Rebecca Goetz
Assistant Professor of History
Potential Christians and Hereditary Heathens: Religion and Race in Early America, 1550-1800

Goetz is completing a book project that places English Christianities at the center of both the history of colonial North America and the history of race. She provides an important analysis of the specific connections between religion and race in England's earliest New World colonies.  Her work elucidates the influential role played by Christian belief – often overlooked – in explaining  human difference, showing that race as a concept emerged far earlier than historians have previously thought, and supporting her claims through analysis of legal documents and court records of the day.