Jason Bruner
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Mail code: 4302Campus: Tempe
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Prof. Jason Bruner is an ethnographer, writer, and historian studying Christians and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States. He is especially interested in lived religion, health, violence, and globalization. His work also incorporates photography and creative nonfiction.
He recently published a multi-modal creative and documentary project on the metro-Phoenix area titled Life in the Valley (is Press, 2024). He and Curtis Austin were awarded an AZ Humanities project grant (2023-2024) for their project, Mapping Randolph, which will create a digital historical map of the town of Randolph, AZ in Pinal County. He serves as PI on a project supported by the Benson Fund (2023-2024) to create a place-based online course on Boyce Thompson Arboretum and the nearby town of Superior, AZ. With Challie Facemire, John Bello, and Ron Broglio, he is a contributor to an environmental education and storytelling workshop series for public teachers in Arizona (2024).
He is currently at work on several lines of inquiry. One project explores the overlapping topics of alchemy, mysticism, and UFOs through the history of monazite mining in North Carolina. Another is an analysis of unusual and bizarre documentary projects from the late 19th century to the present. He is also fascinated by the work of Crispin Glover and he is developing a project around Glover's distinctive body of work that encompasses art, writing, music, acting, and directing.
He published How to Study Global Christianity: A Short Guide for Students (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). With David Kirkpatrick, he co-edited Global Visions of Violence: Agency and Persecution in World Christianity (Rutgers University Press, 2022). His book, Imagining Persecution: Why American Christians Believe There is a Global War Against Their Faith (Rutgers University Press, 2021), provides a genealogy of American Christian discourses of global religious violence. It gives particular attention to the ways that religious persecution has come to frame American perceptions of Christianity worldwide. His first book, Living Salvation in the East African Revival in Uganda (University of Rochester Press, 2017), is a cultural history of a Christian revival movement in Uganda from the early 1930s to the mid 1950s.
In addition to scholarly journal articles and book chapters, Prof. Bruner’s writing has appeared in publications such as the Oxford American, the Marginalia Review of Books, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Religion Dispatches, Global Post, Religion & Politics, Sacred Matters, and The Revealer. He has published creative nonfiction pieces at BioStories, River Teeth, Image Journal, The Revealer, and Jokes Review, among other venues. His photography has appeared in Slag Glass City, Analog Cafe, Gnu Journal, Analog Forever Magazine, and Color Tag Magazine. He collaborated with David Blakeman, a photographer, for a craft book on the canals and waterways in and around Phoenix, titled Sonoran Water (2021). With his partner, Keeley Bruner, he has published a book of photography, Body of the Earth (Benschop Books, 2022), and a book of poetry and photography, Dreaming along the Laurel (Thea Press, 2022).
You can read an interviews about his creative work with Thea Press here (March 2024), and with Canvas Rebel magazine here (April 2024).
He served as the Associate Head of Undergraduate Studies for Religious Studies from 2018-2021 and as Faculty Head of Religious Studies from the Fall of 2021 to Spring 2023. He currently serves as the chair of the Religious Studies Personnel Committee and as the director of the Desert Humanities Initiative at ASU. In Spring 2024 he is serving as the interim director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict.
He was the recipient of the 2022-2023 Zebulon Pearce Distinguished Teaching Award in Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU.
His work has been supported by the Louisville Institute, Arizona Humanities Council, and the Benson Fund.
- Ph.D. Princeton Theological Seminary 2013
- M.T.S. Weston Jesuit School of Theology 2008
- B.A. Gardner-Webb University 2005
Desert Southwest
Migration
History of Christianity
Anthropology of Christianity
Colonialism
Photography
Books
- How to Study Global Christianity: A Short Guide for Students (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).
- Global Visions of Violence: Agency and Persecution in World Christianity (Rutgers University Press, 2022), co-edited with David Kirkpatrick.
- Imagining Persecution: Why American Christians Believe There is a Global War against Their Faith (Rutgers University Press, 2021).
- Living Salvation in the East African Revival in Uganda. Studies in African History and the Diaspora (Univ. of Rochester Press, 2017).
Journal Special Issue
- Co-editor, with David Dmitri Hurlbut, “Religious Conversion in Africa” special issue of Religions 11:8 (2020).
Creative Nonfiction and Photography Monographs
- Jason Bruner and Keeley Bruner. Dreaming along the Laurel. Thea Press, 2022.
- Jason Bruner and Keeley Bruner. Body of the Earth. Benschop Books, 2022.
