University of Iowa V.O. and Elizabeth Kahl Figge Chair in Catholic Studies Kristy Nabhan-Warren has authored a new book that explores the meatpacking industry and the immigrant experience.

Meatpacking in America: How Migration, Work, and Faith Divide the Heartland will be released Sept. 21 by the University of North Carolina Press. For the book, Nabhan-Warren spent years interviewing meatpacking plant workers and owners and weaving together the voices and stories of native-born white Iowans and migrants from Mexico, Latin America, Asia, and Africa who come here to work.

The book takes a compassionate and balanced approach to one of the biggest industries in the state, exploring all perspectives from economic equity and diversity, equity, and inclusion, to immigration within the state and nationally.

Nabhan-Warren was invited to the prestigious Printer’s Row Lit Festival Sept. 11-12, 2021, in Chicago, where she also took part in an hour-long discussion with two other female authors live on C-SPAN.

The appearance kicked off a year-long national book tour.

Nabhan-Warren joined the UI faculty in 2012. Her work focuses on American Catholicism, Latinx lived religion, ethnographic methods in the study of North American religions, youth and religion, and women and American religion.

Nabhan-Warren also is a professor of religious studies, with appointments in gender, women’s, and sexuality studies, and history. She is also the interim director of the Division of Interdisciplinary Programs and interim chair of the Department of Rhetoric.