E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Fellowship in Early American Religious Studies Fellow
ajj4y@cms.mail.virginia.edu
"Signs & Wonders: A Political History of American Miracles, 1780-1838"
My project investigates the rise and proliferation of miraculous and supernatural claims in the early American republic. These miraculous claims in turn made political demands—as in the case of Ann Lee, Joseph Smith, Jacob Cochran, Tenskwatawa, and others. Republican authority based on consent and virtue broke down when appeals could be made to higher authorities than the state; legitimate miracles brought with them the approval of the godhead. In a nation where heresy was no longer a civil offense, reports of miracles and powers placed claims of political legitimacy and claims of divine sanction in competition.
Proof and disproof of miracles was therefore a political and practical question, and the resolution of those questions involved the mechanisms of political power: legislation, litigation, and military force. Epistemological battles became literal battles, occasionally with casualties. This examination of six American miracles and their political antecedents and effects explores explore the most critical chapter in the history not only of ecstatic religious groups, the epistemological relationship of religion and democracy, and the limits of civil society.