David Morgan
Professor of Art, Art History and Visual Studies
Education
Ph.D., University of Chicago 1990
M.A., University of Arizona 1984
B.A., Concordia College 1980
Overview
David Morgan is Professor of Religious Studies with a secondary appointment in the Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies at Duke. He chaired the Department of Religious Studies from 2013 to 2019. Morgan received the Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1990. He has published several books and dozens of essays on the history of religious visual culture, on art history and critical theory, and on religion and media. Images at Work: The Material Culture of Enchantment, was published in 2018 by Oxford University Press. The Forge of Vision: A Visual History of Modern Christianity, based on the 2012 Cadbury Lectures delivered at the University of Birmingham, UK, appeared in 2015 from the University of California Press. Previous books include The Embodied Eye: Religious Visual Culture and the Social Life of Feeling (California, 2012), The Lure of Images: A History of Religion and Visual Media in America (Routledge, 2007) and two that he edited and contributed to: Religion and Material Culture: The Matter of Belief (Routledge, 2010) and Key Words in Religion, Media, and Culture (Routledge, 2008). Earlier works: The Sacred Gaze (California, 2005), Protestants and Pictures (Oxford, 1999), and Visual Piety (University of California Press, 1998). Morgan is co-founder and co-editor of the international scholarly journal, Material Religion, and co-editor of a book series entitled "Bloomsbury Studies in Material Religion," published by Bloomsbury, London. He is currently at work on a new book under contract with the University of North Carolina Press, entitled "The Thing about Religion: An Introduction to Studying the Materiality of Belief."
Expertise
History of religious visual culture, art history and critical theory, religion and mediaContact Information
Department of Religious Studies, Durham, NC 27708
Box 90964, Durham, NC 27708-0964
(919) 660-3555
Links
Projects
Morgan, David, and Sally M. Promey. Exhibiting the Visual Culture of American Religions. Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso University, 2000.
Morgan, David. Protestants and Pictures: Religion, Visual Culture, and the Age of American Mass Production. 1999.
Morgan, David. Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images. 1998.
Morgan, D., editor. Icons of American Protestantism. Yale University Press, 1996.
Morgan, D., et al., editors. The Long Shadow of Vatican II. Authority, Faith, and Church since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).
Pages
Morgan, David. “Finding Fabiola.” Media and Culture: A Reader, edited by Gordon Lynch and Jolyon Mitchell, Routledge, 2011, pp. 171–81.
Morgan, David. “The Material Culture of Lived Religion: Visuality and Embodiment.” Mind and Matter, edited by Johanna Vakkari, Society of Art History, 2010, pp. 14–31.
Morgan, David. “Image, Art and Inspiration in Modern Apparitions.” Looking Beyond: Images, Dreams, and Insights in Medieval Art and History, edited by Colum Hourihane, Index of Christian Art, 2010, pp. 265–82.
Morgan, David. “Seeing Nationhood: Images of American Identity.” Powers: Religion as a Social and Spiritual Force, edited by Meerten ter Borg and Jan Willem van Henten, Fordham University Press, 2010, pp. 81–102.
Morgan, David. “American Holy Land: Tissot in the National Context.” Prodigal Son: James Tissot and the “Life of Christ,” edited by Judith Dolkart, Brooklyn Museum, 2009, p. pp.48-65.
Morgan, David. “Painting as Visual Evidence.” Using Visual Evidence, edited by Richard Howells and Robert Matson, Open University Press, 2009, p. pp.8-23.
Morgan, David. “Aura and the Inversion of Marian Pilgrimage: Fatima and Her Statues.” Moved By Mary: Pilgrimage in the Modern World, edited by Jansen Hermkens and Jansen Notermans, 2009, p. pp.49-65.
Morgan, D. Introduction: Religion, media, culture: The shape of the field. 2008, pp. 1–19. Scopus, doi:10.4324/9780203894071. Full Text
Morgan, D. “Image.” Key Words in Religion, Media and Culture, 2008, pp. 96–110. Scopus, doi:10.4324/9780203894071. Full Text
Morgan, D. “Images of the Passion and the History of Protestant Visual Piety in America.” The Passion Story: From Visual Representation to Social Drama, edited by M. Kupfer, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008, pp. 131–45.
Pages
Morgan, David. “Sound and Space in Renaissance Venice: Architecture, Music, Acoustics. By Deborah Howard and Laura Moretti. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010. xv + 368 pp. $55.00 cloth..” Church History, vol. 79, no. 4, Cambridge University Press (CUP), Dec. 2010, pp. 922–24. Crossref, doi:10.1017/s0009640710001241. Full Text Open Access Copy
Morgan, David. “Imaginary Friends: Representing Quakers in American Culture, 1650-1950.” Church History, vol. 79, no. 2, June 2010, pp. 483–85. Manual, doi:10.1017/S0009640710000375. Full Text Open Access Copy
Morgan, David. “God's Strange Work: William Miller and the End of the World.” Journal of the Early Republic, vol. 29, no. 3, 2009, pp. 538–43.
Morgan, David. “Religion and the Making of Nat Turner's Virginia: Baptist Community and Conflict, 1740-1840.” Journal of the Early Republic, vol. 29, no. 3, 2009, pp. 538–43.
