Projects & Publications

June 2022 | University of West England, Brecon Cathedral | "A Harvest of Ingratitude: Secularism, Landscape, and Wendell Berry."

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In this essay, I explore my claim that secularism is a long liminal space characterized by first by widespread distance from land and agriculture, and then by hostility to the same. While not advocating for a return to an agrarian society, it does maintain the vital place agriculture has in reversing the "disenchantment" of secularism.

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March 20-21, 2020 | University of Arkansas | "A Liminal Utopia: Secularism and the Work-Leisure Dialectic."

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While industrialization has introduced numerous benefits to societies, it is not without its deleterious effects. One of these is a modern misunderstanding of the relationship Work and Leisure have to each other. This confusion, I contend, is one of the hallmarks of secularism to be set alongside earlier theories.

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March 7-9, 2019 | University of Tulsa | "Geographies of the Perverse: Poe and Hawthorne in Conversation on Transversal Space."

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These two important and early American authors explored the metaphysical question of evil from distinct vantages. Poe, internalizing the "perverse sphere," contrasts with Hawthorne, who externalizes it. This should lead us to consider which of the two authors has a closer affinity to the Puritanism of New England.

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Project | 01 Transgression-Redemption Dialectic of Clothing in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

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Through the abundant uses and references to clothing, Hawthorne complicates our understanding of the scarlet “A” being the central symbol of the novel. I am exploring the ways in which Hawthorne employs clothing as a transgression-redemption dialectic. This singular symbol—clothing—acts simultaneously in at least two ways : as a mark of transgression, it isolates and shames Hester, while also acting as a redemptive mark that separates her from Puritan Boston.