Dr. Karen Seat specializes in U.S. religious history, American evangelicalism, and gender studies. In 2012, Dr. Seat began serving as director of the Religious Studies Program, and in 2015 she was appointed head of the Department of Religious Studies and Classics. In addition, she serves as the Director of the School of International Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (SILLC). Her publications include Providence Has Freed Our Hands: Women’s Missions and the American Encounter with Japan (Syracuse University Press), on nineteenth-century Protestant women's mission movements and their impact on American ideologies regarding gender, race, Christianity, and civilization. Her current research focuses on conservative Christians' engagement with American politics in modern American history. She is co-editor, with Elizabeth Flowers, of the forthcoming volume Reimagining Southern Baptists: Women, Gender, and the Politics of the Past (University of Tennessee Press). Her current book project is titled Free Market Family Values: The Rise of Neoliberal Christianity in the United States. She teaches courses on American religious history and gender studies in religion.