UROP Research Mentor Project Submission Portal: Submission #843

Research Mentor Information
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Primary Research Mentor Name: Michael J. McVicar
Research Mentor Preferred Pronouns: he/him
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Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated): mmcvicar@fsu.edu
Position Title: Faculty
FSU College (if applicable): Arts and Sciences
FSU Department or Non-FSU Organization Affiliation: Religion Department
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Additional Research Mentor(s)
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Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from above): {Empty}
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Overall Project Details
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Title of the Project: God’s Watchers: Domestic Surveillance and Religious Activism from the Civil War to the War on Terror
Project Keywords: Religion, Surveillance, Violence, National Security 
Are you currently looking for research assistants?: No
Number of Research Assistants Needed : 3
Relevant Research Assistant Major(s):
English, History, Political Science, Sociology, Religion, etc. (pretty much any major in the Humanities or Social Sciences)

Project Location:: On FSU Main Campus
If the project location is off campus, does the research assistant(s) need to provide their own transportation?: {Empty}
Please select the choice that most accurately describes your expectations for the research assistant(s):: Partially Remote
Approximately how many hours a week would the research assistant(s) need to work?: 5
Roughly what time frame do you expect research assistant(s) to work?: Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
Overall Research Project Description:
From mega-surveillance on the mind-boggling scale of the National Security Agency’s controversial bulk collection of cellular metadata to the banal head-counting embodied in census records, citizens routinely accept—and, increasingly, resist—state-sponsored oversight. Likewise, business surveillance techniques—whether in the form of frequent-shopper cards that track every purchase, CCTV systems that follow a customer’s every move, or “cookies” that monitor web traffic—are a routine aspect of contemporary life. Far less understood and virtually ignored by scholars of American history and average citizens alike are the surveillance practices of voluntary associations, especially in the expansive private sector of churches, parachurch organizations, patriotic groups, and non-sectarian moral reform organizations with religious connections. Yet, the very state and corporate surveillance systems that most Americans take for granted today have emerged from the nexus of governmental, business, and religious interests that coalesced at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Research Tasks:
Primarily, the research assistant will read, summarize, and discuss primary sources related to religion and surveillance in American history. These sources will include Federal Bureau of Investigation files (including material released under the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA]), archival collections, newspapers, microfilmed primary sources available at FSU and through interlibrary loan, electronic databases, and archival collections available in the region. Secondary responsibilities could include filing and managing FOIA requests, digitizing and analyzing the content of primary sources, and reading secondary literature on the history of religion and surveillance in the United States.

Currently, my research is focused on working four problems questions: 1) Federal responses to religiously motivated violence against abortion clinics and abortion providers during the 1990s. 1) The FBI's response to the Minute Men, a domestic terrorist organization that emerged in the 1960s and was the predecessor to the modern militia movement and militant pro-second amendment organizations. 3) Religious responses to gun violence and crime during the 1960s. 4) Investigations of Communism infiltration of churches in the 1960s. Depending on student interests and aptitude, we can discuss tailoring the research to their interests in these four broad areas. 

Skills that research assistant(s) may need::
If the student can read, write, and take good notes, they'll be fine.

Mentoring Philosophy:
I do not have a defined mentoring philosophy. I prefer to work one-on-one with students. I will provide concrete instructions for assessing primary sources and work closely with students.

Please provide a link to your publications, a video clip, or a website for your research project (if applicable):: https://religion.fsu.edu/person/michael-j-mcvicar
Please add any additional information here (if applicable)::
Students interested in the project can see an example of the type of research performed by several cohorts of my previous UROP mentees in my article, “Charts, Indexes, and Files: Surveillance, Information Management, and the Visualization of Subversion in Mainline Protestantism,” Religion and American Culture 30, no. 3 (2020): 1–54, https://doi.org/10.1017/rac.2020.13. For details of the UROP researchers contributions, please see the acknowledgements at the beginning of the "Notes" section, and footnotes 73 through 84. 


Are you interested in participating in the UROP Research Mentor Roundtable?: Yes
Roundtable times and Zoom links:
Thursday, September 5, 2024, at 2:00-2:30 PM (Zoom link: https://fsu.zoom.us/j/95889727212). 

Roundtable Info:
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UROP Program Elements
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Mentor Handbook, FAQs, and Communication: Yes
UROP Performance Evaluation: Yes
Materials Grant: Yes
UROP Poster Presentation: Yes

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Year: 2024
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