CV

Arthur Remillard

Interim Dean of the School of STEAM

Saint Francis University

Loretto, PA 15931

814-419-5261

aremillard@francis.edu

https://www.arthurremillard.com/

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

Saint Francis University

Interim Dean of the School of STEAM (Spring 2024-present)

Department Chair (Summer 2022-Fall 2023)

Professor of Religious Studies (Spring 2020-present)

Associate Professor of Religious Studies (Spring 2013-Spring 2020)

Assistant Professor of Religious Studies (Fall 2008-Spring 2013)

Director, Center for International Education and Outreach (Fall 2007-Summer 2008)

Director, Catholic Studies at a Distance Program (Fall 2006-Summer 2007)

Adjunct Instructor, Religious Studies (Spring and Summer 2006)

Florida State University: Teaching Assistant (2000-2005)

EDUCATION

Ph.D. (Religion) Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL (2006)

Areas of Concentration: American Religious History, Religion and the American South, Civil Religion, Religion and Sport, Spanish Missions in North America

M.A. (Religion) Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL (2002)

Areas of Concentration: Bioethics, Moral Theology

B.A. (Philosophy) Saint Francis University, Loretto, PA (2000)

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Minor in Compassionate Care

• Founder and director (Spring 2019-present)

Honors Program at Saint Francis University

• Associate Director (Fall 2019-Spring 2024)

Wolf-Kuhn Ethics Institute at Saint Francis University

• Director (Fall 2018-Fall 2022)

Saint Francis University Athletics

• Faculty Athletics Representative (2016-19)

Journal of Southern Religion (http://jsr.fsu.edu)

• Interim Book Review Editor (2017-2018)

• Managing and Book Review Editor (2002-2013)

• Podcast Director (2012-2013)

Marginalia Review of Books (http://themarginaliareview.com/)

• Radio Director (2013-2016)

The Examined Life: An Undergraduate Conference in the Liberal Arts

• Founder and Co-Director (2007-present)

American Academy of Religion

• Steering committee member for “Religion, Sports, and Play” group (2012-2014)

• Co-chair of “Religion, Sports, and Play” group (2014-2019)

Society for Values in Higher Education

• Board of Directors (2013-2016)

Religion in American History blog (http://usreligion.blogspot.com/)

• Contributing Editor (2007-2014)

Manuscript Referee

• Religion and American Culture; Journal of Southern History; Journal of Religion and Popular Culture; Journal of Southern Religion; North Carolina Historical Review; Contemporary Philosophy; Routledge Press; Columbia University Press; InterVarsity Press; University of Tennessee Press; Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal; Louisiana History: The Quarterly Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association

COURSES TAUGHT

• 100 Level: “The Short Stories of Flannery O’Connor”; “Health, Wellness, and Spirituality”; “Franciscan Goals for Today”; “Introduction to Honors”

• 200 Level: “Faith and Franciscanism”; “Discovering Philosophy”; “Religion in the U.S.”; “Interfaith Leadership”

• 300 Level: “World Religions”; “Health Care Ethics”; “Religion in American and West-Central Pennsylvania”; “Compassionate Caregiving”; “Religion and Sports in America”; “Christianity: Ancient Origins, Historical Transitions, Global Transformations”

• 400 Level: “A Global History of Christianity”; “Comparative Religious Ethics”; “The Apocalypse in American Film and Fiction”

PUBLICATIONS

Books

• Bodies in Motion: A Religious History of Sports in America (Oxford University Press, March 2025)

• Gods, Games, and Globalization: New Perspectives in Religion and Sports, Sports and Religion Series (Mercer University Press, 2019) co-edited with Rebecca Alpert

• Southern Civil Religions: Imagining the Good Society in the Post-Reconstruction Era, The New Southern Studies Series (University of Georgia Press, 2011)

• Winner of the 2012 Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Award from the Florida Historical Society

