Associate Professor of History

Year Joined RCNJ: 2008

Contact Information

• Phone: (201) 684-7237
• Email: atkinson@ramapo.edu
• Office: B-222
• Office Hours: W 4:30-7:30 pm

Education:

• M.A., Indiana University
• Ph.D., Indiana University

Courses Offered:

• Introduction to U.S. History I
• Early American Religious History
• Colonial North America
• Era of the American Revolution
• Empire and Independence in the Americas.

Teaching Interests:

• North America, Colonial and Revolutionary Periods
• Religion in the Atlantic World, Latin America

Research Interests:

• Popular Religion in the American South
• Scottish and Irish Culture

Scholarly Activity:

Articles

• “Satan in the Pulpit: Popular Christianity During the Scottish Great Awakening, 1680–1750.” Journal of Social History 47, no. 2 (2013) 344–70.
• Review of Hofstra, Ed., Ulster to America: The Scots-Irish Migration Experience, 1680–1830.” Journal of Southern History 2 (2013)
• Review of Cashin, Edward J., Guardians of the Valley: Chickasaws in Colonial South Carolina and Georgia.” H-SC (H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online) (2011)
• “Adjunct Faculty: A Buyer’s Market.” Organization of American Historians Newsletter 24 (1996): 1, 4, 10.

Book Project

• Invisible Plantations: Religious Violence, Occult Healing, and Witchcraft in the Scottish Atlantic World, 1590-1820

Conferences

• “From ‘The Bench of Witch Doctors’ to Judge Lynch: Popular Religion and Vigilante Violence in Early America, 1730-1830.” HGS Colloquium Series, Ramapo College. 2013.
• “Empirical Wonders: Sense and Faith at Scottish Revivals, 1690–1750” at the American Society of Church History meeting in San Diego, CA (co-convened with The American Historical Association’s annual meeting). 2010.
• “Satanic Migrations: The Transmission of Scottish Popular Religion to America,” Society of Early Americanists conference, Bermuda, UK. 2009.