- Jason Bruner and David Blakeman. Sonoran Water. Desert Humanities Initiative Craft Book Series (ASU/IHR, 2021).
Peer-reviewed Journal Articles
- Jason Bruner and Candace Lukasik, "Power Circuits: Asymmetries of Global Christianity." Journal of the American Academy of Religion (forthcoming, 2024).
- Jason Bruner and David C. Kirkpatrick, "Intra-Christian Violence as Problematisation of the World Christian Paradigm." Journal of Ecclesiastical History (2022).
- Volker Benkert, Jason Bruner, Lauren Harris, Hava Samuelson, and Marc Vance, “Rescue and Resilience: The Story of Beth Hebrew, Phoenix.” Journal of Arizona History 62, no. 2 (Summer 2021), 249-269.
- Jason Bruner and Dima Hurlbut. “New Approaches to ‘Converts’ and ‘Conversion’ in Africa: An Introduction to the Special Issue.” Religions 11:8 (2020).
- Stephanie F. Reid, Taylor Kessner, Lauren McArthur Harris, Volker Benkert, and Jason Bruner. “Comparative Genocide Pedagogy and Survivor Testimony: Lessons learned from a High School Unit on the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide.” The History Teacher 54:2 (2021): 297-335.
- Lauren Harris, Stephanie Reid, Volker Benkert, Jason Bruner. “Developing Curriculum for the Comparative Study of Genocide.” Theory and Research in Social Education (published online July 2019).
- Jason Bruner. “Pentecostalism’s Movements: A Review of Faith In Flux,” Religious Studies Review 45:3 (2019): 308-310.
- Jason Bruner. “Religion and Politics in the East African Revival.” International Bulletin of Mission Research 43:4 (2019): 311-319.
- Jason Bruner. “Conversion and the Problem of Discontinuity in the East African Revival.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History (2018).
- Jason Bruner. “‘What is a European hospital but a pagan shrine?’ Missionaries, Progress, and the Problem of Materiality in Colonial Uganda.” Material Religion (2018).
- Jason Bruner. “Religion, Medicine, and Global Health in Uganda: Reflecting Critically on an Afternoon at Mulago Hospital.” Fieldwork in Religion 12:1 (2017), 27-49.
- Jason Bruner, Volker Benkert, Marcie Hutchinson, Lauren Harris, and Anders Erik Lundin. “Developing a Comparative Genocide Method.” World History Connected 14:2 (June 2017), (7,000 words). [Corresponding author and contributed 20% of article.]
- Lauren Harris, Volker Benkert, Jason Bruner, Marcie Hutchinson, and Anders Erik Lundin. “Learning and Researching Genocide Comparatively.” World History Connected 14:2 (June 2017), (3,200 words). [Contributed 20% of article.]
- Jason Bruner. “Contesting Confession in the East African Revival.” Anglican and Episcopal History 84:3 (2015): 253-278.
- Jason Bruner. “‘The testimony must begin in the home’: The Life of Salvation and the Remaking of Homes in the East African Revival in Southern Uganda, c. 1930-1955.” Journal of Religion in Africa 44:3-4 (2015): 309-332.
- Jason Bruner. "The Cambridge Seven, Late Victorian Culture, and the Chinese Frontier." Social Science and Missions, Special Issue: “Beyond Borders: 'China' in Missions” 27:1 (2014): 7-30.
- Jason Bruner. “Public Confession and the Moral Universe of the East African Revival.” Studies in World Christianity 18:3 (2012): 254-268.
- Jason Bruner. "Keswick and the East African Revival: A Historiographical Reappraisal." Religion Compass 5:9 (2011): 1-13.
- Jason Bruner. “Inquiring into Empire: Princeton Seminary’s Society of Inquiry on Mission, the Opium Trade, and the British Empire, ca. 1830-1850.” Mission Studies 27:2 (2010): 194-219.
- Jason Bruner. “Divided We Stand: North American Evangelicals and the Crisis in the Anglican Communion.” Journal of Anglican Studies 8:1 (2010): 101-125.
Book Chapters
- "The East African Revival." In The Palgrave Handbook of Christianity in Africa from Apostolic Times to the Present, eds. Toyin Falola and Andrew Barnes (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).
- “Imperialism in Africa and the Question of Genocide.” In Terrortimes, Terrorscapes? Temporal, Spatial and Memory Continuities of War and Genocide in 20th Century Europe, Volker Benkert and Michael Mayer, eds. (Purdue University Press, 2022).
