The Legacies of New England Puritanism are not what they seem.

In contemporary US political discourse, puritanism gets the rap for a lot of the alleged prudishness that exists in our culture. From Instagram content policies to a general unease with sexuality, it is commonplace to see reference to the "puritanism" embedded in US culture. This paper argues that John Cotton, John Winthrop, et al, actually have very little influence over contemporary US sexual mores. At the same time, images and parodies of these prudish puritan killjoys continue to circulate in ways that make it easier for white Americans to disassociate themselves from the legacies of settler colonialism.

Speaker:
Jonathan Beecher Field
Clemson University