Re-imagining the Midcentury

This roundtable discussion re-examines religion in the mid-twentieth century United States. Histories of this time period have traditionally emphasized a religious boom post-World War II, Cold War anxieties, suburbanization, and “tri-faith” consensus. Our conversation will begin the process of destabilizing these familiar historiographies. Each panelist brings new questions, characters and theoretical frameworks to bear on religion in the mid-twentieth century United States. Topics will include corporate media bureaucracy, Hasidic Jewish migration to the United States, theologies of family planning, disability politics, African decolonization, religion and law, and the Asian American religious left. We seek to add increased depth, detail and variety to histories of religion in the postwar period, while at the same time asking about the extent to which we still live in the Midcentury's world. With a willing and experimental presentism, panelists will think about how postwar formations persist and permutate in the 21st century.