• Reviewed in: Choice; American Historical Review; Southern Jewish History; Journal of Interdisciplinary History; Journal of Southern Religion; Journal of American History; Journal of Southern History; Register of the Kentucky Historical Society; Southern Historian; Journal of African American History

Research Articles

• “Michael Novak’s Seriously Catholic Interpretation of Sports,” The Companion to Christianity and Sport in Europe and North America, eds. Brian Bolt, et al., (Brepols Publishers, forthcoming 2025)

• “Ted Corbitt: The Once Forgotten and Now Remembered Pioneer of American Distance Running,” Religion and Sport in North America: Critical Essays for the 21st Century, eds. Jeffrey Scholes and Randall Balmer (Routledge, 2022), 201-15

• “Regions and Civil Religion(s) in America,” Civil Religion Today: Religion and the American Nation in the Twenty-First Century, eds. Rhys H. Williams, Raymond Haberski Jr., and Phillip Goff (NYU Press, 2021), 76-94

• “‘The Pure of Body are Pure of Soul’: Religion and the Emerging Sports Culture of the New South,” Southern Religions, Southern Cultures: Essays Honoring Charles Reagan Wilson (University Press of Mississippi, 2018), 102-12

• “From Prizefights to Praying Colonels: Civil Religion, Sports, and a New(ish) Direction for the Lost Cause,” Journal of Southern Religion 17 (2015)

• “Playing on Sacred Ground: Uncovering the Religious Dimensions of Athletic Venues around the World,” The Changing World Religion Map, ed. Stanley D. Brunn (Springer, 2014), 2881-2892

• “Movement, Maps, and Wonder: Civil Religious Competition at the Source of the Mississippi River, 1805-1832,” Gods of the Mississippi, ed. Michael Pasquier (Indiana University Press, 2013), 56-73

• “Between Faith and Fistic Battles: Moralists, Enthusiasts, and the Idea of Jack Johnson in the New South,” Perspectives on Religious Studies 39, no. 3 (2012): 219-33

• “From Muscular Christianity to Divine Madness: Sports and/as Religion in America,” Faith in America: Changes, Challenges, and a New Spirituality, ed. Charles H. Lippy (Praeger, 2006), 215-34

• “Holy War on the Football Field: Religion and the Florida State University Mascot Controversy,” Horsehide, Pigskin, Oval Tracks, and Apple Pie: Essays on Sports and American Culture, ed. James Vlasich (McFarland, 2005), 104-18

• Reprinted in, Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Race and Ethnicity, eds., Raymond D’Angelo and Herbert Douglas (McGraw-Hill, 2012 [8th edition])

Book Reviews

• “Let us Go Free”: Slavery and Jesuit Universities in America, by C. Walker Gollar. In Choice Reviews (forthcoming, 2025)

• Strength for the Fight: The Life and Faith of Jackie Robinson, by Gary Scott Smith. In Church History (forthcoming, 2024)

• Passion Plays: How Religion Shaped Sports in North America, by Randall Balmer. In The Journal of American History (March 2024)

• The Imperial Gridiron: Manhood, Civilization, and Football at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. By Matthew Bentley and John Bloom. In The International Journal of Religion and Sports (Fall 2023)

• Religion's Sudden Decline: What's Causing it, and What Comes Next?, by Ronald F. Inglehart . In Choice Reviews (November 2021)

• Strangers and Friends at the Welcome Table: Contemporary Christianties in the American South, by James Hudnut-Beumler. In Tennessee Historical Quarterly (Fall 2020)

• Roman Catholicism in America (2nd Ed), by Chester Gillis. In Choice Reviews (November 2020)

• The Gods of Indian Country: Religion and the Struggle for the American West, by Jennifer Graber. In Ethnohistory (April 2020)

• Cowboy Christians, by Marie W. Dallam. In Western Historical Quarterly (October 2018)

• American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present, by Philip Gorski. In Choice Reviews (October 2017)

• No Depression in Heaven: The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Transformation of Religion in the Delta, by Alison Collis Greene. In Agricultural History (October 2017)