Morgan, David. “Bodies of Belief: Baptist Community in Early America.” Journal of the Early Republic, vol. 29, no. 3, 2009, pp. 538–43.
Morgan, David. “Our Distance from God: Studies of the Divine and the Mundane in Western Art and Music.” The American Historical Review, vol. 113, no. 5, Dec. 2008, pp. 1478–1478. Manual, doi:10.1086/ahr.113.5.1478. Full Text
Morgan, David. “Seeing Things: Deepening Relations with Visual Artefacts.” Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief, vol. 4, no. 2, 1 July 2008, pp. 237–38. Manual, doi:10.2752/175183408X328389. Full Text
Morgan, David. “[Book Review: The Internet and the Madonna: Religious Visionary Experience on the Web].” The Journal of Religion, vol. 86, no. 3, July 2006, pp. 509–10. Manual, doi:10.1086/507752. Full Text
Morgan, David. “Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture. By David Chidester. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. xii + 294 pp. $50.00 cloth; $19.95 paper..” Church History, vol. 74, no. 04, Dec. 2005, pp. 897–897. Manual, doi:10.1017/S0009640700101295. Full Text
Morgan, David, and Paul Eli Ivey. “Prayers in Stone: Christian Science Architecture in the United States, 1894-1930.” The Journal of American History, vol. 88, no. 1, June 2001, pp. 217–217. Manual, doi:10.2307/2674978. Full Text
Pages
Morgan, David. “Religious Objects in Museums: Private Lives and Public Duties.” Journal of Contemporary Religion, vol. 29, no. 2, Informa UK Limited, May 2014, pp. 359–60. Crossref, doi:10.1080/13537903.2014.903680. Full Text Open Access Copy
Morgan, David. “The Ecology of Images: Seeing and the Study of Religion.” Religion and Society, vol. 5, no. 1, Berghahn Books, Jan. 2014. Crossref, doi:10.3167/arrs.2014.050106. Full Text Open Access Copy
Meyer, B., et al. “Material religion's first decade.” Material Religion, vol. 10, no. 1, Jan. 2014, pp. 105–10. Scopus, doi:10.2752/175183414X13909887177628. Full Text
Morgan, D. “Religion and media: A critical review of recent developments.” Critical Research on Religion, vol. 1, no. 3, Dec. 2013, pp. 347–56. Scopus, doi:10.1177/2050303213506476. Full Text Open Access Copy
Morgan, David. “Religion and Media: A Critical Review of Recent Developments.” Critical Research on Religion: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 1, Dec. 2013, pp. 47–56. Open Access Copy
Morgan, D. “Mediation or mediatisation: The history of media in the study of religion.” Culture and Religion, vol. 12, no. 2, June 2011, pp. 137–52. Scopus, doi:10.1080/14755610.2011.579716. Full Text Open Access Copy
Meyer, B., et al. “Introduction: Key words in material religion.” Material Religion, vol. 7, no. 1, Mar. 2011, pp. 4–9. Scopus, doi:10.2752/175183411X12968355481737. Full Text Open Access Copy
Morgan, David. “Thing.” Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief, vol. 7, no. 1, Mar. 2011, pp. 140–46. Manual, doi:10.2752/175183411X12968355482411. Full Text Open Access Copy
Morgan, David. “The Emotional Technology of Evangelicalism.” American Art, vol. 25, 2011, pp. 13–15.
Morgan, David. “The look of sympathy: religion, visual culture, and the social life of feeling.” Material Religion, vol. 5, no. 2, Informa UK Limited, July 2009, pp. 132–54. Crossref, doi:10.2752/174322009x12448040551567. Full Text
Pages
Morgan, David. “The vicissitudes of seeing: Iconoclasm and idolatry.” Religion, vol. 33, no. 2, Apr. 2003, pp. 170–80. Manual, doi:10.1016/S0048-721X(03)00046-0. Full Text
Morgan, D. “Spirit and Medium: The Video Art of Bill Viola.” Image, vol. 26, 2000.
Morgan, D. “Ambiguous Icons: The Art of Ed Paschke.” Image, vol. 17, 1997, pp. 31–44.
Morgan, D. “Empathy and the Experience of ‘Otherness’ in Pechstein’s Depictions of Women: The Expressionist Search for Immediacy.” The Smart Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 4, University of Chicago Press, 1993, pp. 12–22.
Morgan, D. “Sallman’s Head of Christ: The History of an Image.” The Christian Century, vol. 109, 7 Oct. 1992, pp. 868–70.
Morgan, D. “The Allure of Electronic Media and the Study of Religion.” Religion and American Culture, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 7–13.
Morgan, D. Screen Media and Public Reflection about Religion in the College Classroom. The Multifaith Media Project, The Hartley Film Foundation and Auburn Theological Seminary’s Center for Multifaith Education.
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Fellowships, Supported Research, & Other Grants
Research & Travel Grant awarded by Stichting Porticus, Amsterdam (2004 to 2005)
NEH Humanities Fellowship awarded by National Endowment for the Humanities (2001 to 2002)
Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Art and Humanities awarded by J. Paul Getty (1996 to 1997)
Pew Postdoctoral Fellowship in Religion and American History awarded by Yale University (1994 to 1995)