Acknowledgments

American Catholics in the Protestant Imagination: Rethinking the Academic Study of Religion

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

By their nature, books take a relatively long time to write; and during that period an author, unless he or she is incredibly arrogant, inevitably harbors concerns about what works and what does not work in the text being created. For that reason, it is important to receive feedback from informed commentators while a book is in progress. With that in mind, I would like to thank Donald Akenson, Jeff Burns, Fred Gardaphe, Eugene Hynes, Bill Issel, Timothy Matovina, Sal Primeggia, and Thomas Tweed, all of whom very graciously took the time to read and comment on preliminary drafts of particular chapters. A book is always the sole responsibility of the author, but this book is certainly better than it would have been without their comments.

The research in this book was made possible by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and SSHRC’s continuing and very generous support of scholarly investigation is something for which everyone in the Canadian academic community must be thankful. Publication of this book was also aided by a grant from the J. B. Smallman Publication fund administered by the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Western Ontario.

An earlier version of Chapter 1 appeared in Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation (Carroll 2006) and an earlier version of Chapter 4 appeared in Studies in Religion (Carroll 2003). A portion of Chapter 6 (mainly, the section on the upstart sects) is derived from an article published in Religion (Carroll 2004).

I love being an academic for many reasons, but primary among these is the fact that I have the freedom to go where my intellectual curiosity leads me. Acquiring such an ideal career would not have been possible without the very real sacrifices of my parents, Olga Ciarlanti and William Carroll, who for years put long hours into jobs they often did not enjoy and who also were a constant source of encouragement to me and my brothers.

Finally, I must acknowledge Lori, the love of my life and the person who, more than anyone else, sustains me in all that I do.