Silverstein Forum, Stiteler Hall First Floor (Accessibility)
Free and Open to the Public / Refreshments Served

Discussants: MATTHEW LASSITER (University of Michigan), 
LEO RIBUFFO (George Washington University), and
JONATHAN ZIMMERMAN (Penn GSE)

All attendess are encouraged to read a sample chapter of
Dr. Schultz's book manuscript, available here.

Garden of the Gods: Colorado Springs and American Evangelicalism explains how Colorado Springs, Colorado became the capital city of evangelical Christianity in the United States. Evangelicals sought to transform the city into a Christian utopia; their efforts had national repercussions, as Colorado Springs became a model for the “culture wars” of the 1980s and ‘90s. Garden of the Gods shows how evangelical Christianity converged with free-market capitalism and the warfare state to transform a once-sleepy resort town into “Jesus Springs.” 

WILLIAM SCHULTZ is an historian of the modern United States, with a focus on the relationship between religion and politics. Schultz earned his Ph.D. at Princeton University and his B.A. in History and Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

MATTHEW D. LASSITER is an associate professor of history and of urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan, where he teaches courses about modern U.S. history, urban/suburban history, political history, and the wars on crime and drugs. He is the author of The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South (2006), winner of the Southern Regional Council’s Lillian Smith Book Award. His Journal of Urban History article, “The Suburban Origins of ‘Color-Blind’ Conservatism: Middle-Class Consciousness in the Charlotte Busing Crisis,” was republished in The Best American History Essays 2006 (2006). He is also a coeditor of The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism (2010) and The Moderates’ Dilemma: Massive Resistance to School Desegregation in Virginia (1998). His current book project is “The Suburban Crisis: The Pursuit and Defense of the American Dream.”

LEO P. RIBUFFO specializes in 20th century US history and American intellectual history. He is currently writing The Limits of Moderation: Jimmy Carter and the Ironies of American Liberalism, which interprets Jimmy Carter's presidency in broad social and cultural context. based on extensive use of archival material at his presidential library, including recently declassified documents relating to foreign policy and defense. He has taught in China and lectured in Japan, Mexico, Germany, India, Nigeria, and the Republic of Korea.

A former Peace Corps volunteer and public school social studies teacher, JONATHAN ZIMMERMAN holds a Ph.D. in history from the Johns Hopkins University. His scholarship has focused broadly on the ways that different peoples have imagined and debated education across time and space. He has authored books about sex and alcohol education, history and religion in the curriculum, Americans who taught overseas, and historical memory in public schooling. His most recent work examines campus politics in the United States, including controversies over diversity, sexual assault, and “political correctness.”