On November 3, 2012, at 7:00 pm, Dr. Eileen Luhr, Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Long Beach, will present her lecture, “Witnessing Suburbia: Conservative Politics and Suburban Popular Culture.”

Professor Luhr’s research interest include cultural and religious history, politics, and modern United States history.  Her first book, Witnessing Suburbia (University of California Press) explored the intersection of conservatism, religion, and suburbanization by demonstrating the ways in which conservative religious beliefs helped reshape the political and cultural landscape of the late twentieth century.

Presented just three days before the 2012 Presidential election in which voter’s religious beliefs will effect their vote, Professor Luhr’s November 3rd lecture will draw from this book and discuss how suburbanization (that is, the movement of the populace into the suburbs) affected religious denominations, belief systems, worship practices, church architecture, and Americans’ understanding of the relationship between religion and society.  The lecture will show how the rise of the American conservative movement rested in the post-WWII sunbelt migrations that made middle-class homeownership the central focus and emotional core of American culture and society.  The lecture will argue that the twin processes of the suburbanization of evangelicalism and the “Christianization” of popular culture combined to advance conservative politics grounded in the coalescence of possessive individualism and home-centered “traditional values.”

Continuing to build upon the recent interest historians have expressed in how religious beliefs adapt to social, cultural, and economic developments, Luhr’s new project, Pilgrim’s Progress, examines the relationship between globalization and American religious innovation and experimentation.

This event has received funding from the Utah Humanities Council. The Utah Humanities Council promotes history and heritage, literature and literacy, and public discussion of issues important to our communities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this website or the lectures do not necessarily represent those of the Utah Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.