David Morgan

Professor of Humanities in Christ College, the Honors College at Valparaiso University
Phyllis & Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christianity and the Arts

Helping us understand what popular religious imagery says about who we are and what we believe

David Morgan

David Morgan has made his reputation as an internationally recognized scholar based in part on his study of one of Christianity’s beloved paintings of Jesus. Not a Michelangelo or a Botticelli but a Sallman. Though Warner Sallman’s name probably doesn’t ring a bell, you would almost certainly recognize his 1941 painting, “Head of Christ” because it hangs in so many churches, Christian day schools, and homes.

That fact – its seemingly universal distribution – coupled with the strong reaction the portrait provokes among most viewers, led Morgan to ask questions about the painting that neither art nor religious historians had previously considered. Ultimately, Morgan’s research resulted in an entirely new line of scholarship bringing together the study of art and religious history, visual mass media, American cultural history, and art theory.

“The information I was interested in with regard to art, religious and cultural history was not a major part of our historical landscape, in fact, not even a minor part. I had to retool and learn to ask new questions,” Morgan says of his early research. He admits he initially encountered skepticism about his interest in popular religious imagery, but says, “the point is, Michelangelo and Bach are wonderful, but that’s just not where most people live. I think if the church cares about regular people it had better understand what matters to them. If the church wants to be a vital, living thing, it has to reproduce itself in every generation.”

Warner Sallman was clearly onto something, as evidenced by the sheer number of his portraits found around the globe, and Morgan has studied and tried to make sense of that “something” for the past decade. In that pursuit, he has published five highly influential books, including his latest, The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice an introduction to the study of the visual culture of religion that defines the field (which he helped create), identifies major theoretical issues, and provides historical analysis of visual practices of belief from around the modern world.

Morgan’s research has literally taken him around the world. This past year alone Morgan gave presentations in Melbourne, Australia, Haifa, Israel, Helsinki, Finland, Seoul, South Korea, and Edinburgh, Scotland. He is the co-founder and co-editor of the international scholarly journal, Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief, and until recently, chaired the International Study Commission on Media, Religion, and Culture (a group of scholars and media practitioners who meet around the world with other scholars, media producers, religious teachers and leaders to study the intersections of the three fields).

Further adding to both his travels and accolades, Morgan was a visiting fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge during fall 2004, where he researched the history of British Evangelical print culture in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In 2005, he was elected a Life Member of Clare Hall, an honor that recognizes Morgan’s scholarly achievements and provides him with coveted college membership at the University of Cambridge.

At Valpo, Morgan holds the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christianity and the Arts and teaches in Christ College, the University’s honors college. But why teach at all when he could likely be writing full-time? Morgan says top-flight academic research demands an institutional affiliation. “And I think teaching and research are organic parts of the same thing. I’ve never imagined separating teaching from writing.”

“What I do outside of the classroom directly informs what I teach. If you’re American, post 9/11, you have to realize that you are part of ‘bigger project’ and I hope my international travel and work helps me bring that message home to students in Valparaiso. Also, teaching constantly requires you to think on your feet, always going for what seems compelling and relevant,”

Morgan says with a smile. “Clarity and cogency are key guidelines when teaching undergrads. You are simply not allowed to drift off into obscurity. Teaching keeps you awake!”

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