- “British Missions and Missionaries in the High Imperial Era, ca. 1857-1914." In The Routledge History of Western Empires, Robert Aldrich and Kirsten McKenzie, eds. (Routledge, 2013), 425-438.
- "Fishers of Men and Hunters of Lion: British Missionaries and Big Game Hunting in Colonial Africa." In A Cultural History of Firearms in the Age of Empire, eds. Karen Jones, Giacomo Macola, and David Welch (Ashgate, 2013), 57-72.
Encyclopedia Articles
Jason Bruner. “Uganda" and "Missions and Anthropology." In Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South, George Thomas Kurien and Mark Lamport, ed. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2018.
Digital Publications, Essays, and Creative Nonfiction (selected)
- David Congdon and Jason Bruner. "Evangelicals Make Themselves Essential to the Next Insurrection." The Revealer. February 6, 2024.
- Jason Bruner. “Resurrection Like Green Apple Plastic.” Oxford American. Summer/Fall, 2020.
- Jason Bruner. “All Things Are Possible.” All Cities Are Beautiful. Series; part I published March 2020.
- Jason Bruner. “‘Blessed are those who have not seen’: Image and Belief in Jonas Bendiksen’s The Last Testament” for The Revealer (Dec. 2018).
- Jason Bruner. “The Evangelical Search for Authenticity.” Marginalia Review of Books. April 13, 2018.
- Jason Bruner. “Tortured for Christ in Trump’s America.” Sacred Matters. April 16, 2018.
- Jason Bruner. “Questioning a Paradigm: World Christianity.” Centre for the Study of World Christianity, University of Edinburgh. January 30, 2018.
- Jason Bruner. “Writing Living Salvation in the East African Revival in Uganda.” African Griot. November 2017.
- Jason Bruner. “Eavesdropping in Arizona.” River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative. August 14, 2017.
- Jason Bruner. “This Place Is an Altar.” Good Letters, Image Journal. April 2017.
- Jason Bruner. “Unhitching.” Biostories. April 2016.
- Jason Bruner. “Whose God was Slain? Anthropology and the Diversity of World Christianity. A Review of The Slain God by Timothy Larsen.” Marginalia Review of Books. March 15, 2016.
- Jason Bruner and T.J. Tallie. “Truly Ugandan: Martyrs, Pope Francis, and the Question of Sexuality.” Notches: Remarks on the History of Sexuality. January 5, 2016.
- Jason Bruner. “Testimony and the History of the East African Revival” Marginalia Review of Books. January 28, 2015.
- Jason Bruner and Ryan Linde. “Eusebius and the Global War on Christians.” Sacred Matters. June 2014.
- Jason Bruner. “Uganda’s President Will Sign Anti-Gay Bill. How Did the Nation Get to this Point?” Religion & Politics. February 18, 2014.
Book Reviews (selected)
1. Jason Bruner and David Kirkpatrick. Review of Daniel Philpott and Timothy Shah, eds., Under Caesar’s Sword: How Christians Respond to Persecution, in Journal of World Christianity 10:1 (2020).
2. Jason Bruner. Review of Rachel McBride Lindsey, A Communion of Shadows: Religion and Photography in Nineteenth-Century America, in Anglican and Episcopal History 88:3 (2019).
3. Jason Bruner. Review of David Hollinger, Protestants Abroad, in the Journal of Presbyterian History 97:2 (2019).
4. Jason Bruner. Review of Paddy Musana, et al., eds., The Ugandan Churches and the Political Centre, in International Bulletin of Mission Research 42:4 (2018).
5. Jason Bruner. Review of Derek Cooper, Introduction to World Christian History (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2016), in Anglican and Episcopal History 87:3 (2018).
6. Jason Bruner. Review of Derek Peterson, Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival: A History of Dissent, c. 1935-1972 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), in The Historian 78:1 (2016).
7. Jason Bruner. Review of Wilbert R. Shenk, The History of the American Society of Missiology, 1973-2013 (Elkhart: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 2014), in International Bulletin of Missionary Research 39:2 (2015).
8. Jason Bruner. Review of Michael A. Rutz, The British Zion: Congregationalism, Politics, and Empire, 1790-1850 (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2011), in Anglican and Episcopal History 83:3 (2014).
Visual Arts
1. “Goddamn Phoenix.” Slag Glass City. April 19, 2021. Analog photo essay.
2. “Left.” Color Tag Magazine. March 2021. “New Topo” exhibition. Analog photo.
3. “Pisgah.” Analog Café. March 2020. Analog photo essay.
