SETH MARSHALL MEEHAN
Assistant Director
Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies
Boston College
140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
Office: 617-552-9093
E-mail: meehanse@bc.edu
EDUCATION
Ph.D., History
Boston College, 2014
Fields: U.S. history; U.S. religious history; immigration and ethnicity
Dissertation: “Denominating a People: Congregational Laity, Church Disestablishment,
and the Struggles of Denominationalism in Massachusetts, 1780-1865”
Committee: James O’Toole, Cynthia Lyerly, Owen Stanwood, Margaret Bendroth
Master of Arts, History
Boston College, 2009
Bachelor of Arts, Theology
Georgetown University, 1999
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA
The History of American Jesuits, Summer 2015
In the Footsteps of Leaders, Summer 2015
Making History Public: Boston College, Spring 2015
U.S. History I, teaching assistant with Professor Lynn Lyerly, Fall, 2013
American Immigration II, course development and teaching assistant with Professor Kevin
Kenny, Spring 2011
American Immigration I, course development and teaching assistant with Professor Kevin
Kenny, Fall 2010
American Immigration II, course development and teaching assistant with Professor Kevin
Kenny, Spring 2010
Europe in the World I, teaching assistant with Professor John Rosser, Fall 2009
Transatlantic Modernity II, teaching assistant with Professor Kevin O’Neill, Spring 2009
Transatlantic Modernity I, teaching assistant with Professor Stephen Schloesser, Fall 2008
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
May 2008–May 2014:
Office of Marketing Communications
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA
Cowriter, coeditor, and researcher for an illustrated history of Boston College as well as
researcher and writer for other publications including Transforming Light (2009) and
Boston College Magazine
January 2013–January 2014:
Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA
Coordinator of Student Programs, with responsibilities include coordinating writing
workshops, organizing a panel discussion on the publication process with presentations
by editors of a journal and magazine and faculty members, and organizing symposia
September 2007–May 2008:
Center for Irish Programs
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA
Graduate research assistant, providing research assistance for the program’s executive director.
April 2000–June 2007:
Office of George F. Will
Washington, D.C.
Primary research assistant to George F. Will. Copyeditor, researcher, and editor for a biweekly
Washington Post syndicated column, bimonthly Newsweek column, speeches, essays appearing
in various publications, and With a Happy Eye But…(The Free Press, 2002)
June 1999–March 2000:
The Wall Street Journal
Washington, D.C.
Researcher, reporter, and assistant to columnists Paul Gigot, of the editorial board, and Gerald
Seib, then-deputy bureau chief
PUBLISHED WORK
Ciani, John L. Across a Wide Ocean: Salvatore Maria Brandi, SJ, and the Civilità Cattolica, from
Americanism to Modernism, 1891-1914, editor (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming)
The Heights: An Illustrated History of Boston College, 1863-2013 (Chestnut Hill, Mass: Linden
Lane Press, 2014)
“Congregationalism Reimagined: Local Church Life and the Disestablishment of Religion in
Early-Nineteenth Century Massachusetts,” The Bulletin of the Congregational Library and
Archives, 10.3 (2014): 6-15.
“Work & Days: First Graduates,” Boston College Magazine, Summer 2013
“Portugal, Jesuits, and Japan: Spiritual Beliefs and Earthly Goods,” Archivum Historicum
Societatis Iesu, 82.162 (January 2013): 344-350
“Snapshot: The Diploma of 1877,” Boston College Magazine, Spring 2012
“First Sight,” (feature, cover story), Boston College Magazine, Winter 2012
“Heroic Study,” (prologue) Boston College Magazine, Winter 2012
“Catholics and Contraception: Boston, 1965,” (Campaign Stops) New York Times, March 15, 2012
“100th Revisited,” Boston College Magazine, Spring 2012
“Legal Aid,” (feature), Boston College Magazine, Spring 2011
“From Patriotism to Pluralism: How Catholics Initiated the Repeal of Birth Control Restrictions in
Massachusetts,” The Catholic Historical Review, 96.3 (Summer 2010): 470-498
• Winner, Peter Guilday Prize, American Catholic Historical Association (2011)
“The Dustbowl,” Boston College Magazine, Fall 2010
“War Stories,” (feature, oral history), Boston College Magazine, Summer 2009
CONFERENCE WORK
“Denominating a People: Congregational Laity, Church Disestablishment, and the Struggles of
Denominationalism in Massachusetts, 1780-1865,” Massachusetts Historical Society,
December 3, 2014
Biennial Boston College Conference on the History of Religion (organizer), March 2014
“The Loci of Congregationalism: How Geography Inhibited the Denominationalization of an
American Religion,” Society of U.S. Intellectual History, November 2, 2013
The Future of Journalism: International Reporting and the Public Good (organizer), sponsored by
the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy, Boston College, October 28,
2013
Emancipation at 150 (organizer), sponsored by the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional
Democracy, Boston College, April 23, 2013
“Disestablishment and Division: Congregational Church Architecture in Massachusetts, 17801855,” American Society for Church History, April 4-7, 2013
“Temperance or Abolitionism: Congregational Moral Reform in the Disestablishment Era,”
Conference on Faith and History, October 4-6, 2012
“ABCFM Missions in the Early Nineteenth Century and American Evangelical Identity”
(chair/commentator), Biennial Boston College Conference on the History of Religion, March
2012
Biennial Boston College Conference on the History of Religion (organizer), March 2012
Biennial Boston College Conference on the History of Religion, March 2010
“From Patriotism to Pluralism: How Catholics Initiated the Repeal of Birth Control Restrictions in
Massachusetts,” New England Historical Association, Fall Conference, 2008
WORKS IN PROGRESS
The Biography of John McElroy
“The ‘Bold Letter’: Edward Everett, the Politicization of Foreign Policy, and the Enlargement of
the Monroe Doctrine” (under review at Diplomatic History)
“In the Presence and Absence of God: Instrumentalist Providentialism during the Civil War”
FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS
Dissertation Fellowship, Boston College, Office of the President, 2012-2013, 2014
Clough Center Graduate Fellow, Boston College, Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional
Democracy, 2011-2014
Travel Grants, Boston College, Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy, 2012,
2013
Summer Research Stipend, Boston College, Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional
Democracy, 2012
Peter Guilday Prize, American Catholic Historical Association, 2011
Dissertation Fellowship, Boston College, History Department, 2011-2012
Summer Research Stipend, Boston College, Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional
Democracy, 2011
Summer Research Stipend, Boston College, Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional
Democracy, 2010
Summer Dissertation Fellowship, Boston College, History Department, 2010
MEMBERSHIPS
American Catholic Historical Association
American Historical Association
American Society for Church History
New England Historical Association
U.S. Society for Intellectual History