People

Lauren Horn Griffin

Dr. Lauren Horn Griffin

Assistant Professor 

Religious Studies

Ph.D.: University of California, Santa Barbara (2016)

Email: lhgriffin@lsu.edu

Biography

Lauren Horn Griffin (PhD, University of California Santa Barbara) researches and teaches about religion, technology, media, and nationalism. Her first book, Fabricating Founders in Early Modern England (Brill 2023), showed how confessional debates played a critical role in the development of national identities. Her current project investigates contemporary negotiations of national, post national, religious, and racial identities in Catholic communities online. This project combines insights from science and technology studies, political science, and media studies.

Recent Courses

REL 1000: Religions of the World

REL 2000: What is Religion?

REL 3010: Digital Religion and Popular Culture

REL 3010: Religion and AI

REL 3092: Fundamentalism and Nationalism

REL/HIST 4161: History of Religion in the United States 

Selected Publications

Books

Fabricating Founders: History, Rhetoric, and the Arrival of Christianity in England (Brill, 2023)

(Under Contract, Editor), "Crisis" in the Study of Religion (Equinox, 2024)

Articles & Chapters

 "The Illusion of #RadTrad Identity," American Examples: New Conversations About Religion, Volume Three, ed. Michael Altman (University of Alabama Press, 2023).

 "Mediating Belief: Carl Jung, Online Personality Tests, and Myth as Meaning," Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion: Revisiting Classical Theorists, ed. Vaia Touna and Richard Newton (Bloomsbury, 2022).

 "Alternative World Religions: Teaching a Critical Approach to World Religions with Twine" in EnTwine: A Critical and Creative Companion to Teaching with Twine (Amherst College Press, 2023).

"The Material Production of Otherworldly Citizenship: From Paper to Digital Files to Bodies," in Rebekka King (ed.), Key Categories in the Study of Religion: Contexts and Critiques (Equinox, 2022).

"The Conversion of the North: Regional Antiquarianism and the Negotiation of Allegiances in Early Modern England," Journal of History and Cultures (January 2018).

"Puzzling it Out: Teaching Skills in History Courses with the Jigsaw Technique,"  Perspectives on History (November 2015).

Digital Publications

"The Infant Jesus of Prague and the Catholic Presence on January 6,Uncivil Religion: January 6, 2021 (January 2022)

“Like the Bible? You’ll Love a Let’s Go Brandon T-shirt-- How AI Marketing Shapes Identities” Religion Dispatches

“Your Sun Bread, Yourself: A Little Instagram Battle of Religious Definition,” Studying Religion in Culture (January 2021).

“Trads: Manufacturing Tradition in Catholic Churches in New Orleans,” Religion, Race, and Democracy Lab (June 2023).

Awards and Fellowships

2020 American Examples Working Group (w/ stipend), Henry Luce Foundation

2022 ORED Faculty Travel Grant, LSU

2022 Race, Religion, and Democracy Lab, Summer Institute Fellow (w/ stipend), Henry Luce Foundation

2023 Second Book Institute Fellow (w/ stipend), LSUPu

2023 SEC Travel Grant

2023 Manship Summer Research Grant

2023 Sacred Writes Fellow (w/ stipend), Henry Luce Foundation 

2023 LEH Rebirth Grant for Public Humanities 

2023 Provost's Fund for Faculty Research, LSU