History Department Faculty
Cynthia L. Lyerly
Associate Professor
Cynthia L. Lyerly
Ph.D.
Contact
Stokes Hall S333
Telephone: 617-552-3783
Email: cynthia.lyerly@bc.edu
Education
- B.A., University of North Carolina
- Ph.D., Rice University
Research Interests
American women, with a special interest in gender ideology; religion, women and race; and the history of the South
Department
Biography
Professor Lyerly teaches courses in American women's history, race, gender, and the Old South. She is currently at work on her second book, Thomas Dixon, Jr.: Apostle of Hate, about the well-known minister; playwright; lecturer; "professional Southerner" yet resident of New York City; "Social Gospel" preacher; rabid racist; and author of dozens of popular novels, including The Clansman, upon which D.W. Griffith's infamous film, Birth of a Nation, was based.
REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS
"Women and Southern Religion," in Matthews and Schweiger, eds., Religion in the American South (2004)
"A Tale of Two Patriarchs; Or, How a Eunuch and a Wife Created a Family in the Church," Journal of Family History (2003)
Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1770-1810 (1998)
"Passion Desire, and Ecstasy: The Experiential Religion of Southern Methodist Women," in The Devil's Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South (1997)
"Religion, Gender, and Identity: Black Methodist Women in a Slave Society," in Discovering the Women in Slavery (1996)