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Shelby Balik
Professor of History
History
[email protected]Office Hours
Tuesday - [12:30 to 3:00]
Thursday - [12:30 to 3:00]
or by appointment
Biography
I specialize in the history of American religion and early American history. I also have a background in secondary education, and I continue to care very much about issues relating to public schools.Research Interests
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I am particularly interested in how early Americans experienced religion, not so much through institutions and formal worship, but in the course of their everyday lives. My first book explores the religious geography (that is, the changing spatial and spiritual layout of churchgoers, clergy, and churches) in Northern New England, and how a shifting religious landscape gave way to new kinds of spiritual communities and identities. I am currently at work on two book projects: a monograph that will examine household religion in eighteenth-century America, and a documentary eition (co-edited with Dr. Joyce Goodfriend of the University of Denver) of records of the first Moravian church of New York City during the colonial and revolutionary eras.
Teaching Interests
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Understanding history is more important now than ever. Your history classes can help you make sense of the word of politics, international conflict, and social strife. It can help you decode fake news (and fake history, for that matter), and it can help you think and write in a more sophisticated manner. All of these skills will not only make you more employable, but they will help you navigate an often confusing world.
My teaching interests lie in all eras of early American history, along with American slavery, religious history, and social studies teaching preparations. In all of these courses, I hope to help students to develop their skills as historians, writers, and critical consumers of media.
Education
PhD in History
University of Wisconsin-Madison
MA in History
University of Wisconsin-Madison
MA in Education
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
BA in History, American Studies
Brown University
Personal Website
Published Works
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Balik, M. S. (2026). "Every House a Church and State: Piety, Authority, and the Problem of Family Governance in the Early Republic". (). University of Virginia Press. https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/10229/
Balik, M. S. (2025). Review of Brummitt, Jamie L., Protestant Relics in Early America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2025). . Journal of Religious History , https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9809.70036Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Balik, M. S. (2024). Religion and the State. (pp 9-17). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003299721-3
Balik, M. S. (2024). Review of Hancock, Jonathan Todd. Convulsed States: Earthquakes, Prophecy, and the Remaking of Early America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021). . American Historical Review, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhad533
Balik, M. S. (2024). "'Userped Athority’: Liberty, Mastery, and Religious Strife in Eighteenth-Century New England Marriages". Massachusetts Historical Review, New Series, vol. 4(2024). .
Balik, M. S. (2023). Review of Loundsbury, Carl R., ed., The Material World of Eyre Hall: Four Centuries of Chesapeake History (Baltimore: Maryland Center for History and Culture, 2021). Journal of Southern History,
Balik, M. S. . "True Virtue: Edwardsean Benevolence and the Search for a National Covenant". (). Pickwick Publications.
Balik, M. S. (2022). The Supreme Court is Unraveling the Separation of Church and State. Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/12/supreme-court-is-unraveling-separation-church-state/
Balik, M. S. (2022). Review of Seeman, Erik R., Speaking with the Dead in Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019).. American Historical Review,
Balik, M. S. (2022). "Delivery and Deliverance: Childbirth as Religious Experience in Eighteenth-Century America". Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, 91(1), 62-82. https://churchhistory.org/journal/.
