Academic interests
Historian of 19th and 20th century religion, American and British culture, conservatism in the US, the American South, environmentalism, and pop music.
Background
Randall J. Stephens is Professor of American and British Studies at the University of Oslo. He previously taught at Northumbria University (Newcastle upon Tyne) and Eastern Nazarene College (Quincy, Massachusetts). He is a historian of religion, conservatism, the South, environmentalism, and popular culture. He is the author of The Fire Spreads: Holiness and Pentecostalism in the American South (Harvard University Press, 2008); The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age, co-authored with physicist Karl Giberson (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011); and editor of Recent Themes in American Religious History (University of South Carolina Press, 2009). His latest book is The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock ’n’ Roll (Harvard University Press, 2018). Stephens has also written for the Atlantic, Salon, the Wilson Quarterly, Christian Century, Books & Culture, the Independent, History Today, the Chronicle of Higher Ed, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. He has been interviewed for news and culture programs on the BBC, Sky News, Al Jazeera, KBYU-FM 89.1, Austrian Youth Radio, and NPR. In 2011-12, he was a Fulbright Roving Scholar in Norway. Stephens is also one of the Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturers. (See full CV here.)
Higher Education
- PhD in American History, University of Florida (2003)
- MA in American History, Emporia State University (1998)
- MA in Theological Studies, Nazarene Theological Seminary (1998)
Select Research Funding
- Jahre Fund, Seminar on the Beatles, Religion, and Secularism in the 1960s, Oslo (2026)
- Presbyterian Historical Society Research Fellowship, Philadelphia (2026)
- Pre-Project Funds, University of Oslo (2025)
- Fulbright Alumni Association of Norway (2022)
- Wigeland Fellowship, University of Chicago (2020, postponed)
- University of Chicago Research Funds (2020)
- The US Embassy London Grant (2015 and 2018)
- Congregational Library and Archives Research Fellowship, Boston (2017)
- National Endowment for the Humanities, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (2016)
- American Society of Church History Travel Grants (2014 and 2015)
- Lynn E. May Jr. Study Grant, Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives, Nashville (2015)
- The John Templeton Foundation (2008, 2013-2014)
- The US- Norway Fulbright Foundation for Educational Exchange, Oslo (2011-2012)
- Fellow, Wesleyan Center for 21st Century Studies, Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego (2010 and 2015)
- The Lilly Endowment Young Scholar in American Religion, Indianapolis (2007-2009)
- The Lilly Endowment Dissertation Fellowship, University of Florida, Gainesville (2002-2003)
- The Pew Foundation, University of Notre Dame, South Bend (2001)
MA and PhD Supervision
Randall is interested in supervising MAs and PhDs in: the history and culture of the US South; American political and cultural conservatism; American liberalism; American religious history; populism; British and American pop music and pop culture; America in the 20th century; the American civil rights movement; African-American history and culture; America in the 1960s; the Vietnam War; 19th century America; abolitionism and anti-slavery; British and American travel literature; American intellectual history; and American environmental history.
PhDs Supervised
- Samuel Klee, “America’s Food Army: Carceral Labor and Community Power during World War II” (University of Oslo, 2024), co-supervised with Jason Ward.
- Natasha Neary, “Fun and Facts about American Business: An Animated Education in the Free Enterprise System” (Northumbria University, 2018), co-supervised with Brian Ward.
- Allan Symonds, “Male Control and Female Resistance in American Roots Music Recordings of the Interwar Period” (Northumbria University, 2018), co-supervised with Brian Ward.
- Brian Langley, “Dissent and Discontent in the Confederate South, 1861-65” (Northumbria University, 2018), co-supervised with David Gleeson.
- Megan Hunt, “‘Southern by the Grace of God’: Religion and Race in Hollywood’s South since the 1960s” (Northumbria University, 2017), co-supervised with Brian Ward. (Published by the University of Georgia Press, 2024.)
A Sampling of Courses Taught
- American History and Society: An Introduction (BA)
- American Environmental History (MA and BA)
- Hellfire Nation: American Religion from the Colonial Era to the Present (BA)
- The History and Culture of the American South since 1865 (BA)
- The West in the World since 1500 (BA)
- American History: The Long 1960s (BA)
- The Liberal Imagination (BA)
- Affluence and Anxiety: The US from 1920-1960 (BA)
- History and Culture of Anglo-America Rock Music (MA)
- The US from Reconstruction to World War I (BA)
- The History of the Civil Rights Movement in the US (BA)
- Critical Readings in History (BA)
- American Historiography (BA)
