EIESLAND, Nancy L. 1964-

PERSONAL:

Born April 6, 1964, in Cando, ND; daughter of Dean (a farmer) and Carol (a secretary) Arnold; married Terry Eiesland (an administrator), May 3, 1986. Education: Central Bible College, B.A., 1986; Candler School of Theology, M.Div., 1991; Emory University, Ph.D., 1995. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Lutheran. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, writing.

ADDRESSES:

Home—3913 Longview Drive, Chamblee, GA 30341. Office—13C Bishops Hall, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator and author. Emory University, Atlanta, GA, assistant professor, 1995-2001, associate professor of sociology of religion, 2001—.

MEMBER:

American Sociological Association, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Association for Sociology of Religion.

WRITINGS:

The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability, Abingdon (Nashville, TN), 1994.

(Editor, with Don E. Saliers) Human Disability and the Service of God: Reassessing Religious Practices, Abingdon Press (Nashville, TN), 1998.

(Editor, with Penny Edgell Becker) Contemporary American Religions: An Ethnographic Reader, Altamira (Walnut Creek, CA), 1999.

A Particular Place: Urban Restructuring and Religious Ecology in a Southern Exurb, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, NJ), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS:

In her book A Particular Place: Urban Restructuring and Religious Ecology in a Southern Exurb, educator and sociologist Nancy L. Eiesland focuses on the shifting landscape from city to suburb, and the way that shift has impacted religious practices and the role of the church within communities. Basing her work on a study of church populations in Dacula, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, Eiesland follows the town's history from a rural agricultural region to an area of subdivisions and shopping malls within the space of a decade. As A Particular Place illustrates, churches, synagogues, and other spiritual meeting-places must deal with the effects of this shift in demographics; "religious innovation thrives and new religious institutions come into being, while existing ones adapt, wither, or die," explained James A. Lewis in his review of the book for the Christian Century. Praising Eiesland's methodology, which included visits with community members over a period of more than three years, Sociology of Religion contributor Michael Emerson deemed A Particular Place "carefully researched, engagingly written, and empathetic of each congregation's mission and struggles."

Eiesland has also edited several collections of academic essays. Human Disability and the Service of God: Reassessing Religious Practices is an outgrowth of a Louisville Institute conference on how churches serve their disabled members, as well as a result of Eiesland's personal interest in the topic as a disabled woman. Contemporary American Religions: An Ethnographic Reader, which Eiesland edited with Penny Edgell Becker, reflects the changing face of U.S. church congregations as essayists "show how a specifically ethnographic approach can be used to reassess old theories and pose new questions" in the sociological study of religion, according to Simon Coleman in his review for the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. While noting surprise that little mention is made of non-Christian faiths, Coleman nonetheless praised Eiesland and Becker for compiling a volume that is "solidly researched" and "written clearly."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Journal of Sociology, November, 1998, Daniel V. A. Olsen, review of Contemporary American Religion: An Ethnographic Reader, p. 939; January, 2001, Dwight B. Billings, review of A Particular Place: Urban Restructuring and Religious Ecology in a Southern Exurb, p. 1214.

Christian Century, October 8, 1997, Nancy Bauer-King, October 8, 1997, p. 886; June 20, 2001, James W. Lewis, review of A Particular Place, p. 20.

Contemporary Sociology, July, 1999, Peter Kivisto, review of Contemporary American Religion, p. 441.

Journal of Church and State, autumn, 1996, S. Kay Toombs, review of The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability, p. 918.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, March, 1999, Simon Coleman, review of Contemporary American Religion, p. 145.

Sociology of Religion, winter, 1998, Judith Wittner, review of Contemporary American Religion, p. 416; spring, 2002, Michael Emerson, review of A Particular Place, p. 120.*