This presentation focuses on a collection of Appalachian sermons housed in the Special Collections Department at Marshall University. As the subtitle suggests, it has two main parts. The “Holdings” section provides a brief survey of these materials (the ministers represented in the collection, their denominations, when they served and where, and so on) and shows the work that has been done thus far to place the copyright-free materials online.

The “Research Possibilities” section gives an overview of the theories, topics, and approaches used in the field of sermon studies. I argue--as my colleagues and I have done in other projects--that sermons are not exclusively religious discourses of interest to preachers and theology professors. Rather, they are also historical and literary artifacts that can profitably be studied by scholars in history, English, communication studies, and even in fields such as digital media and political science. The presentation concludes with suggestions of some specific projects--both "low" and "high" tech--that could arise from the materials included in this project.