简介

Erika B. Seamon is a professor at Georgetown University in the American Studies Program. She recently received the 2015 College Academic Council Faculty Excellence Award for Georgetown College. Her research interests explore the intersections of American culture, religion, and gender. She is particularly interested in the histories of marriage and education in the United States. Marriage and education, as continually evolving social constructions, challenge artificial divides between private-public and religious-secular spaces, offering a window into dominant narratives associated with religious and gender-based diversity in American life. Dr. Seamon’s recent book, Interfaith Marriage in America: The Transformation of Religion and Christianity (Palgrave, 2012), uses intermarriage to chronicle the shifting boundaries between and among prominent religious communities throughout U.S. history. She thinks critically about how the slow disintegration of cultural barriers to intermarriage destabilized national and transnational religious traditions and narratives, at different historical moments. As American families negotiate differences and build bridges among their extended families and communities, they are re-imagining foundational understandings of belief, practice, community, and personal identity. Currently, Dr. Seamon teaches core courses for Georgetown's American Studies Program, including American Civ I and II and the senior thesis seminar. She also offers upper-level elective courses on religion in American public life. She holds degrees in religious studies, liberal studies, social and public policy, and business administration. Prior to joining the Georgetown community, Dr. Seamon was a partner at Kuczmarski & Associates, Inc. and taught at the University of Chicago.