Profile Information
Austin Steelman
Assistant Professor
Contact
Department of History
Office: Hardin Hall 028
Email: steelm2@clemson.edu
Education
J.D., Harvard Law School (2016); Ph.D., Stanford (2024)
Research Interests
U.S. History; U.S. History 1877-Present; Legal; Intellectual; Religious; Political; Social Movements
Professor Steelman is a historian of twentieth-century America with specializations in the legal and political history of American conservatism and evangelicalism. His current book project, Paper Gods: The Bible, the Constitution, and the Evangelical Revolt Against Modernity, 1923-1986, examines the connections between the theological doctrine of biblical inerrancy and the legal theory of constitutional originalism. Relying on archives from across the United States, he looks at the intellectual importance of these two text-based ideologies to the formation, spread, and influence of the evangelical right beginning in the 20th century and continuing to today. Prior to graduating from Stanford, Professor Steelman attended Harvard Law School and worked for two years as an intellectual property litigator.
Selected Professional Works
Journal Articles & Book Chapters (Published)
“Not an ‘Ordinary Man’: J. Gresham Machen and the Un-Queering of Evangelical Theology,” Religion & American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, Volume 32, No. 3, 338-374 (2023)
“Curiouser and Curiouser!: Why the Federal Circuit Can’t Make Sense of Alice,” Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office Society, Volume 98, No. 3, 374-390 (2016)