• Frank Merriwell and the Fiction of All-American Boyhood: The Progressive Era Creation of the Schoolboy Sports Story, by Ryan K. Anderson. In The Journal of American History (March 2017)

• The Abbey: A Story of Discovery, by James Martin.  For BookMark, WPSU (January 2016)

• Catholicism Today: An Introduction to the Contemporary Catholic Church, by Evyatar Marienberg. In Choice Reviews (March 2015)

• The Secular Spectacle: Performing Religion in a Southern Town, by Chad E. Seales. In Choice Reviews (July 2014)

• The Last Segregated Hour: The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation, by Stephen R. Haynes. In Church History (May 2014)

• Sister Thorn and Catholic Mysticism in Modern America, by Paula M. Kane. In Choice Reviews (April 2014)

• A Cry for Justice: Daniel Rudd and His Life in Black Catholicism, Journalism, and Activism, 1854-1933, by Gary B. Agee. In Church History (September 2013)

• God and War: American Civil Religion since 1945, by Raymond J. Haberski. For the Society for U.S. Intellectual History blog (October 2012)

• Diverging Loyalties: Baptists in Middle Georgia During the Civil War, by Bruce T. Gourley.  In Civil War Book Review (Summer 2012)

• A History of the Catholic Church in the American South, 1513-1900, by James M. Woods.  In The American Historical Review (December 2012)

• Out of Left Field: Jews and Black Baseball, by Rebecca T. Alpert.  In Religious Studies Review (June 2012)

• Game Day and God: Football, Faith, and Politics in the American South, by Eric Bain-Selbo.  In Religious Studies Review (December 2011)

• Tennis and Philosophy: What the Racket is All About, edited by David Baggett.  In The Journal of Sports History (Summer 2011)

• Kentucky’s Most Hated Man: Charles Chilton Moore and the Blue Grass Blade, by John Sparks.  In The Journal of Southern History (May 2011)

• The Great Match Race: When North Met South in America's First Sports Spectacle, by John Eisenberg.  For BookMark, WPSU (June 2010)

• Rounding the Bases: Baseball and Religion in America, by Joseph L. Price.  In H-American Studies (October 2008)

• Liquor in the Land of the Lost Cause: Southern White Evangelicals and the Prohibition Movement, by Joe L. Coker.  In Church History (December 2008)

• Religion on Our Campuses: A Professor’s Guide to Communities, Conflicts, and Promising Conversations, by Mark U. Edwards, Jr.  In Religious Studies Reviews (June 2008)

• We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition, by John Courtney Murray.  In Religious Studies Reviews (June 2008)

• The South’s Tolerable Alien: Roman Catholics in Alabama and Georgia, 1945-1970, by Andrew S. Moore. In H-Catholic (January 2008)

• Feast of Souls: Indians and Spaniards in the Seventeenth-Century Missions of Florida and New Mexico, by Robert C. Galgano.  In Religious Studies Reviews (October 2007)

• Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture, by David Chidester.  In The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture (Spring 2007)

• The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Volume I: Religion, edited by Samuel S. Hill.  In H-American Studies (December 2006)

• Creating an Old South: Middle Florida’s Plantation Frontier before the Civil War, by Edward E. Baptist.  In H-USA (March 2004)

• The Martyrs of Columbine: Faith and the Politics of Tragedy, by Justin Watson.  In H-USA (December 2003)

• From Season to Season: Sport as America Religion, edited by Joseph L. Price.  In The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture (Fall 2002) 

Encyclopedia Entries

• “Religion and Sports in America,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia, ed. John Corrigan (March 2016)

• “Civil Religion: Christian Contact, Theological Exchanges, and Current Issues” and “Civil Religion: History, Beliefs, and Practices,” Handbook of Religion, ed. Terry C. Muck (Baker Academic, 2014), 643-47, 648-52

