Episode 9: Abram Van Engen (Washington University in St. Louis)

This episode, we talked with Abram Van Engen, Associate Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis, about his research on religion and literature. His research focuses especially on seventeenth-century Puritans and the way they have been remembered and remade in American culture. City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism , Abram’s most recent book, was published by Yale University Press in 2020.

Van Engen began his career with a study of sympathy in seventeenth-century Puritanism, drawing together abiding interests in the history of emotions, theology, imagined communities, and literary form. Those interests led to his first book, Sympathetic Puritans, and numerous related articles on early American religion and literature.

Van Engen has since moved from a study of the Puritans in their own place and context to an interest in the way Puritans have been recollected and re-used by later generations. Studying the life of texts and the effects of collective memory, Van Engen’s second book, along with several other publications, study the creation and curation of American exceptionalism.

Van Engen’s scholarship has benefited from participation in the Humanities Digital Workshop at Washington University in St. Louis, where he has been leading a team to study the concept and creation of American exceptionalism through a history of the phrase “city on a hill.” Besides the most recent book, this work has led to multiple related digital projects, all in teams with undergraduate and graduate researchers.

Van Engen’s undergraduate courses have included Literature, Spirituality, and Religion (a freshman seminar); Early Texts and Contexts; American Literature to 1865; Natives and Newcomers in Early America; City on a Hill (for American Culture Studies); and Morality and Markets (co-taught with the Business School). Graduate seminars have included Puritanism, Literature and Religion, Intro to Graduate Studies, and Marilynne Robinson.

Van Engen is co-host of the Poetry for All podcast, which hopes to reach “those who already love poetry and those who know very little about it.”

Van Engen is also the Director of English Graduate Studies as well as an Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Religion and Politics in the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics. He received his PhD from Northwestern University in 2010.