About

Heather Curtis

Hello and welcome to my website! I am the Warren S. Woodbridge Professor of Religion and Director of the Center for the Humanities at Tufts University, where I teach courses on American Religious History; Religion, Race, and Politics in the United States; and the Global History of Christianity. I also hold appointments in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora; the Department of History; the Civic Studies Program and the International Relations program. An important part of my work is my involvement in the Tufts University Prison Initiative of Tisch College (TUPIT) as a teacher and member of the leadership team.

My research explores how religion has shaped responses to racial injustice, humanitarian disasters, economic crises, and bodily illness from the late-nineteenth century to the present. My most recent book, Holy Humanitarians: American Evangelicals and Global Aid (Harvard University Press, 2018) examines the crucial role popular religious media played in the extension of US philanthropy at home and abroad from the late-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. My award-winning first book Faith in the Great Physician: Suffering and Divine Healing in American Culture, 1860-1900 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007) illumines the connections and tensions among Christian devotional practice, medical science, and the changing meanings of suffering and healing in American history. I am currently at work on a religious biography of Ida B. Wells for the Oxford University Press Spiritual Lives series.

I have also published articles on the global expansion of American evangelicalism, pentecostalism, religion and science, and Christian spirituality in a variety of academic journals, books, and online venues. I recently served as a senior editor for the Oxford Encyclopedia of Religion in America.

My work has been supported by fellowships and grants from the Center for the Study of World Religions and the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University, the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, the Lake Institute on Faith and Giving, the Lilly Endowment, the Louisville Institute, and the Young Scholars in American Religion Program. I received my doctorate in the History of Christianity and American Religion from Harvard University in 2005. I also studied theology at Gordon-Conwell and Princeton Seminaries, and hold a B.A. in Political and Social Thought from the University of Virginia.

When I’m not researching, writing, or teaching, I enjoy watching my sons play soccer and lacrosse; trail-running with my dog; and traveling to favorite places like New York City; Cape May, NJ; and Talloires, France (where Tufts has a European campus).

For a full list of my professional activities, download my c.v.  You can also email me at heather.curtis@tufts.edu or follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Academia.edu.