• “Bob Hayes” and “Michael Johnson,” American Sports: A History of Icons, Idols and Ideas, ed. Murry Nelson (ABC-CLIO, 2013), 540-41, 633-35  

• “Sports,” The Encyclopedia of Religion in America, eds. Charles H. Lippy and Peter W. Williams (C.Q. Press, 2010), 2153-60

• “Father Divine” and “Mother Ann Lee,” American Countercultures: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, and Radical Ideas in U.S. History, ed. Gina Misiroglu (M.E. Sharpe, 2008)

• “The Moonies,” Postwar America: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural, and Economic History, ed. James Ciment (M.E. Sharpe, 2006)

• “Jeremy Bentham” and “William Ellery Channing,” The Encyclopedia of Protestantism, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand (Routledge, 2004), 215, 373

• “Spanish Colonization in North America” and “The Spanish Empire,” The Encyclopedia of Religious Freedom, ed. Catharine Cookson (Routledge, 2003), 461-65, 465-70

Popular and Online Publications

• “In the Beginning,” Faith and Sports Blog (April 20, 2020)

• “Sir Roger Bannister’s ‘Miracle’ On the Track,” Sightings: Religion in Public Life (March 22, 2018).

• “From Durkheim to Game Day: Sports as a Bridge for Introducing Religious Studies,” Religious Studies News (October 27, 2016)

• “Ten Christian Athletes Who Were Tebowing Before Tebow,” Christianity Today, co-authored with Paul Putz (September 28, 2016)

• “Ethiopia’s Heroic Marathoners from Rome to Rio,” Sacred Matters (September 30, 2016)

• “Protests, Pigskin, and Patriotism: Colin Kaepernick and America’s Civil Religions,” Oxford University Press Blog (September 17, 2016)

• “Tree Huggers, Tree Cutters, and the Challenge of Pope Francis,” Sojourners (July 1, 2015)

• “The Honor of Struggling and Failing,” Christian Century (July 31, 2014)

• “Is Religion Losing Ground to Sports?” Washington Post, co-authored with Chris Beneke (February 2, 2014)

• “Warrior Culture and Muscle Men in the NFL,” Christian Century (Nov 27, 2013)

• “Steelers Nation and the Seriously Religious Side of Football,” Marginalia Review of Books (August 28, 2013)

  • Marginalia’s “Most Read Story of 2013”

• “Anti-Catholicism in Alabama and Florida in the Early Twentieth Century,” Alabama Heritage, no. 105 (2012): 48-50.

• French and Spanish Missions in North America, by John Corrigan and Tracy Leavelle with Arthur Remillard, California Digital Library (University of California, 2005), online at: http://www.ecai.org/na-missions/ 

PRESENTATIONS

• “‘Heroes of the Black World’: Race, Boxing, and Civil Religion(s) in Early America,” Eastern International Regional Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Syracuse, NY (13-15 April 2018)

• “Civil Religions in America,” Society for Values in Higher Education Annual Meeting, Boston, MA (12-16 July 2017)

• “‘Let Us Pray for God’s Blessing on Our Game’: Evangelicals and Sports from Muscular Christianity to Tim Tebow,” Land Center Lecture, Southwest Baptist Seminary, Houston, TX (27 September 2016)

• “Is Civility Possible in the Climate Change ‘Debate’? An Interfaith and Interdisciplinary Panel on Pope Francis and Laudato Si’,” (Organizer and presider), Society for Values in Higher Education, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH (13-17 July 2016)

• “‘The Pure of Body are Pure of Soul’: Religion and the Making of the South's Sports Culture, 1865-1926,” Porter Fortune History Symposium on Southern Religion, University of Mississippi (26-28 February 2015)

• “From Prizefights to Praying Colonels: Civil Religion, Sports, and a New Direction for the Lost Cause,” Southern Intellectual History Circle, Edgefield, South Carolina (19-21 February 2015)

• “Violence in Religion and Sport,” (Respondent) Religion, Sport, and Play group, American Academy of Religion, San Diego, CA (21-24 November 2014)

