Alison Collis Greene
- PhD, Yale University, 2010
- MA and MPhil, Yale University, 2008
- BA, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2001
On research leave for the 2023-24 academic year.
Dr. Alison Collis Greene teaches United States religious history, with interests in American religions as they relate to politics, wealth and poverty, race and ethnicity, the environment, and the modern rural South.In addition to her role as Director of the Master of Theological Studies program, Greene is an affiliated faculty member in the Department of History at Emory College of Arts and Sciences. She is author of No Depression in Heaven: The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Transformation of Religion in the Delta (Oxford, 2016), as well as a number of essays and articles on modern United States religious history in both scholarly and popular outlets. Greene is a 1996 alumna of YTI at Candler and serves on the YTI Advisory Board. She is also on the editorial board of the Journal of Southern Religion.
Selected Publications
Books
No Depression in Heaven: The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Transformation of Religion in the Delta. Oxford University Press, 2016
Chapters and Articles
"Reckoning with Southern Baptist Histories." Southern Cultures, vol. 25, no. 2. (Fall 2019).
"Religion and the Great Depression." In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, Oxford University Press, April 29, 2019
"The Welfare of Faith." In Religion in the Age of Obama, Bloomsbury, August 23, 2018
"Radical Christianity and Cooperative Economics in the Post World War II South," in Between the Pew and the Picket Line: Christianity and the American Working Class, University of Illinois Press, 2016.
"The Welfare of Faith," in Faith in the New Millennium: The Future of Religion and American Politics, Oxford University Press, 2016.
"'A Divine Revelation?': Southern Churches Respond to the New Deal," in Faithful Republic: Religion and American Politic, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
"The End of `The Protestant Era'?" in Church History, vol. 80, no. 3, Cambridge University Press, September 2011.
"Pine Knot Woman," in The Immanent Frame, February 21, 2018
"The Great Depression and Religion in Mississippi," in Mississippi History Now, April 2017.
"The Real Depression: The Greatest Generation Needed Welfare," in Christian Century, March 02, 2016
"Mississippi: A Historian Challenges H.L. Mencken," in Religion and Politics,October 19, 2012
"Let's Remember History, When Religious Institutions Welcomed Government Support," in Religion and PoliticsJune 04, 2012
Selected Awards
Charles S. Sydnor Award for No Depression in Heaven, Southern Historical Association, 2016
CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for No Depression in Heaven, 2016
Honorable Mention, Deep South Book Prize, for No Depression in Heaven, Francis Somersell Center for the Study of the South, 2016
Humanities Researcher of the Year, College of Arts and Sciences, Mississippi State University, 2017
Best Article of the Year, Mississippi History Now, Mississippi Historical Society, 2018
Fellow, Young Scholars in American Religion Program, Center for Religion and American Culture, Indiana University at Purdue University Indianapolis, 2013-2015
Edwin W. Small Prize for outstanding dissertation in United States history, Yale University, 2011
Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (Woodrow Wilson Foundation), 2009-2010
Louisville Institute Honorary Dissertation Fellowship, 2009-2010
Morehead Scholar, University of North Carolina, 1997-2001
NPR, "America's Top Evangelical Group Is Deciding If They're Further Right Than Trump" (June 15, 2021)
UM News, "Unsnarling U.S. and church racial history" (July 1, 2020)
Monthly Review "Money on the Left" Podcast, "No Depression in Heaven with Alison Collis Greene" (October 15, 2019)
NPR, "Southern Baptist Seminary Confronts History of Slaveholding And 'Deep Racism'" (December 13, 2018)
"'We Didn't Know We Was Poor': Southern Churches, the New Deal, and the Mthy of the Redemptive Depression" - Roetzel Lecture Speaker Series, Institute of Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota, 2018
"The Welfare of Faith" - Religion and Policy Panel, "Religion and Politics in 21st Century America" Conference, Southern Methodist University, November 6, 2014
Selected Courses
U.S. Religion and Politics since the Civil War
Wealth and Poverty in American Religion
MTS Methods and Research Seminar