Rate My Professor Catherine Brekus

Catherine Brekus is the Charles Warren Professor of the History of Religion in America at Harvard Divinity School, Chair of the Committee on the Study of Religion in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and an associate member of the Program in American Studies and the Department of History. She holds a BA from Harvard University in the history and literature of England and America and a PhD in American Studies from Yale University. Brekus's research focuses on the relationship between religion and American culture, with particular emphasis on the history of women, gender, Christianity, and the evangelical movement. Her work highlights female preaching in America during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and explores how women's religious experiences reimagine the narrative of American religion. She is currently writing a book about the relationship between American nationalism and Christianity and co-authoring a biography of Sarah Edwards (1710-1758) with Harry S. Stout and Kenneth P. Minkema.

Brekus has produced several acclaimed publications, including Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845 (University of North Carolina Press, 1998), which won the Brewer Prize from the American Society of Church History; The Religious History of American Women: Reimagining the Past (University of North Carolina Press, 2007); American Christianities: A History of Dominance and Diversity, co-edited with W. Clark Gilpin (University of North Carolina Press, 2011); Sarah Osborn’s World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America (Yale University Press, 2013), which received the Aldersgate Prize from Indiana Wesleyan University and the Albert C. Outler Prize from the American Society of Church History; and Sarah Osborn's Collected Writings (Yale University Press, 2017). Her distinguished contributions have been honored with the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the Henry Luce III Faculty Fellowship in Theology, and the Pew Faculty Fellowship in Religion and American History. Brekus has also served as a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians and was named Harvard Divinity School Outstanding Teacher of the Year in 2014-15 and 2018-19.