• “Interfaith and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Pope Francis and Evangelii Gaudium,” (Organizer and presider), Society for Values in Higher Education, University of St. Thomas University, St. Paul, MN (16-20 July, 2014)

• “‘Baton Rouge is Football Crazy’: Religion and the Origins of College Football Mania in the South, 1892-1926,” Invited Lecture, Louisiana State University (10 February 2014)

• “‘Jack Johnson, We Have Waited So Long For You’: Religion, Race, and Boxing in the New South,” Sam Hill Lecture in Southern Religion at the University of North Carolina- Asheville (18 April 2013)

• Panel review of Charles Reagan Wilson’s Flashes of a Southern Spirit: Meanings of the Spirit in the U.S. South, Southeastern Regional of the American Academy of Religion, Greenville, SC (15-17 March 2013)

• “Francis of Assisi, beyond the Birdbath: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Teaching Compassion,” Society for Values in Higher Education, Drew University, Madison, NJ (3-7 August 2012)

• “The ‘Race Problem’ as a ‘Place Problem’: Catholics, Race, and Place in the New South,” American Academy of Religion, San Francisco, CA (19-22 November 2011)

• “Life after Graduate School,” invited talk, Florida State University Graduate Symposium, Tallahassee, FL (18-20 February 2011)

• “Understanding Illness through Stories and Service-Learning,” Southern Alleghenies Learn and Serve Alliance Workshop, Juniata College, Huntington, PA (1 May 2010)

• “Homemaking at the Headwaters: Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s Civil Religious Expedition to the Source of the Mississippi,” American Society of Environmental History, Portland, OR (11-13 March 2010)

• “Coming and Going to the Source: Producing Sacred Space at the Headwaters of the Mississippi River,” American Society of Church History, New York, NY (2-5 January 2009)

• “‘True’ and ‘Un-True’ Americans: Anti-Catholicism, Civil Religion(s), and the Murder of Father James Coyle,” Mid-Atlantic American Academy of Religion Meeting, Baltimore, MD (1-2 March 2007)

• “Images of Jesus in Contemporary America,” invited lecture, Saint Francis University Philosophical Society, Loretto, PA (21 March 2005)

• “‘A Place to Commune with God’: Running as Religion in Contemporary America,” Saint Olaf Conference on Sport and Religion, Northfield, MN (24-26 June 2004)

• “Conflict Competence: Art and the Continual Creation of America’s Civil Religion,” Florida State University Graduate Symposium, Tallahassee, FL (19-20 March 2004)

• “Holy War on the Football Field: Religion and the Native American Mascot Issue at Florida State University,” Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference, New Orleans, LA (17 April 2003) 

• “Ritual Running: An Ethnographic Exploration of Competitive Running and Religious Identity,” The Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture Conference, Pittsburgh, PA (2 November 2002) 

AWARDS

• Francis the Builder Award, Saint Francis University (Fall 2021)

• Selected Participant, Teaching Interfaith Understanding Seminar, Interfaith Youth Core, Chicago, IL (June 17-21, 2018)

• Robert Spivey Excellence in Scholarship Award, Society for Values in Higher Education (July 2017)

• Selected Participant, Faculty Athletics Representative Institute, NCAA, Indianapolis, IN (June 18-20, 2016)

• Inducted into Delta Epsilon Sigma National Scholastic Honor Society (April 2015)

• John F. Coleman Award for Outstanding Teaching and Research, Saint Francis University (April 2012)

• NEH Summer Scholar, “The Ethnohistory of Indians in the American South,” at UNC-Chapel Hill (June 12–July 15, 2011)

• Mary Jo Small Fellowship, Society for Values in Higher Education (July 2010)

• Saint Francis University Faculty Research Grant (Spring 2009)

• Florida State University Travel Grant (November 2002, April 2003, June 2004)

• Florida State University Dissertation Research Grant (February 2004)

• Florida State University Department of Religion Teaching Assistantship (2000-2005)