Lauren Horn GriffinAssociate Chair Assistant Professor of Religious Studies Jointly Appointed in the Department of History 107 Coates Hall 225–578–2389 |
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Professor Griffin studies the intersection of religion, technology, media, and national identity. Her research publications includes Fabricating Founders in Early Modern England (2023), which shows how confessional debates played a critical role in the development of national identities. Combining insights from science and technology studies, political science, and media studies, her current project investigates contemporary negotiations of national, post-national, and religious identities in Catholic communities online. |
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B.A. in English, University of Oklahoma (2006) M.Ed. in Writing Instruction and Technology, University of Oklahoma (2008) M.T.S. at Vanderbilt Divinity School (2010) M.A. in History, University of California, Santa Barbara (2012) Ph.D. in Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara (2016) REL 1000: Religions of the World REL 2000: What is Religion? REL 3010: Digital Religion and Popular Culture REL 3010: Religion and AI REL 4301: Theories of Religion REL/HIST 4161: History of Religion in the United States Recipient of $50,000 ATLAS Grant (2024-25) Recipient of Provost's Fund for Innovation in Research Grant, LSU (2024) Recipient of Manship Research Fellowship, LSU (2024) Recipient of Teaching and AI Grant, LSU (2024) Wabash Center Fellow, Innovations in Teaching Religious Studies (with honorarium from Lily Endowment, Inc.) (2024) Recipient of Second Book Institute Fellow (with stipend), LSU (2023) Recipient of SEC Travel Grant (2023) Recipient of Manship Summer Research Grant (2023) Sacred Writes Fellow (with stipend), Henry Luce Foundation (2023) Recipient of LEH Rebirth Grant for Public Humanities, $10k (2023) Recipient of Provost's Fund, Faculty Travel Grant (2023) Recipient of Race, Religion, and Democracy Lab, Summer Institute Fellow (with stipend), Henry Luce Foundation (2022) Recipient of ORED Faculty Travel Grant, LSU (2022) Recipient of American Examples Working Group (with stipend), Henry Luce Foundation (2020) Books #Trad: Manufacturing Tradition in an Age of Hyperconnectivity (under contract with Oxford University Press) (ed.) Discourses of Crisis and the Study of Religion (Equinox, 2025) Fabricating Founders: History, Rhetoric, and the Arrival of Christianity in England, Supplements to Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 22 (Brill, 2023)
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles and Chapters "AI Bible on Instagram and the Critical Study of Popular Religion" (forthcoming with Bulletin for Religious Studies) "TikTok Refugees, RedNote, and the Crisis of ‘Religion'" (forthcoming in Popular Culture Studies Journal) “Deus Vulture Goes Viral: AI-Generated Crusader Imagery and Evangelicals on Instagram,” in Contemporary Evangelicals and the Crusades, ed. James Tyler Robertson and Taylor Murray (Routledge, forthcoming) “Can AI have bad days?” in AI in 5 Minutes, eds. Nathan Loewen, Lawrence Cappello, Katherine Chiou, and Nathan Loewen (Sheffield: Equinox, forthcoming in 2026) “Platform Capitalism, Subjugated Knowledges, and the Myth of Pre-Mediated Scholarship,” University in Flames: Ecologies of Scholarship in the Study of Religion, ed. Teemu Taira (Sheffield: Equinox, forthcoming in 2026) "Teaching a Critical Approach to World Religions with Twine," in EnTwine: A Critical and Creative Companion to Teaching with Twine, ed. Lai-Tze Fan and Emily Murphy (Amherst College Press, 2025), 165–177 “How #Trad Media Challenge the Current Discourse on Christian Nationalism,” Journal of Religion and Media 23 (2025): 1–24 "The ‘Discipline’ of the Humanities: Religion, Privacy, and Contemporary Nationalist Ideology,” in Discourses of Crisis and the Study of Religion, ed. Lauren Horn Griffin (Equinox, 2025) “Don’t Call It a Crisis/It’s Been Here for Years: The Uses and Abuses of Anomaly,” in Discourses of Crisis and the Study of Religion, ed. Lauren Horn Griffin (Sheffield: Equinox, 2025) “What is Religious Nationalism?” in Religion in 5 Minutes, 2nd ed., ed. Aaron W. Hughes and Russell McCutcheon (Sheffield: Equinox, 2025), 185–189 “Is it true that the English names of the weekdays derive from the names of pre-Christian gods?” in Religion in 5 Minutes, 2nd ed., ed. Aaron W. Hughes and Russell McCutcheon (Sheffield: Equinox, 2025), 152–155 "The Illusion of #RadTrad Identity," American Examples: New Conversations About Religion, Volume Three, ed. Michael Altman (University of Alabama Press, 2024), 33–51 “Carl Jung,” in Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion: Revisiting Classical Theorists, ed. Richard Newton and Vaia Touna (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023), 97–110 "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), 97–110 "The Material Production of Otherworldly Citizenship: From Paper to Digital Files to Bodies," in Key Categories in the Study of Religion: Contexts and Critiques, ed. Rebekka King (Equinox, 2022), 55–66 "The Conversion of the North: Regional Antiquarianism and the Negotiation of Allegiances in Early Modern England," Journal of History and Cultures (2018) "Puzzling it Out: Teaching Skills in History Courses with the Jigsaw Technique," Perspectives on History (2015)
Digital Scholarship “Social Media Influencers and the Rise of a Platform Catholicism,” Political Theology (October 2025) (with Nicole Phillips) “The Coquette Catholic Trend: What can this online aesthetic that rejects the tradwife trend for another “trad” expression of femininity tell us about Gen Z, social media, & religion?,” The Revealer (September 2024) “Louisiana History in Sacred Spaces” (2024) “Trads: Manufacturing Tradition in Catholic Churches in New Orleans,” Religion, Race, and Democracy Lab at the University of Virginia, (June 2023) “The Infant Jesus of Prague and the Catholic Presence on January 6,” Uncivil Religion: January 6, 2021 (Collaboration Between The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama)
Book Reviews and Essays Review of Samuel L. Perry, Religion for Realists: Why We All Need the Scientific Study of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024) for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (forthcoming) “Catholicism and Media,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 91 (2023): 489–93 Review of Kristen Collins, Peter Kidd, and Nancy K. Turner, The St. Albans Psalter: Painting and Prayer in Medieval England (Los Angeles: Getty, 2013), in Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance 45 (2014): 226–27 Review of Anne Jacobson Schutte, By Force & Fear: Taking and Breaking Monastic Vows in Early Modern Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011), Journal of History and Cultures 3 (2013)
Encyclopedia Entries “Guernsey,” in Encyclopedia of Global Religion, ed. Mark Juergensmeyer and Wade Clark Roof (Sage Publications, 2012), 1:487-88 “New Caledonia,” in Encyclopedia of Global Religion, ed. Mark Juergensmeyer and Wade Clark Roof (Sage Publications, 2012), 2:889-90 “Norfolk Island,” in Encyclopedia of Global Religion, ed. Mark Juergensmeyer and Wade Clark Roof (Sage Publications, 2012), 2:934-35
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