Kristy Nabhan-Warren
V.O. and Elizabeth Kahl Figge Chair of Catholicism at The University of Iowa, Departments of Religious Studies and Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies
Kristy Nabhan-Warren is Series Editor of Where Religion Lives. She is the inaugural V.O. and Elizabeth Kahl Figge Chair of Catholicism at The University of Iowa, Departments of Religious Studies and Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies. Her published work focuses on American Catholicism, Latina/x/o lived religion, and ethnographic methods in the study of North American religions. She is the author of The Virgin of El Barrio: Marian Apparitions, Catholic Evangelizing, and Mexican American Activism (New York University Press, 2005), a deep ethnography of a Mexican-descent Catholic community and its devotions to the Virgin Mary and to apparition-inspired activism. In The Cursillo Movement in America: Catholics, Protestants and Fourth Day Spirituality (The University of North Carolina Press, 2013), Kristy shows the ways that global forms of Christianity such as the Iberian cursillos de cristianidad “short courses in Christianity,” have impacted American Catholicism and Protestant Christianities, and pivotal role of laypersons in spreading the movement.
Kristy is currently wrapping up her third monograph, Cornbelt America: The Work of Faith in the Heartland, a finely grained ethnography and historically situated study of lived religion in rural and small town Iowa. (Forthcoming, Winter 2021). Her fieldwork took her to rural parishes, hog and beef slaughterhouses, as well as as farms across the state. In Cornbelt America, Kristy makes the argument that if we want to more fully understand the complex intersectionalities of migration, work and faith in the contemporary United States, then we must turn our attention to sites like Iowa and the larger Corn-belt. Funding for the research and writing of Cornbelt America has been generously supported by The American Parish Project; The University of Iowa; and The Louisville Institute. Kristy is especially grateful to The Louisville Institute which granted her a Sabbatical Grant For Researchers (SGR) to make a 2017-2018 academic year research leave possible, and the drafting of the book. https://louisville-institute.org/awards/sabbatical-grant-for-researchers/
Kristy is committed to making scholarship meaningful to non-academics, and prides herself on writing for a wide audience. She tries to stay true to her working class and Midwestern roots in Cornbelt America, a thoroughly researched yet accessibly written book that will be marketed to a wide audience.
Kristy also serves as Editor for the forthcoming Oxford University Press Handbook on Latina/x/o Christianities in the United States. The Handbook features twenty-four leading scholars in Latina/x/o Christianities and is forthcoming with Oxford University Press in the Fall 2021 (Theo Calderara, sponsoring Editor, OUP).
Kristy has been an active member of her flagship organization, The American Academy of Religion since 1994. She takes her role in the AAR and her guild very seriously and is a frequent reviewer of articles and manuscripts. She enjoys serving as manuscript reader-reviewer for several top-tiered presses, including: New York University Press, Cornell University Press, Columbia University Press, Yale University Press, The University of Illinois Press, Fordham University Press, and The University of North Carolina Press, and Routledge.
Kristy is thrilled to be the Series Editor of this new book series, “Where Religion Lives,” with The University of North Carolina Press. She works closely with UNC Press Executive Editor Elaine Maisner, and the series will publish several innovative ethnographies of religion each year. Look for our exciting books in the coming years and please contact Kristy or Elaine if you are interested in submitting a proposal to the series!
Kristy’s University of Iowa website: