Cynthia Lynn Lyerly

Home institution

Boston College

Research project

Rational Measures: Gender, Race and Reason in the Eighteenth Century South

This project examines the way reason came to be prized (over revelation, emotion, and passion) as Enlightenment critics sought to discredit both enthusiastic sects and their principle southern adherents: white women and blacks.

Course

HDS 2385: Charisma, Enthusiasm, and Mysticism: Women and Religious Defiance in American History (Fall 1998)