Allyson Shortle '05
Allyson F. Shortle ’05, associate professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma, will speak on “The Everyday Crusade: Christian Nationalism in American Politics” on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023 at 5 p.m. in the Nott Memorial.
She will discuss what is causing the American public to move more openly into alt-right terrain, the uptick in anti-immigrant hysteria, isolationism, and an increasing willingness to support alternatives to democratic governance.
Her 2022 book, The Everyday Crusade (with Eric L. McDaniel and Irfan Nooruddin), points to American Religious Exceptionalism, a widely held religious nationalist ideology steeped in myth about the nation’s original purpose.
Making use of survey data spanning three different presidential administrations, Shortle and her colleagues develop a new theory of why Americans form extremist attitudes. They offer a critical touchstone for better understanding American national identity and the exclusionary ideologies that have plagued the nation since its inception.
Shortle earned her B.A. in political science from Union, where she was a summa cum laude graduate, member of Phi Beta Kappa and a Union Scholar. She went on to earn her Ph.D. from Ohio State University, where she was a Distinguished University Fellow.
Her research areas are race, religion, gender, immigration, political behavior, political psychology and policy attitudes. She teaches courses in exit polling, public opinion, immigration politics, experiments, identity politics, religion and politics and American federal government.
The talk, free and open to the public, is sponsored by Political Science, Religious Studies and American Studies.