My teaching is inseparable from a larger intellectual project to understand concepts of value and structures of desire that shape communities both present and past. In the community that is the college classroom, I recognize all participants as teachers and learners, while fostering interpretive skills that prepare students to gain confidence as creators of knowledge, themselves.
I teach courses that traverse fields of American studies; the critical study of ethnicity, race, and migration; women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, and religious studies. Recent courses include Celebrity, Politics, Power (Fall 2020); American Gods: Religious Diversity in the United States (Fall 2020 and Spring 2020); Religion + Ethnography (Spring 2019); Religion + Capitalism (Fall 2018); and Religion + Society (Fall 2017, co-taught with Kathryn Lofton). Yale University twice recognized me as a Prize Teaching Fellow, a university-wide honor annually awarded to 10-15 teachers who have shown excellence in pedagogy, mentorship, and classroom instruction. Now at Skidmore College, I teach courses focused on the religious history of the Americas and theory/method in the study of religion.
Beyond the formal university classroom, I co-host and co-produce Nothing Never Happens: A Radical Pedagogy Podcast. It features conversations with leaders in the field of critical, abolitionist, feminist, queer, and other radical pedagogies. It’s also a work of intergenerational teaching-learning collaboration: my co-host, Tina Pippin, was my undergraduate adviser at Agnes Scott College over a decade ago. Check us out!