Theorist, Writer, Teacher

I am a sociologist of American religion and politics, and a cultural theorist. My scholarship orbits around questions of interpretive agency, catalyzing change, and the ways people overcome obstacles to find joy and belonging in life. Via performance studies, and ethnographic and historical research in religion, media, and politics, my work theorizes the blurring boundaries between traditional religion and secular culture. My first book, tentatively titled A Cosmopolitan Revelation: From Tourism to Pilgrimage with Rick Steves’ Europe, studies travel as a project of moral and national identity formation through a study of American travel writer and long-time PBS television host Rick Steves.

I received my PhD from Yale University, and am now a tenure track Assistant Professor of Sociology at Mount Holyoke College.