Elijah Siegler

Professor of Religious Studies

Education

• Ph.D. in Religious Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara
• A.B. in Comparative Study of Religion, Harvard University

 Research Interests

• American Religious History
• New religious movements
• Religion and popular culture
• Asian religions in America
• Religious Studies Pedagogy
• Global Daoism

Courses Taught

Publications

Books:

• Dream Trippers: Global Daoism and Predicament of Modern Spirituality (co-written with David Palmer), (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017)
• Coen: Framing Religion in Amoral Order (editor and author of three chapters), (Waco, Tex: Baylor University Press, 2016)

• New Religious Movements, “Religions of the World” Series, (Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 2006)  

• “Daoism in Europe and the Americas” a chapter in The Daoist World, Gil Raz and Mark Meulenbeld, eds. (New York: Routledge), forthcoming

• “Atheism” a chapter in The Routledge Companion to Religion and Film, 2^nd ed. John Lyden, ed., (New York: Routledge, 2026)  

• “Television” a chapter in The Routledge Handbook of Religion and American Culture, Chad Seales, ed., (New York: Routledge, 2025)  

• "Asian Religious Influences in American Life” a chapter in Understanding and Teaching Religion in American History, Karen Johnson and Jonathan Yeager, eds., (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2024)  

• “David Cronenberg: The Secular Auteur as Critic of Religion” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80.4 December 2012: 1098-1112  
• "Adventure Time and Sacred History: Myth and Reality in Children’s Animated Cartoons" a chapter in Religion and Popular Culture in America, 3rd edition, Bruce Forbes and Jeffrey Mahan, eds. in press, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017)  
• “Television” in John C. Lyden and Eric Michael Mazur, eds. The Routledge Companion to Religion and Popular Culture (New York: Routledge, 2015), 41-64  
• “Working through the problems of Study Abroad Using the Methodologies of Religious Studies” Teaching Theology and Religion Vol. 18 (2015): 37-45 
• “Daoism beyond modernity: The ‘Healing Tao’ as post-modern movement,” in David Palmer and Liu Xun, eds. Daoism in the 20^thcentury: Between Eternity and Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press), 2011
• “What Is American Daoism?” Yang Shengonline journal, May 2011
• “Globalization and Chinese Religions” (co-written with Richard Madsen) in David Palmer, Glenn Shive and Philip Wickeri, eds. Chinese Religious Life: Culture, Society and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)  
• “’Back to the Pristine’: Identity Formation and Legitimation in Contemporary American Daoism” Nova Religio 14.1 October 2010: 45-66  
• “Is God Still In the Box? Religion in Television Cop Shows Ten Years Later” in Eric Mazur and Kate McCarthey eds, God in the Details:American Religion in Popular Culture, 2^nd edition (New York: Routledge Press, 2010).
• “A Television Auteur Confronts God: The Religious Imagination of Tom Fontana” in Diane Winston, ed. Small Screen, Big Picture: Television and Lived Religion (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2009), 401-426  

• “How Daoism Became American,” live online lecture, The Religion Department, September 2025  

• “Minecraft Kids” audio segment in Machines in Between, March 2023  

• “Citadel Mall Stadium 16” American Religion, August 2020  

• “Trump’s Magical Appeal: A Dated Anthropologist Offers Clues” Religion Dispatches, July 19, 2016 
• “Sacred Matters of Coen” Sacred Matters, March 2016"
• “Reality as Revelation: “Hail Caesar!” is the Coen Brothers’ Most Religious Movie Yet” Religion Dispatches, February 24, 2016"
• “Do the Oscars snub films without redemptive messages?” OUP Blog, February 25, 2013"
• “Automation” uenci.es: a collaborative genealogy of spiritualities, Dec 22, 2011"

Community Activities

• Co-Creator and Co-Producer, HappyLand: A New Musical, on stage June 2026

• Co-Creator and Co-Organizer, Spirited Brunch, an annual self-guided tour of sacred spaces

• Board Member, Charleston Interreligious Council