Kristin Kobes Du Mez


Kristin Du Mez, with podcasting mic and earphones on

Education

  • B.A., History and German, Dordt College
  • Ph.D., American History, specialties in women's history and religious history, University of Notre Dame

Biography

I grew up in a small town in northwest Iowa, with a brief stint in Tallahassee, Florida, during my high school years. I then spent a year in Germany as an exchange student before returning to Iowa to attend Dordt College. After graduate school at the University of Notre Dame I spent time at Williams College and at the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center at Mt. Holyoke, before taking up a position here at Calvin. I spend much of my time writing when I’m not wrangling my three kids.

Academic interests

Kristin Du Mez’s research areas focus on the intersection of gender, religion, and politics in recent American history. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (Liveright 2020). Coverage of Jesus and John Wayne can be found in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and on NPR, and also internationally (in Germany, the Netherlands, China, Japan, Brazil, Australia, and in Al Jazeera). She has written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, NBC News, and The Washington Post, among other outlets.

Her first book, A New Gospel for Women: Katharine Bushnell and the Challenge of Christian Feminism (Oxford 2015) traces the remarkable life and innovative theology of Katharine Bushnell (1855-1946), an intrepid social reformer and anti-trafficking activist.

She is currently working on Live Laugh Love, a cultural study of white Christian womanhood.

Kristin Du Mez teaches courses in US women’s history and US social and cultural history, and has enjoyed working with students on historical walking tours of Grand Rapids for the GR Walks app. Topics have included an East Grand Rapids walking tour of Ramona Park, a downtown Grand Rapids historical river walk, and a historical walking tour of beer in Grand Rapids.

For additional information, see kristindumez.com. You can follow Kristin and her research on Twitter and on Facebook, or by subscribing to her newsletter: Du Mez CONNECTIONS | Kristin Du Mez | Substack

Publications

Selected articles and book chapters
  • “Donald Trump and Militant Evangelical Masculinity.” In Evangelicalism: Why They Have Been, Are Now, and Could Be, edited by David Bebbington, George Marsden, and Mark Noll. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2019.
  • “Reorienting American Religious History: The Case of Katharine Bushnell.” In American Evangelicalism: George Marsden and the Shape of American Religious History, edited by Darren Dochuk, Thomas S. Kidd, and Kurt W. Peterson. University of Notre Dame Press, 2014.
  • “Selfishness One Degree Removed: Madeline Southard’s Desacralization of Motherhood and a Tradition of Progressive Methodism.” Priscilla Papers 28, no. 2 (Spring 2014): 17-22.    
  • “Katharine Bushnell” and “Lee Anna Starr.” In Biographical History of Women Biblical Interpreters. Baker Academic Press, 2012.
  • “Leaving Eden: Resurrecting the Work of Katharine Bushnell and Lee Anna Starr.” In Breaking Boundaries: Female Biblical Interpreters who Challenged the Status Quo. T&T Clark, 2010.

Read Kristin Du Mez's posts on Historical Horizons, the history department blog. Du Mez was also a regular contributor to Patheos’ Anxious Bench.

Additional publications, including popular articles and blog posts, can be found on her website.

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