Lauren Horn Griffin
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Assistant Professor of Religious Studies Jointly Appointed in the Department of History 107 Coates Hall 225-578-2389 |
Professor Griffin studies the intersection of religion, technology, media, and national identity. Her research publications includes Fabricating Founders in Early Modern England (2023), which shows how confessional debates played a critical role in the development of national identities. Combining insights from science and technology studies, political science, and media studies, her current project investigates contemporary negotiations of national, post-national, and religious identities in Catholic communities online.
B.A. in English, University of Oklahoma (2006)
M.T.S. at the Vanderbilt Divinity School (2010)
Ph.D. in Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara (2016)
REL 1000: Religions of the World
REL 2000: What is Religion?
REL 3010: Digital Religion and Popular Culture
REL 3010: Religion and AI
REL/HIST 4161: History of Religion in the United States
Recipient of ATLAS Grant, $50k (2024-25)
Recipient of Provost's Fund for Innovation in Research Grant, LSU (2024)
Recipient of Manship Research Fellowship, LSU (2024)
Recipient of Teaching and AI Grant, LSU (2024)
Wabash Center Fellow, Innovations in Teaching Religious Studies (with honorarium from Lily Endowment, Inc.) (2024)
Recipient of Second Book Institute Fellow (with stipend), LSUPu (2023)
Recipient of SEC Travel Grant (2023)
Recipient of Manship Summer Research Grant (2023)
Sacred Writes Fellow (with stipend), Henry Luce Foundation (2023)
Recipient of LEH Rebirth Grant for Public Humanities, $10k (2023)
Recipient of Provost's Fund, Faculty Travel Grant (2023)
Recipient of Race, Religion, and Democracy Lab, Summer Institute Fellow (with stipend), Henry Luce Foundation (2022)
Recipient of ORED Faculty Travel Grant, LSU (2022)
Recipient of American Examples Working Group (with stipend), Henry Luce Foundation (2020)
Books
(ed.) Discourses of Crisis and the Study of Religion (Equinox, 2025)
Fabricating Founders: History, Rhetoric, and the Arrival of Christianity in England, Supplements to Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 22 (Brill, 2023)
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles and Chapters
“Evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox Uses of Medieval Imagery on Social Media,” in Contemporary Evangelicals and the Crusades, ed. James Tyler Robertson and Taylor Murray (Routledge, forthcoming)
"Alternative World Religions: Teaching a Critical Approach to World Religions with Twine," in EnTwine: A Critical and Creative Companion to Teaching with Twine , ed. Lai-Tze Fan and Emily Murphy (Amherst College Press, forthcoming)
“How #Trad Media Challenge the Current Discourse on Christian Nationalism,” Journal of Religion and Media 23 (2025): 1–24
"The ‘Discipline’ of the Humanities: Religion, Privacy, and Contemporary Nationalist Ideology,” in Discourses of Crisis and the Study of Religion, ed. Lauren Horn Griffin (Equinox, 2025)
"The Illusion of #RadTrad Identity," American Examples: New Conversations About Religion, Volume Three, ed. Michael Altman (University of Alabama Press, 2024), 33-51
"Mediating Belief: Carl Jung, Online Personality Tests, and Myth as Meaning," Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion: Revisiting Classical Theorists, ed. Vaia Touna and Richard Newton (Bloomsbury, 2022), 97-110
"The Material Production of Otherworldly Citizenship: From Paper to Digital Files to Bodies," in Key Categories in the Study of Religion: Contexts and Critiques, ed. Rebekka King (Equinox, 2022), 55-66
"The Conversion of the North: Regional Antiquarianism and the Negotiation of Allegiances in Early Modern England," Journal of History and Cultures (2018)
"Puzzling it Out: Teaching Skills in History Courses with the Jigsaw Technique," Perspectives on History (2015)
Encyclopedia Entries
“Guernsey,” in Encyclopedia of Global Religion, ed. Mark Juergensmeyer and Wade Clark Roof (Sage Publications, 2012), 1:487-88
“New Caledonia,” in Encyclopedia of Global Religion, ed. Mark Juergensmeyer and Wade Clark Roof (Sage Publications, 2012), 2:889-90
“Norfolk Island,” in Encyclopedia of Global Religion, ed. Mark Juergensmeyer and Wade Clark Roof (Sage Publications, 2012), 2:934-35