Thomas Tweed

Biography

Thomas A. Tweed is W. Harold and Martha Welch Professor Emeritus of American Studies & History at the University of Notre Dame, where he has been affiliated with Peace Studies and the Ansari Institute for the Global Engagement with Religion. Tweed previously taught at UT Austin, University of Miami, and UNC Chapel Hill, where he was Zachary Smith Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences. His publications, which include nine books, have been translated into six languages. Tweed edited Retelling U.S. Religious History and co-edited Asian Religions in America. He wrote Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion as well as Our Lady of the Exile: Diasporic Religion at a Cuban Catholic Shrine in Miami, which won the American Academy of Religion's book award. America's Church: The National Shrine and Catholic Presence in the Nation's Capital won the same award in 2012. Tweed served as president of the American Academy of Religion in 2015. Oxford University Press published Religion: A Very Short Introduction in 2020, and in 2025 Yale University Press published Religion in the Lands That Became America: A New History, which the American Society of Church History awarded the 2026 Philip Schaff Prize for the best book in the history of Christianity.