4. “So-So.” Analog Café. November 26, 2020. Analog photo essay.
5. “Untitled portrait, 2019,” Analog Forever Magazine. June 15, 2020. “The Eye of the Beholder” online analogue photography exhibition.
6. “So-So, 2” Color Tag Magazine. Spring 2020.
7. “At work on Central Avenue.” Analog Café. May 4, 2020. Series of 35mm and 120mm photographs.
8. “So-So.” Analog Forever Magazine. January 13, 2020. “The Future’s So Bright…” online analogue photography exhibition.
9. “Resplendent.” GNU Journal; 2019 Nonfiction; digital photograph.
10. “Tryna eat.” Breadcrumbs Magazine Dec. 26, 2018; digital photograph
11. “Her face.” Broad River Review vol. 26 (2004); graphite on paper.
Grants, Fellowships, and Awards (External to ASU)
PI. Benson Fund (2023-2024) $23,000
Co-PI, with Curtis Austin. Arizona Humanities Council. Project Grant (2023-2024) $10,000
Principal Investigator. Louisville Institute. Project Grant for Researchers (2017-2018) $25,000
Grants, Fellowships, and Awards (Internal to ASU)
Co-Principal Investigator (with Volker Benkert and Lauren Harris). 2016-2017. Project Title: “Comparative Genocide Testimony Project”. Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics Fellowship. Arizona State University. $2,604
Co-Principal Investigator (with Gaymon Bennett and Christine Buzinde). 2015-2016. Project Title: “Making Religion Visible in Global Health". Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, seed grant. Arizona State University. $6,700
Co-Principal Investigator (with Volker Benkert, Lauren Harris, Mark Tebeau, Don Fixico, and Michael Simeone). 2014-2015. Project Title: “Never Again is Not Enough: Researching and Representing Genocide Comparatively”. Institute for Humanities Research. Arizona State University. $11,808
Co-Principal Investigator (with Volker Benkert). Project Title: “Armenian Genocide in Comparative Perspectives”. 2015. Seed Grant. School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies. Arizona State University. $2,000
Co-Principal Investigator (with Gaymon Bennett and Christine Buzinde). Project Title: “Making Religion Visible in Global Health. 2015. Seed Grant. School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies. Arizona State University. $1,800
Co-Principal Investigator (with Volker Benkert, Lauren Harris, and Mary Hutchinson). Office of Knowledge and Educational Development Grant (co-investigator) (2014). Science and Citizen Engagement. 2014-2015. Project title: “MOORS (Massive Open Online Research), Memory and the Museum". Arizona State University. $10,000
Co-Principal Investigator (with Volker Benkert, et al.) Research cluster grant. 2013-2014. Institute for Humanities Research. Arizona State University. $2,000
Courses
2025 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| REL 792 | Research |
| REL 799 | Dissertation |
| REL 270 | Introduction to Christianity |
| REL 494 | Special Topics |
| POS 494 | Special Topics |
| SGS 494 | Special Topics |
2025 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| REL 792 | Research |
| REL 799 | Dissertation |
| REL 592 | Research |
| REL 307 | Religion: Theory and Practice |
| REL 307 | Religion: Theory and Practice |
2024 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| REL 799 | Dissertation |
| REL 101 | Religion, Culture, Public Life |
| REL 690 | Reading and Conference |
2024 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| REL 792 | Research |
| REL 799 | Dissertation |
| REL 592 | Research |
2023 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| REL 371 | New Testament |
| REL 799 | Dissertation |
| REL 371 | New Testament |
| REL 101 | Religion, Culture, Public Life |
| PHI 790 | Reading and Conference |
2023 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| REL 792 | Research |
| REL 799 | Dissertation |
| REL 592 | Research |
| REL 287 | Topics Film, Media & Religion |
2022 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| REL 799 | Dissertation |
| REL 101 | Religion, Culture, Public Life |
| HST 454 | History of Genocide |
| REL 454 | History of Genocide |
| HST 454 | History of Genocide |
| REL 454 | History of Genocide |
2022 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| REL 792 | Research |
| REL 592 | Research |
| REL 307 | Religion: Theory and Practice |
| REL 307 | Religion: Theory and Practice |
2021 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| HST 454 | History of Genocide |
| HST 454 | History of Genocide |
| REL 454 | History of Genocide |
| REL 454 | History of Genocide |
| HST 454 | History of Genocide |
| HST 454 | History of Genocide |
| REL 454 | History of Genocide |
| REL 454 | History of Genocide |
2021 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| REL 592 | Research |
| REL 371 | New Testament |
| REL 371 | New Testament |
| REL 493 | Honors Thesis |
2020 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| REL 307 | Religion: Theory and Practice |
| REL 307 | Religion: Theory and Practice |
| REL 492 | Honors Directed Study |
| HST 454 | History of Genocide |
| HST 454 | History of Genocide |
| HST 454 | History of Genocide |
| REL 454 | History of Genocide |
| REL 454 | History of Genocide |
| REL 454 | History of Genocide |
2020 Summer
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| HST 790 | Reading and Conference |
| HST 790 | Reading and Conference |
Conference Papers
“‘All One in Christ Jesus’ – Except for the Catholics: Ethnicity and the Limits of Christian Unity in the East African Revival, c. 1930-1950.” American Catholic Historical Society annual conference. January 2016.