Balik, M. S. (2021). Review of Corrigan, John, Religious Intolerance, America, and the World: A History of Forgetting and Remembering (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020).. Journal of American History,
Balik, M. S. (2021). Review of Baldwin, Peter C., Angel on a Freight Train: A Story of Faith and Queer Desire in Nineteenth-Century America (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2020).. Journal of the History of Sexuality,
Balik, M. S. (2021). Review of Koch, Philippa, The Course of God’s Providence: Religion, Health and the Body in Early America (New York: New York University Press, 2021). . Nursing Clio, https://nursingclio.org/2021/07/28/diseases-of-body-and-soul-a-review-of-philippa-kochs-the-course-of-gods-providence/
Balik, M. S. (2021). Review of Johnson, Noel D. and Mark Koyama, Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). . H-Nationalism, H-Net Reviews., https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=55641
Balik, M. S. (2020). "Donald Trump’s Disregard for Our Transition Rituals Threatens Our Democracy". Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/11/12/donald-trumps-disregard-our-transition-rituals-threatens-our-democracy/
Balik, M. S. (2020). Review of Grainger, Bret Malcolm. Church in the Wild: Evangelicals in Antebellum America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019).. New England Quarterly, https://watermark.silverchair.com/tneq_r_00833.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAsEwggK9BgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggKuMIICqgIBADCCAqMGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMUN-r6AmXv_WbEl76AgEQgIICdEOOf9UxRNLgRldYmB9tItiS_ddoySn-1_hHI7uBRC8ZGxFjHJsvFVWhCpje1ES_BO5Y8c-3dtdVOz0K9d0vHNNvVuQ0NBm7kzCQuvYU2_gU7Ch3yrYfKsEc6zNWvOdOkCEnXAEeS8MsD_kZ9AhPskjYHH3JQUOQ2TxUg6CFOZZ51xNZVi8fnfdkdK9P0s1nbx7uoXacL9vJs7E9dC1qJ0qGkzi5oAzRkn8PaA9kejOcgkjdXdWTAk94wW9AwAWSMY0jFwZ4gelDZ4xxAKYJUVZ_9omL0nGflUnyJzsxWO7vI_KebZynwoa8V0h3Q8-2yryilmIZY1MKLx0vTM5mJrH07FVHKOsrklFKJtO60RkkoMgvmKc5MY5jfWPmtsZVwGufnrXD1AhbJ_QxdAdyqiMw9SzT_KcefhUZjWtV_JTmGQSa8E6bSHk7KyZ00QjePHiAsg1934BRutxEGFy8ZOxVszzrHBYTQZEww6bTWFcD6SUOd-awYj68NOw9-8UTE3K18iYbfaGiWO9x3WCyVOaSBRx9q8lY8V5cp4eZlnCvk5wSQt57s3P2fxEdAz0id0nGDBgl2eM6pqPczt6Y6dMpa4pw2MxfQjCDZgBf5dkjRzBoAPeCJYCOEcppDzBDTeeu9aaCoBBfgbGClyn3QBboReJ4s8V2absDNO4kzNQsViVN-OmbvexEAsIn011dioCHX_tMdtEIP6Vmox9rFXPXaiqSI0Oa6RSP5O-MH3GmzcipnUjBVwIQV3INmjUUtB_dQKJNX1F9nC6w46cGChAtg-I5bGZZRG21ca4So4qbVK8NNZJmStLN6rd0IzFt-iWW6Rg
Balik, M. S. (2020). "Churchgoers, Stay Home -- It's the American Way." Religion Dispatches, April 30, 2020.. Religion Dispatches, https://religiondispatches.org/churchgoers-stay-home-its-the-american-way/
Balik, M. S. (2020). Review of Thomas, George. The Founders and the Idea of a National University: Constituting the American Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2015).. Journal of American History, https://academic.oup.com/jah/article-abstract/106/4/1056/5741535
Balik, M. S. (2019). "In the Interest of True Religion: Disestablishment in Vermont". (). . https://democracy.missouri.edu/publications/disestablishment-and-religious-dissent-church-state-relations-in-the-new-american-states-1776-1833/
Balik, M. S. (2018). Review of Kosek, Joseph Kip, ed. American Religion, American Politics: An Anthology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017). Canadian Journal of History , https://muse.jhu.edu/article/700827
Balik, M. S. (2018). Review of Hammond, Geordan, and David Ceri Jones, eds. George Whitefield: Life, Context, Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) . Church History , https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/church-history/article/abs/george-whitefield-life-context-and-legacy-edited-by-geordan-hammond-and-david-ceri-jones-oxford-oxford-university-press-2016-xiii-329-pp-10500-cloth/9326C96CB543E4DB83F03CBB9718E69F
Balik, M. S. (2018). Review of Moyer, Paul B. The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015).. Journal of the Early Republic, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/687323/pdf
Balik, M. S. (2018). Review of Howe, Nicolas. Landscapes of the Secular: Law, Religion, and American Sacred Space (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017). . Journal of Church and State, https://academic.oup.com/jcs/article-abstract/60/1/164/4757456
Balik, M. S. (2017). Review of Winiarski, Douglas L., Darkness Falls in the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth-Century New England (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017). . Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History , https://muse.jhu.edu/article/678801/summary
Balik, M. S. (2017). Review of Shefsiek, Kenneth. Set in Stone: Creating and Commemorating a Hudson Valley Culture (Albany: SUNY Press, 2017). . , http://www.choiceconnect.org/webclipping/204425/h2vky99pptht0mphwxa7twwajfrv3wp-l-j08gnkzv5w9i4t75
Balik, M. S. (2017). "'Dear Christian Friends': Charity Bryant, Sylvia Drake, and the Making of a Spiritual Network". Journal of Social History, 50(Summer 2017), 630-54. .
