back Eugene Brian McCarraher
Department of Humanities and
Augustinian Traditions
475 St. Augustine Center
Villanova University
Villanova, PA 19085
Office Phone: 610-519-4796
Home Phone: 610-642-3945
E-mail:
Eugene.mccarraher@villanova.edu
Education
Ph.D., Rutgers University, 1995
Major Field: U. S. cultural and
intellectual history
Minor
Field: Modern European history
Dissertation: The Land of
Unlikeness: A Cultural History of the Social Gospel
in the United States, 1919-1965.
A cultural and
intellectual history of liberal Protestant and
Roman Catholic social
thought and cultural criticism.
Dissertation Committee: Jackson Lears,
director
Philip J. Greven
Leigh Eric Schmidt
(Princeton University)
John W. Chambers
M.A., Villanova University, 1988
Major Field: U. S. history
Thesis: “Daniel Bell and the
Winding Passage
of American Liberalism,
1930-1976.”
Graduate Study, Harvard University, 1981-1982.
Major Field: European history
B. A., Ursinus College, 1981
Major Field: History
Theses: “Economics and Moral Philosophy
in the Enlightenment” and
“The Early Writings of Karl Marx”
Scholarly Publications
Books
Christian Critics: Religion and the Impasse in Modern
American Social Thought
(Cornell University Press, 2000).
In progress: The Enchantments of Mammon: Corporate
Capitalism
and the American Moral Imagination
Articles
“Me, Myself, and Inc.: Social Selfhood and Religious Longing in American Management Theory, 1908-1956,” in Wilfred M. McClay, ed., Footprints in the Carpet: Historical Perspectives on the Human Person (Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming).
“The Teamwork of Sisyphus: Post-Fordist Capitalism, Corporate Culture, and Etzioni’s `Active Society’,” in Wilson Carey McWilliams, ed., The Active Society: Essays in Honor of Amitai Etzioni, Rutgers University Press, forthcoming.
“The Enchanted Earthly City: Augustine, Politics, and the Fetishes of Modernity,” in Kim Paffenroth, Kevin Hughes, and John Doody, eds., Augustine and Politics (Rowman and Littlefield, forthcoming).
“Into Their Labors: Work, Technology, and the Sacramentalism of Dorothy Day,” in William Thorn, Philip Runkel, and Susan Mountin, eds., Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement: Centenary Essays (Marquette University Press, 2001), 306-27.
“Heal Me: `Personality,’ Religion, and The Therapeutic Ethic in Modern America,”
Intellectual History Newsletter 21 (1999), 31-50.
“The Church Irrelevant: Paul Hanly Furfey and the The Fortunes of American
Catholic Radicalism,” Religion and American Culture 7 (Summer 1997), 163-94.
“The Saint in the Gray Flannel Suit: The Professional-Managerial Class, the Figure of `the Layman,’ and American Catholic Religious Culture, 1945-1965,” U.S. Catholic Historian 15 (Summer 1997), 99-118.
Book Reviews in Scholarly Journals
Review of Bryan F. Le Beau, The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O’Hair, American Historical Review, forthcoming.
Review of Kathryn Oberdeck, The Evangelist and the Impresario: Religion, Entertainment, and Cultural Politics in America, 1884-1914, Journal of American History 88 (June 2001), 218-19.
Review of Mark Hulsether, Building a Protestant Left: Christianity and Crisis Magazine, 1941-1993, Journal of American History 86 (March 2000), 1852-53.
Speeches and Scholarly Papers
“Jesus is My CEO: Corporate Business, American Christianity, and Theologies of the Corporation, 1975-2002,” Louisville Institute for the Study of American Religion, January 16, 2003.
“The Enchantments of Mammon: Commodity Fetishism, Christian Theology, and the Economic Imagination,” Conference on Religion and Economics, Baylor University, November 9, 2002.
“Capitalism and the Culture of Death,” Brown University, March 1, 2002.
“Mammon’s Deadly Grin: The New Gospel of Wealth and the Old Gospel of Life,”
Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, University of Notre Dame, November 30, 2001.
“Christianity and the New Urbanism,” Calvin College Seminar in Christian Scholarship, Grand Rapids, MI, July 12, 2001.
“A World Full of Prophets: Populism and Religion in the Work of Christopher Lasch,” American Historical Association, Chicago, January 7, 2000.
“Mandarin of Capital: Peter Drucker as Corporate Intellectual, 1939-1950,” Business History Conference, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, March 8, 1999.
“Heal Me: Re-thinking the Therapeutic in Modern American Culture,” Princeton Center for the Study of American Religion, October 16, 1998.
Debate with Michael Novak, University of Notre Dame, October 6, 1998.
“`They Simply Were Not My People’: Michael Novak, Catholic Social thought, and Post-Industrial Liberalism, 1960-1975,” Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, University of Notre Dame, March 19, 1998.
“Setting the Earth on Fire: Paul Hanly Furfey, Catholic Personalism, and the American Radical Tradition,” American Historical Association, Atlanta, January 6, 1996.
“The Saint in the Gray Flannel Suit: Class, Cultural Hegemony, and the Figure of the Layman in Greeley, Callahan, and Novak,” American Catholic Historical Association, Marquette University, April 8, 1995.
