Kristin Kobes Du Mez Smith Lecture - Spring 2026
On 11 March 2026 Kristin Kobes Du Mez (Professor of History at Calvin University), gave the Spring 2026 Smith Lecture entitled, 'he secret history of Christian women: purity, power and the end of the American century'.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez is a New York Times bestselling author and Professor of History at Calvin University, as well as a Senior Democracy Fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute.
Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, religion and politics. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Religion News Service and Christianity Today, and has been interviewed on NPR, CBS and the BBC, among other outlets. Her most recent book is Jesus and John Wayne: how white Evangelicals corrupted a faith and fractured a nation. Her next book, Live, Laugh, Love, is expected in September 2026.
Kristin holds the William Spoelhof Teacher-Scholar-in-Residence Chair at Calvin University, where she also served as Department Chair. She is a Distinguished Associate at the Institute for Christian Studies (Toronto) and served as a Fellow at the University of Notre Dame's Center for Philosophy of Religion from 2024 to 2025.
She previously taught at Calvin Theological Seminary, Williams College and the University of Notre Dame, and holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame.