Teaching

Before coming to Northwestern, Professor Orsi taught at Fordham University at Lincoln Center, Indiana University, and Harvard University, where he was the Charles Warren Professor of American Religious History at Harvard Divinity School (2001-2007) and Chair of the Study of Religion in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (2003-2007).

At Northwestern University, Professor Orsi teaches in the Departments of Religious Studies and History. At the undergraduate level he offers courses on American religious history from the mid-nineteenth century to the present; on topics in American Catholicism after World War II; and on “religion, medicine, and suffering” in Western history. Professor Orsi teaches graduate seminars on the history of the study of religion from early modernity to the present; contemporary theoretical conversations in the study of religion; lived religion; and various topics in American religious history.

In 2010 Professor Orsi received the E. Leroy Hall Award for Teaching Excellence, the highest teaching recognition offered by Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University.  In 2012, Professor Orsi was awarded the Charles Deering McCormick Professorship of Teaching Excellence, Northwestern University for a three year term, 2012-2015. This is the highest teaching award offered by Northwestern University.

In 2013-2015 Professor Orsi led the seminar for the Young Scholars in American Religion program of the Center for the Study of Religion & American Culture, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, together with Courtney Bender, Professor of Religious Studies, Columbia University.