Eden Consenstein

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Eden Consenstein

Assistant Professor, Mary Noel and William M. Lamont Fellow in Religion and Media

Education

Ph.D., Princeton University, Religious Studies, 2022
M.A., New York University, Religious Studies, 2015
B.A., University of Toronto, Religious Studies & English Literature, 2011

Fields of Specialization

  • Religion and Culture
  • Religion, Media, Technology
  • Religion in the Americas

Research Interests

  • Religion, Media, and Technology
  • History of Capitalism
  • Consumerism & Material Culture
  • New Religious Movements
  • Secularism Studies

Professional Biography

Eden Consenstein is a scholar of religion, media, and capitalism in the United States. She holds a B.A. in Religious Studies and English from the University of Toronto, an M.A in Religious Studies from New York University, and a Ph.D.in Religious Studies from Princeton University, where she also completed a certificate from the program in Media and Modernity.

She is currently working on two book projects. The first, Religion at Time Inc.: From the Beginning of Time to the End of Life, is a religious history of the major media corporation best known for Time, Life and Fortune magazines. From 1923 to 1964, Time Inc. (sometimes called the Time-Life Corporation) was run by Henry R. Luce, a self-styled theologian and leading Presbyterian layman who insisted that the press should promote high moral standards rather than aim for objectivity. Through extensive research in Time Inc.’s recently publicized corporate archives and close readings of the magazines Luce edited, Religion at Time Inc. describes how the editor’s political-theological convictions shaped Time Inc.’s media. Her second project, Pyramids of Plenty: Christianity and Multi-level Marketing, will be the first work to trace the historical entanglement of U.S. Christianity, new media, and the multi-level marketing industry.

Eden’s teaching and research interests include religion and media, consumerism and material culture, new religious movements, secularism studies, reality television, and histories of capitalism. Her work has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Eisenhower Foundation, The New-York Historical Society and Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Religion.

Fellowships & Awards

ACLS/ Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2020 – 2021

Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, declined

Research Grant, Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, KS

Short- Term Research Fellowship, The New-York Historical Society, New York, NY, 2019 – 2020

Religion and Public Life Fellowship, Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University, 2017 – 2019

Selected Essays & Reviews

“‘Yes, We Do Want to Subvert and Corrupt Young People’: Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth Against the Mainstream Media,” Nova Religio, November 2022

Time Incorporated and the Pennsylvania Land Company, with Kristen Beales, The Immanent Frame, May 14 2021

Teaching Religion, 1955 with Leslie Ribovich Sources, an online platform of the American Religion Journal, October 7 2020

Review of Blessings of Business: How Corporations Shaped Conservative Christianity by Darren Grem The Revealer: A Review of Religion and Media, June 20 2018

Review of The Universe is Indifferent: Theology, Philosophy and Mad Men eds. Anne L. Duncan and Jacob Goodson Reading Religion: A Publication of the American Academy of Religion, December 4 2017