index.html) website contains a list of resources for faculty and staff which provides advice for faculty and staff who encounter students who may be experiencing a variety of mental health challenges, including depression.

The Center for Teaching and Learning (http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/) provides a number of workshops and programs which are designed to help teaching assistants and faculty to deal with a variety of classroom situations, including those related to students who may have a mental illness or disability.

The Writing Center provides free writing instruction for all University of Minnesota students – graduate and undergraduate – at all stages of the writing process, through one-on-one sessions with trained writing teachers. Contact information: 306B Lind Hall, 625-1893 (http://writing.umn.edu/sws/index.htm).