Sophie Bjork-James
Assistant Professor of Anthropology (Race and racism, evangelicalism, reproductive politics)
She/her/hers
Dr. Sophie Bjork-James is not currently accepting graduate students.
Sophie Bjork-James has engaged in long-term research on both the US-based Religious Right and the white nationalist movement. Her work has appeared on the NBC Nightly News, NPR’s All Things Considered, BBC Radio 4’s Today, and in the New York Times.
She is the co-editor of Beyond Populism: Angry Politics and the Twilight of Neoliberalism (West Virginia University Press, 2020). She is the author of The Divine Institution: White Evangelicalism’s Politics of the Family (Rutgers University Press, 2021) which provides an ethnographic account of how a theology of the family came to dominate a white evangelical tradition in the post-Civil Rights movement United States, providing a theological corollary to Religious Right politics. She is currently developing two projects. One explores anti-racist strategies challenging the white nationalist movement in the Northwestern United States. The other project explores contemporary pro-life activism and the intersection of abortion politics and environmental politics.
Scroll below to see Dr. Bjork-James’ publications or click on her website for publications and more.
Specializations
Race and racism, evangelicalism, reproductive politics, white nationalism, hate crimes
Representative Publications
Refereed BOOK
2021 The Divine Institution: White Evangelicalism’s Politics of the Family. Rutgers University Press.
Refereed Edited BOOK
2020 Beyond Populism: Angry Politics and the Twilight of Neoliberalism, edited with Jeff Maskovsky, West Virginia University Press.
articles in Refereed journals
(Published online 2020) “Lifeboat Theology: White evangelicalism, apocalyptic chronotopes, and environmental politics” Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology.
2020 “Racializing misogyny: Sexuality and gender in the new online white nationalism,” Feminist Anthropology 1.2: 176-183.
2020 “Christian nationalism and LGBTQ Structural Violence in the United States,” Journal of Religion and Violence, 7.3: 278-302.
2020 “White Sexual Politics: The Patriarchal Family in White Nationalism and the Religious Right,” Transforming Anthropology, 28.1: 58-73.
2020 “Whither Whiteness and Religion: Implications for theology and the study of religion,” co-authored with Rachel Schneider, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 88.1: 175–199.
2018 “Training the Porous Body: Evangelicals and the Ex-Gay Movement,” American Anthropologist, 120.4: 647-658.
2015 “Feminist Ethnography in Cyberspace: Imagining Families in the Cloud,” Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 73.3: 113-124.
2006 “The Apartheid Conscience: Gender, Race, and Re-imagining the White Nation in Cyberspace,” Ethnic Studies Review, 29.2: 20-45.
Web Publications
Bjork-James, Sophie. 2019. Gender and Religion. In Anthropology: Oxford University Press. View Web Publication.
EXTERNAL FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS
2019-2021 Post-PhD Fellowship, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, $20,000 research stipend
Project: When the Nazis move next door: Forty years of fighting organized racism in the Pacific Northwest
2020 Individual Research Grant, American Academy of Religion; $5,000 research stipend
Project: Religion and Opposition to Organized Racism in the Northwestern United States
2019 Coolidge Fellow, Crosscurrents Research Colloquium, Auburn Seminary, New York; $2,500 honorarium plus travel, room, and board for one month in New York City
Project: Waiting: The Contested Meaning of Abortion Waiting Periods
2017-2018 Workshop Grant, National Science Foundation; $42,225 workshop support
Project: Community Change in Global Perspective