Four Questions for: Peter Manseau

Author Peter Manseau's (Internship '96) books—including One Nation, Under Gods; Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible; Vows; and Songs for the Butcher's Daughter (a National Jewish Book Award winner that drew from his experience as an intern at the Yiddish Book Center)—often focus on issues of religion and faith, from diverse and sometimes surprising perspectives. Last year, he joined the Smithsonian as curator for American religious history. 

What do you do in your new position?
I collect objects and tell stories related to the influence of the endlessly diverse group of beliefs and practices that have called the United States home. And I'm heading up the Smithsonian's broader Religion in America initiative, which engages audiences through exhibitions, performances, lectures, and publications. The guiding principle of my work is that every story has a religious dimension. Whether it is a story of acceptance, transformation, or rejection, engagement with religious traditions is a vital part of the American experience. 

What are the most surprising or moving objects you've uncovered in your work so far? 
Not too long ago I came across a snake handler's box—a wooden crate used by Appalachian preachers who take the biblical command to "take up serpents" literally as a way of showing they are safe from danger because of their faith. And an early-twentieth-century knife-maker's sign that once hung on Canal Street in New York. The sign came into the museum's collection as an illustration of immigrant business activities, but this knife maker specialized in blades for use by the shohet for ritual slaughter and the mohel for circumcision, so it is related to religion as well as business. 

Your first exhibit, Religion in Early America, opens this summer. What can visitors expect?
Visitors will come away with an appreciation of religious diversity, religious freedom, and religious growth in the Colonial period and the early republic. Many will be surprised by how diverse the nation was at the moment of its founding. There are many objects in the show related to the country's Christian majority (including George Washington's christening robe, which he wore when he became part of the Anglican church as an infant in 1732), but there are also intriguing hints of what it was like to live as a religious minority at that time, such as a Torah scroll damaged during the Revolution and the only known Islamic religious text written by an enslaved Muslim in America. 

What topic do you plan to tackle next and why? 
It's likely we will next explore intersections of religion and science in American history to show that religious ideas never exist in isolation but are always in conversation with the other concerns of the cultures in which they are found. The Smithsonian's religion initiative will continue to tell compelling stories related to the varieties of American religious experience. The most important part of this effort is locating objects with which to tell these stories—a task for which I feel well prepared thanks to my time collecting books for the Yiddish Book Center.


Spring/Summer 2017