Balik, M. S. (2016). Review of Jay, Bethany, and Cynthia Lyerly, eds., Understanding and Teaching American Slavery (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2016).. Teaching History, https://go.gale.com/ps/anonymous?id=GALE%7CA474721436&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=07301383&p=AONE&sw=w
Balik, M. S. (2016). Review of Gin Lum, Kathryn, Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).. Journal of Southern Religion, jsreligion.org/vol18/
Balik, M. S. (2016). “Benevolent Societies,” “Case, Isaac,” “Chase, Philander,” “Grimké, Sarah Moore,” “Kirkland, Samuel,” “Lyon, Mary,” and “Savage, Mary". Rowman and LIttlefield, https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442244313/Encyclopedia-of-Christianity-in-the-United-States-5-Volumes
Balik, M. S. (2016). Review of Richard, Carl J. The Founders and The Bible (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). Choice, choiceconnect.org/webclipping/199564/9z7ja8zvi0-fg-vfz295ieqj-dq_ognk6hu6dhplformmara3o
Balik, M. S. (2016). Review of Richard, Mark Paul, Not a Catholic Nation: The Ku Klux Klan Confronts New England in the 1920s (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2015). Choice,
Balik, M. S. (2016). Review of Francis Bremer, "Lay Empowerment and the Development of Puritanism" (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).. Journal of American History, www.journalofamericanhistory.org/
Balik, M. S. (2015). Review of Sam Haselby, "The Origins of American Religious Nationalism" (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).. Choice, http://choiceconnect.org/webclipping/191920/-seo4tkrqimg3wd-arkow_s5kcnycqma9qp101gn0suzcxydd0
Balik, M. S. (2015). Review of Katherine Grandjean, "American Passage: The Communications Frontier in Early New England" (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014).. Choice, http://choiceconnect.org/webclipping/189597/c3cwe9zrpfawy_vkq7zy3ej_233u4wr6muqqre87k8q08_hl78
Balik, M. S. (2014). Review of Mary Babson Fuhrer, A Crisis of Community: The Trials and Transformations of a New England Town (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014).. Journal of American History, http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/ br_12-069_Balik_Shelby-1.pdf
Balik, M. S. (2014). Rally the Scattered Believers: Northern New England's Religious Geography. (). Indiana University Press. https://iupress.org/9780253012104/rally-the-scattered-believers/
Balik, M. S. (2013). "'Persecuted in the Bowels of a Free Republic': Samuel Ely and the Agrarian Theology of Justice, 1768-1797". Massachusetts Historical Review, 159-122. .
Balik, M. S. (2012). Review of Paul C. Gutjahr, Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).. History: Reviews of New Books (Routledge), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03612759.2012.669304
Balik, M. S. (2010). "'Scattered as Christians Are in This Part of Our Country': Layfolk's Reading, Writing, and Religious Community in New England's Northern Frontier, 1780-1830". New England Quarterly, 8307-40. .
Balik, M. S. (2010). "Religion". Facts on File,
Balik, M. S. (2008). "Equal Right and Equal Privilege: Separating Church and State in Vermont". Journal of Church and State, 503-48. .