Reanalyzing Our World:

I have been teaching at SMU since the fall of 1998. I have taught classes in poetry, British literature, and—at both the undergraduate and graduate levels—courses in Modernism, 20^th-century British literature, and LGBTQ+ studies.

I received my PhD in English from the University of Virginia.

Like many an undergraduate English majors, I thought I wanted to go to law school.  When I realized how bored I would be with the kind of work so many lawyers do, I looked for ways to keep reading and thinking about literature—thus, graduate school and becoming an English professor.

My research focuses on 20^th-century literature, especially poetry and British modernism, as well as LGBTQ+ studies.  These interests have coincided in my research and scholarship on W. H. Auden and other queer poets.

This is a relatively small department, teaching relatively small classes at all levels, but with a first-rate faculty engaged in scholarship that spans English studies.  So students get lots of close attention from faculty who are plugged into their fields and the profession.  And doctoral students have opportunities to teach undergraduates in a variety of classes that allow them to teach things in their own fields, as well as other areas.  That’s proven to be a real asset for our PhD’s on the job market.

Getting a PhD requires concentration and the willingness to keep going at times when you aren’t sure where you’re headed.  The key thing for me—particularly at the dissertation stage—was that I had found something that didn’t just have professional and intellectual value. It was something that I loved thinking about.  That’s what got me through, along with supportive and wise faculty advising me.

I teach early American history, and the history of American religion.  I’ve been at SMU for nine years.

I have a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

History was always my passion, but I also considered being an archivist or a policy work in Washington.

I love working with graduate students.  We have the time and space to get to know them well, and I learn so much from their interests and explorations.

My research focuses on how religion intersects with some of the other big forces of history, such as economics or politics.  I study religion because that’s often the place where people “put” what matters most to them.

My favorite is whatever I’m working on!  I just finished a long project on religion and the American Revolution, and now I’m starting one on religion, cartography, and categories of human difference in the early modern English Atlantic world.

It’s a smaller program, but that means we can really tailor what we do to each student.  Our traditional focus on the Southwest borderlands has expanded into much wider realms, and now we have students working in many areas of US history, including the colonial period.  At the same time, the program is still small enough that there is a lot of intellectual exchange between students and between students and faculty.

A lot of people think studying history is learning about the past, but I don’t think that’s true. Studying history is building a conversation between the past and the present.  It’s about understanding how our world came to be, by asking the questions that are on our minds.  Every community needs historians to anchor it, to reassure it, and to prod it to change and accountability.

Because the humanities are frequently under attack, there are always lots of concerns about jobs at the end of the degree.  That fear and pressure can be hard for students to manage. 

We have a lot of students who work in the Southwest borderlands, but we also have a growing cluster in US political history. We also have several who do US religious history, and even(!) the colonial period.

Always!  It’s an ongoing conversation.

I began teaching at SMU in 2015. I teach courses in theology and ethics. I also teach the core course in the doctoral program, “Philosophy of Religion” that examines both philosophical theology and philosophy of religion. 

I received the PhD from Duke University.

I was an organic chemistry major in college, and thought for a time that I would be a medical doctor. I went to seminary to prepare for ordination in the Methodist Church and was still considering medical school at the time. While in seminary I fell in love with studying theology and ethics and decided to continue my studies after receiving my Master’s degree. For some reason, I never tire of reading theology, philosophy, and ethics.

Graduate students keep you on your toes. Sometimes you need to work to interest undergraduates in your courses, but graduate students have strong motivation to learn and study. I discovered early on that graduate students make me a better scholar and teacher. 

I was originally asked to apply for the Maguire Chair at SMU but was not looking to leave where I was. I finally decided to apply and came to visit. The communal sense among the graduate students was a strong draw for me. I have not been disappointed. 

I’m a bit odd as a scholar in that I am a generalist. If you looked at my publication record, you might think that it is very eclectic and wonder if anything holds it together. I can trace lines of continuity through the diverse works but others might not so readily find them. What always interests me is moral philosophy, moral theology, and politics. Everything I have written, I think, falls under the intersection of those three disciplines. 

Right now I’m working on a book on what it means to teach and learn ethics focusing on the role of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. I find teaching ethics to be fascinating and complicated. In fact, it is fascinating because it is complicated. How do we bring together people from a diversity of backgrounds and discuss matters that concern us to the core of who we are as people?

Friendship. We have a collaborative program where our students assist each other in learning and in so doing contribute to the faculty’s education. We also have a very good faculty that treat each other with respect.

For good and for ill, religion affects every aspect of human existence. If you are unaware of its intricacies, you will be inept at discerning and discovering what it means to be human, for yourself and for others.

Learning how to research and write a dissertation is a skill that takes time and tenacity. Getting through coursework, learning languages, and completing assignments can be challenging but nothing like completing a dissertation. It prepares students for a life of scholarship.  

Our students seem attracted to theology and ethics, but we have many strong research areas and one of the strengths of our program is the encouragement to study broadly.

There are always surprises that arise that require constant attention. For instance, when I was in graduate school we assumed that we were at the end of a discipline known as “metaphysics.” Then it returned, requiring both rediscovery of what we thought had been left behind and new possibilities for what lie ahead. There are trends that were just trends that led me into intellectual dead-ends, and developments that made me rethink things. The philosopher Wittgenstein said that philosophy (and I would add religious studies) is more like exploring an old city that always contains more than you are aware of at any one time. 

I have now supervised over thirty doctoral dissertations and sat in on many more dissertation committees. Each one was different, tailored to the student’s interest. Supervising them is a labor of delight. You observe a student with a general thesis begin to work on their project. At first it is rather vague and unclear—like viewing something at a distance. Then it gains shape and form; clarity emerges until finally it is ready to take its place among the traditions of wisdom that make for human flourishing. To be part of this process, to see it take place again and again, remains deeply satisfying without diminishing its mysteriousness. I could not imagine a more enjoyable exercise than passing along sacred wisdom from one generation to the next.