“Dissent and Creativity in the East African Revival.” “Religion as Creativity” symposium at Miami University (Ohio). October 2-4, 2015.
“Coming from the Outside: Why did Uganda want to ‘kill the gays’?” American Society of Church History/American Historical Association Conference. 2-5 January 2015.
“‘The testimony must begin in the home’: Re-making Families in the East African Revival.” Yale-Edinburgh Group on the History of World Christianity. New College, University of Edinburgh. 26-28 June 2014.
“Migration, Integration, and the Fellowship Networks of the East African Revival.” American Society of Church History/Ecclesiastical Historical Society. Oxford, UK. 3-5 April 2014.
“Dissenting Discourse in Colonial-Era Uganda.” Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies annual meeting. Riverside, CA. 7-9 March 2014.
“Public Confession and the Moral Universe of the East African Revival.” Yale-Edinburgh Group on the History of World Christianity. University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh, UK. 28-30 June 2012.
“Secrecy and the Limits of Colonial Knowledge: Uganda in the 1940s.” Mid-Atlantic Conference on British Studies. Penn State University, Abington. Abington, PA. 21-22 April 2012.
“Public Confession and the Crossing of Colonial Boundaries and Barriers in the East African Revival.” Boston University’s Graduate Student Conference in African Studies. Boston University. Boston, MA. 30-31 March 2012.
“‘We are in train – are you too?’ Technology and Networks of Knowledge in the Development of the East African Revival.” Empires and Technologies in World History, Northeastern University. Boston, MA. 24-25 March 2012.
"Religion and Public Healing at the Uganda Museum." Windows of Empire: Colonial Celebrations & the Imperial World, 1780-1950. University of Bristol. Bristol, UK. 15-16 September 2011.
"Fishers of Men and Hunters of Lion: English Missionaries and Big Game Hunting in Colonial East Africa, ca. 1880-1930." Guns and Identity in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Conference. University of Kent. Canterbury, UK. 5-6 May 2011.
"The Cambridge Seven, Late Victorian Culture, and the Chinese Frontier." American Society of Church History. Grand Rapids, MI. 7-10 April 2011.
"A Colonial World of Light and Darkness: Reading 1 John 1:5-10 in the East African Revival." Society of Biblical Literature, Mid-Atlantic Region Conference. New Brunswick, NJ. 15 March 2011.
“Inquiring into Empire: Princeton Seminary’s Society of Inquiry on Missions and the British Empire, ca. 1820-ca. 1850.” American Society of Church History. Montreal, Canada. April 2009.
Connected Academics, Champion Mentor Award (ASU)
Marginalia Review of Books, Global Christianity
American Society of Church History
American Historical Association
Director, Desert Humanities Initiative (2023 - )
Faculty Head, Religious Studies (2021-2023)
Academic Program Review, committee chair (SHPRS) (2020-2021)
Director of Undergraduate Studies (2018-2021)
General Studies Council (2016-2019)
Religious Studies Forum, chair (2015-2018)
Global Futures Initiative, Human Factors Collaborative (Fall 2018-)
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Future Collaborative (Fall 2018-)
History of Christianity lecturer search committee member (Fall 2018-Spring 2019)
World War II Studies Clinical Assistant Professor search committee member (Fall 2018)
Institute for Humanities Research board member (Fall 2018-)
Interdisciplinary Health Humanities certificate advisory committee (Spring 2018)
“Sports, Cultures, and Ethics” undergraduate certificate advisory committee (2017-2018)
ASU Fulbright Interview Committee, Middle East and North Africa/Sub-Saharan Africa (Fall 2016-Spring 2019)