Teaching Experience
Assistant Professor of Humanities,
Department of Humanities and Augustinian Traditions,
Villanova University, 2003-present.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Humanities and Arthur J. Ennis Fellow in the Humanities,
Villanova University, 2000-2003.
Visiting Lecturer,
Department of Religion, Princeton University, Spring 2002.
Visiting Assistant Professor of History,
University of Delaware, 1996-1999.
Teaching Assistant,
Department of History, Rutgers University, 1991-1992.
Teacher, History Department, Germantown Academy, Fort Washington, PA, 1983-1990.
Awards and Fellowships
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipends Review Committee, 2002-2003.
Louisville Institute for the Study of American Religion, Summer 2002 Research Stipend. Research on corporate business literature, project entitled “Jesus is My CEO: Corporate Business, American Christianity, and Theologies of the Corporation, 1975-2002.”
Pew Charitable Trusts, Christian Scholars Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2000-2003. Research on corporate business, management theory, and the creation of selfhood in modern American culture. Wilfred M. McClay, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, director.
Lilly Endowment Project on Lived Theology, 2002-2003. Research on corporate business and religious culture. Charles Marsh, University of Virginia, director.
National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Research Stipend, Summer 2001. Project entitled “The Sage in the Gray Flannel Suit: Corporate Management Theory as Moral Philosophy and Cultural Criticism.”
Excellence Fellowship, Rutgers University, 1990-1994.
Essays and Book Reviews
“`The Most Intolerable of Insults’: Remarks on the American Empire and Christian Infidelity,” in Wes Avram, ed., Anxious about Empire: Theological Essays on the New Global Realities (Brazos Press, forthcoming).
“God Matters,” review of Slavoj Zizek, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity, In These Times, forthcoming.
“In Democracy We Trust,” review of Jason Bivins, The Fracture of Good Order: Christian Antiliberalism and the Challenge to American Politics, Books and Culture, January/February 2004, forthcoming.
“Far from the Middlebrow Crowd,” review of Curtis White, The Middle Mind: Why Americans Don’t Think for Themselves, In These Times, forthcoming.
“Some Things Never Change,” review of Philip Jenkins, The New Anti-Catholicism in America, and Mark Massa, Anti-Catholicism in America, Commonweal, September 12, 2003.
“Regime Change,” review of David Gibson, The Coming Catholic Church, Books and Culture, online version, July 21, 2003.
“Against All Odds,” review of Jackson Lears, Something for Nothing: A Cultural History of Luck in America, In These Times, April 14, 2003.
“Size Matters,” review of Keith Bradsher, High and Mighty: SUVs: The World’s Most Dangerous Vehicle and How They Got That Way, Commonweal , March 28, 2003.
“Still a Good Catholic Boy,” review of Terry Eagleton, The Gatekeeper, In These Times, November 11, 2002.
“God: Half-Off,” review of Michael Budde and Robert Brimlow, Christianity Incorporated, Commonweal, October 28, 2002.
“A Material Girl: The Long Loneliness at 50,” Commonweal, May 3, 2002.
“Little Big Woman,” review of Jean Bethke Elshtain, Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy, In These Times, April 29, 2002.
“Global Mission,” review of Paul Cantor, Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization, Commonweal, February 22, 2002.
“Getting Beyond Choice,” review of Stephen Hart, Cultural Dilemmas of Progressive Politics, Commonweal, October 12, 2001.
“The Devil in the Details,” review of Alain Badiou, Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, In These Times, August 6, 2001.
“Theology on the Barricades,” Commonweal, July 14, 2001.
“Why You Should Vote for Nader,” Commonweal, October 20, 2000.
“All Things New,” review of Slavoj Zizek, The Fragile Absolute: Or, Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Defending?, In These Times, June 20, 2000.
“The Vision Thing,” review of Roberto Unger and Cornel West, The Future of American Progressivism, Andre Delbanco, The Real American Dream, and Richard Rorty, Achieving Our Country and Philosophy and Social Hope, Commonweal, May 19, 2000.
“The Gods Must Be Crazy,” review of Wendy Kaminer, Sleeping With Extraterrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and the Perils of Piety, In These Times, November 14, 1999.
“Left Outside,” review of Ellen Willis, Don’t Think, Smile!: Notes on a Decade of Denial, Commonweal, November 5, 1999.
“Craftsman to Button Pusher,” review of Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism, Commonweal, February 26, 1999.
“Give Me Liberty and Give Me Death,” review of Peter Filene, In the Arms of Others: A Cultural History of the Right to Die in America, In These Times, August 9, 1998.
“Too Hip,” review of Thomas Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism, Commonweal, February 28, 1998.
“Smile When You Say `Laity’,” Commonweal, September 12, 1997.
“Religion at Wholesale Prices,” review of Michael Novak, Business as a Calling, Commonweal, February 28, 1997.
“Elitist Cyberbabble,” review of Lawrence Grossman, The Electronic Republic, and James Pinkerton, What Comes Next, Commonweal, June 1, 1996.
Professional Memberships
American Academy of Religion
American Historical Association
American Studies Association
Organization of American Historians