Stephen Marini

Stephen Marini is the the Elisabeth Luce Moore professor of religion at Wellesley College. Trained in history at Dickinson College (A.B. Summa, 1968) and theology at the University of Chicago (Rockefeller Fellow, 1968-69), he earned a Ph.D. in the study of religion at Harvard University in 1976 with specialization in American religious history. After a brief appointment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1974-1976), he has taught at Wellesley since 1976, offering a wide range of courses in the fields of American Religion and Ethics. He has also served the College as director of Co-Curricular Activities (1978-79) and director of American Studies (1980-1985), and was the first director of the Peace Studies Program. He has also served as chairman of the Religion Department.

Concurrently with his Wellesley appointment, Professor Marini has held visiting positions at graduate theological faculties in the Boston area, including Weston Jesuit Theological School (1978-1998), Andover Newton Theological School (1988-2000) and Harvard Divinity School (1996). In spring 2001 he taught full-time as professor of religion and literature at Yale Divinity School/Yale Institute of Sacred Music.

Professor Marini's research interests concentrate in two areas, religion in Revolutionary America and the sacred arts in America. He has received two 2007-2008 research fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and the American Antiquarian Society/National Endowment for the Humanities (AAS/NEH), to study the depth and breadth of religion in the United States during Revolutionary War times. Through his research, Marini will produce a book with the working title American Reformation: Religious Cultures of Revolutionary America. He will write what he calls “the first comprehensive treatment of the changing religious culture of the Revolutionary Period, incorporating the beliefs, institutions, rituals, moral and spiritual teachings of every significant American religious community, including crucial but long-neglected regional movements.”

He is the author of Radical Sects of Revolutionary New England (Harvard University Press, 1982/1988) and Sacred Song in America: Religion, Music, and Public Culture (University of Illinois Press, 2003), as well as nmerous scholarly articles and reviews. His projects include an edition of the 250 most popular American Protestant hymns as determined by a 105,000-record database compiled by Wellesley students.

Professor Marini's scholarly work has been supported by seven major research fellowships. His work on religion in Revolutionary America has received three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1987, 1988-89, 1993) as well as a 1999-2000 Earhart Foundation Research Fellowship. His research on American Protestant hymnody has been supported by a 1997-2001 Lilly Endowment grant including a 1998 research fellowship.

Professor Marini is deeply engaged in teaching as well as research. He won Wellesley's Pinanski Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 1991 and was named Chairman's Prize Lecturer of the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1989. While serving as New England regional president of the American Academy of Religion in 1992-93 he designed and conducted a successful summer program for young college teachers in religious studies with support from the Lilly Endowment.

Professor Marini is also founder and singing master of Norumbega Harmony, an internationally acclaimed choral ensemble specializing in early American psalmody and hymnody. The group, originally organized to sing at Wellesley College chapel services, was founded in 1976. Norumbega has performed at major colleges, universities, libraries and historical societies throughout New England and has issued recordings including Sing and Joyful Be: Early American Hymns and Anthems (1989), Shaker Songs: Come to Zion (1992) and Sweet Seraphic Fire (2005) . Professor Marini has also worked on documentary films, serving as principal consultant for Ken Burns's PBS documentary The Shakers: Hands to Work and Hearts to God (1984) as well as consulting and appearing on screen in documentaries for the BBC and PBS Frontline. His other professional activities include national leadership roles with the American Academy of Religion and the American Society of Church History and frequent participation in conferences sponsored by the Liberty Fund.

Profile last updated: 9/07