Profile
Leigh Eric Schmidt joined the faculty in 1995. His area of research and teaching is American religious history. He is the author of Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality (2005); Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment (2000); Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays (1995); and Holy Fairs: Scottish Communions and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period (1989). He is also co-editor of Practicing Protestants: Histories of the Christian Life in America (2006) and co-author of The Religious History of America (2002). His current research is on an American visionary, sex reformer, and free-speech martyr, Ida C. Craddock, and also on the history of the study of religion. He serves as Chair of the Department.