Position
Faculty

Title
Associate Professor of Religion

Office Phone
(609) 258-6008

Email
sethp@princeton.edu

Office
249 - 1879 Hall

Office Hours
Field of Study
Religion in America


Bio/Description
Seth Perry?joined the Princeton faculty in 2014. He is interested in American religious history, with a particular focus on print culture and religious authority. Perry’s first book,?Bible Culture and Authority in the Early United States?(Princeton University Press, 2018) explores the performative, rhetorical, and material aspects of bible-based authority in early-national America. His article “Paine Detected?in Mississippi: Slavery, Print Culture, and the Threat of Deism in the Early Republic” appeared in the?William and Mary Quarterly?in April 2021. Perry’s other work includes “The Many Bibles of Joseph Smith: Textual, Prophetic, and Scholarly Authority in Early-National Bible Culture” in the?Journal of the American Academy of Religion?and “Scripture, Time, and Authority among Early Disciples of Christ” in?Church History. Current projects include a biography of Lorenzo Dow, the early-national period’s most famous itinerant preacher (his?article on Dow?appeared in 2015); an article on “scriptural failure”; and a project on animals in early American religious history. Perry’s writing has appeared in?Early American Studies,?the Journal of Scholarly Publishing, the?Chronicle of Higher Education,?Sightings, and the?LA Review of Books. He is an academic advisor in Butler College and serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies for the 2022-2023 academic year.

Selected Publications
“Stop Asking What the Bible Means to the President,”?Sightings?(2020)
“Making Bibles in Early America,”?The Ancient Near East Today?(January 2019).
“Who Do You Think You Are? Reading, Authority, and Book Reviewing,”?The Journal of Scholarly Publishing?(October 2018)
“Paine Day, the Bible, and Motivating Histories,”?The American Age?(January 29, 2018).
“Devout Atheists,”?The Chronicle Review?(February 5, 2017).
“Happy Paine Day,”?The Huffington Post?(Jan 2017)
“Scripture, Time, and Authority among Early Disciples of Christ”?Church History?(Dec 2016)
“The Many Bibles of Joseph Smith: Textual, Prophetic, and Scholarly Authority in Early-National Bible Culture,”?Journal of the American Academy of Religion?(2016)
“Cosmopolite’s Mount Sinai Domains: Lorenzo Dow Dreams of Empire in the Era of Good Feelings,”?Common-place?15:3?(2015)
“A Mother Where?” Review of Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity,?LA Review of Books, April 2015
Video: “25 Years Later: Nathan Hatch’s The Democratization of American Christianity,”?Wake Forest University, February 6, 2015.