Abram Van Engen

Stanley Elkin Professor in the Humanities, Professor and Chair of English in Arts & Sciences

Abram Van Engen is professor of English and an affiliate faculty member in the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis.  His research, writing, and teaching focus on religion and literature, early American culture, and the literature and culture of the Puritans.  Van Engen’s first book, Sympathetic Puritans: Calvinist Fellow Feeling in Early New England (Oxford University Press, 2015) explored the broad role of sympathy in Puritan theology and its ramifications in early American literature.  His second book, City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism (Yale University Press), explains how the Pilgrims and Puritans have been remembered and remade in American culture. It is a study of collective memory, nationalism, history, religion, and literature tracking how the United States came to be thought of as a “city on a hill.”

Beyond these books, Van Engen’s work has appeared in multiple journals and online at Salon.com, The Conversation, Avidly, Religion and Politics, The Washington Post, and other venues.  He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Walter Muir Whitehill Prize in Early American History, the Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize, a faculty fellowship and a Public Scholar grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and other awards.

He and his wife, Kristin Van Engen (also faculty at Washington University in St. Louis), attend The Church of St. Michael and St. George.  They have three children, Simon, Grace, and Hendrik.

Contact Abram Van Engen here.

Washington University Academic Page