daisyvargas

daisyvargas@arizona.edu
Office Hours
By appointment.
Vargas, Daisy
Assistant Professor

Daisy Vargas (PhD -History, University of California Riverside;  MA- Religious Studies, University of Denver) specializes in Catholicism in the Americas; race, ethnicity, religion in the United States; Latina/o/x religion; and material religion. Her current project traces the history of Mexican religion, race, and the law from the nineteenth century into the contemporary moment, positioning current legal debates about Mexican religion within a larger history of anti-Mexican and anti-Catholic attitudes in the United States. Vargas' interests include museum curatorial and advisory work. 

Vargas is co-chair of the Religions in the Latina/o Americas unit, and steering committee member of the Catholic Studies unit for the American Academy of Religion, curator of the American Religion journal’s “Sources,” and board member of E-Feminist Studies in Religion and Catholic Re-Visions (Political Theology Network.)

    Selected Publications 

    • “Latinx Catholicism in the U.S.” in Bloomsbury Religion in North America ed. Lloyd D. Barba (2023) 
    • “Religion: Here and Now,” in Religion in the American West: A Companion to the Exhibit Acts of  Faith, University of New Mexico Press (2023)
    • “Latinos/as/x, Pilgrimage, and Embodiment,” in the Oxford Handbook of Latinx/o/a Christianities, ed. Kristy Nabhan-Warren. Oxford University Press (2022)
    • “Is Anti-Catholicism Relevant Where and When We Are?” Journal of American Catholic Studies (2022)      

    Selected Online Contributions

    Selected Awards and Fellowships

    • National Endowment for the Humanities, "Engaging Latinx Art: Methodological and Pedagogical Approaches,” Summer Institute Fellow (2022)
    • Lived Religion in the Digital Age and Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, Public Humanities Fellow (2021)
    • Young Scholar in American Religion, Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture (2019-2021)
    • Center for Religion Cities, Summer Research Grant (2019)
    • Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellow (2017-2018)
    • Young Scholar in Latino Studies, Institute for Latino Studies (2017)

    Museum Related Work

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Currently Teaching

    RELI 150B1 – Religion and Popular Culture

    This course introduces the study of religion and popular culture. It explores how religion is represented in popular cultural forms, and how social conceptions of "religion" and "popular culture" change over time. Students will examine how differing definitions of religion, culture, and taste intersect with historical and contemporary categories of class, gender, ethnicity, and race.

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    RELI 302 – Ellis Island, 9/11, and Border Walls: Religion and Immigration in the U.S.

    This course will explore the central role of religion in shaping constructions of race and ethnicity in U.S. history, especially in light of immigration debates. Since the country's founding, immigrants have expanded ethnic and religious diversity in the United States in the face of powerful anti-immigrant movements. Students will engage with in-depth studies of immigrant communities who shaped the American religious and ethnic landscape, including diverse American expressions of religions such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Evangelical Protestantism, and Vodou.

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    This course will explore the central role of religion in shaping constructions of race and ethnicity in U.S. history, especially in light of immigration debates. Since the country's founding, immigrants have expanded ethnic and religious diversity in the United States in the face of powerful anti-immigrant movements. Students will engage with in-depth studies of immigrant communities who shaped the American religious and ethnic landscape, including diverse American expressions of religions such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Evangelical Protestantism, and Vodou.

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    This course will explore the central role of religion in shaping constructions of race and ethnicity in U.S. history, especially in light of immigration debates. Since the country's founding, immigrants have expanded ethnic and religious diversity in the United States in the face of powerful anti-immigrant movements. Students will engage with in-depth studies of immigrant communities who shaped the American religious and ethnic landscape, including diverse American expressions of religions such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Evangelical Protestantism, and Vodou.

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    This course will explore the central role of religion in shaping constructions of race and ethnicity in U.S. history, especially in light of immigration debates. Since the country's founding, immigrants have expanded ethnic and religious diversity in the United States in the face of powerful anti-immigrant movements. Students will engage with in-depth studies of immigrant communities who shaped the American religious and ethnic landscape, including diverse American expressions of religions such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Evangelical Protestantism, and Vodou.

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    RELI 498H – Honors Thesis

    An honors thesis is required of all the students graduating with honors. Students ordinarily sign up for this course as a two-semester sequence. The first semester the student performs research under the supervision of a faculty member; the second semester the student writes an honors thesis.

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    RELI 200 – Introduction to the Study of Religion

    The objective of this course is to introduce you to the study of the phenomenon called 'religion'. What makes people religious? How is religion defined? What are the different approaches to understanding religion in all of its diversity? Through a reading of texts from diverse backgrounds and approaches, this course will illuminate the complex and multi-dimensional elements of religion, and how the study of religion can open up new ways of seeing the world.

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    To view full listing of courses offered, please visit our Course Schedule.

    Course Schedule