Dr. Darren Grem is an Associate Professor of United States South History in the Department of History and the Center for the Study of Southern Culture.
Research Interests
Dr. Grem's research interests are in 20th century U.S. history, with a focus on the American South, religion, capitalism, culture, and politics. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in 20th century U.S. history, southern history and southern studies, and modern politics and culture.
“Good Night New Deal: The Waltons & the Great Depression
in American Memory” Seminar
Biography
Dr. Grem earned his B.A. from Furman University and M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. He held postdoctoral fellowships at Yale University and Emory University before joining the faculty at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of The Blessings of Business: How Corporations Shaped Conservative Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2016), a book that details how conservative evangelicals strategically used business leaders, organizations, methods, and money to advance their cultural and political aspirations in twentieth-century America. With John Corrigan and Amanda Porterfield, he is co-editor of The Business Turn in American Religious History (Oxford University Press, 2017), a collection of essays that reconsiders the role of business in American religious culture and politics. Also, with Ted Ownby and James Thomas, Jr., he is co-editor of Southern Religion, Southern Culture: Essays Honoring Charles Reagan Wilson (University Press of Mississippi, 2019). His next book, Hard Times, USA: The Great Depression and New Deal in American Memory, will be an expansive study of how Americans after World War II remembered and used the Great Depression in popular culture (memorial sites, music, literature, art, film) and in political activism for and against the New Deal state.
Publications
2016, Oxford University Press
How Corporations Shaped Conservative Christianity
From the publisher:
Grem argues for a new history of American evangelicalism, demonstrating how its adherents strategically used corporate America--its leaders, businesses, money, ideas, and values--to advance their religious, cultural, and political movement. Beginning before the First World War, conservative evangelicals were able to use businessmen and business methods to retain and expand their public influence in a secularizing, diversifying, and liberalizing age. In the process they became beholden to pro-business stances on matters of theology, race, gender, taxation, trade, and the state, transforming evangelicalism itself into as much of an economic movement as a religious one.
Selected Book(s):
Courses Taught
- SSTU 1010 Introduction to Southern Studies
- SSTU 1030 Introduction to Southern Mythologies and Popular Culture
- SSTU 1080 Introduction to Southern Music
- SSTU 1180 Intro Topics in Southern Music (Country Music)
- SSTU 4010 Undergraduate Seminar in Southern Studies
- SSTU 6010 Graduate Seminar in Southern Studies
- HIST 1310 Intro to U.S. History Since 1877
- HIST 4080 U.S. History: World War II to Watergate
- HIST 4260 The American Dream
- HIST 4340 U.S. Religious History
- HIST 4510 The South in the Twentieth Century
- HIST 4550 History of Religion in the U.S. South
- HIST 4560 Southern Music History
- HIST 4790 Alcohol in the Americas
- HIST 6060 Graduate Readings: U.S. from Civil War to Present
- HIST 6070 Graduate Readings: Southern U.S. History
- HIST 6130 Graduate Readings: Contemporary U.S. History
- HIST 6930 Graduate Readings: History of U.S. Capitalism
- HIST 7020 Graduate Research: U.S. History from Civil War to Present
Education
B.A. History, Furman University (2001)
M.A. History, University of Georgia (2004)
Ph.D. History, University of Georgia (2010)
Latest News
Events
OXFORD, Miss. – The SouthTalks series continues the "Creativity in the South" programming focus this spring at the University of Mississippi, with lectures, performances and film screenings examining the interdisciplinary nature of Southern studies.
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Research News