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My research mainly deals with popular fiction and the ways that it has reflected the anxieties and desires of Americans over the long twentieth century. For the past several years I've been particularly interested in Evangelical Christian popular fiction and the American Evangelical “Imagination”: the images and stories and ways of thinking that this group of people uses to structure their understanding of the cosmos and their place in it.
Before coming to Laurier Brantford I did academic work at several places, including Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, McMaster in Hamilton, SUNY Buffalo and Dalhousie in Halifax. At Laurier, I have taught in and administered the Contemporary Studies (2011-14), English (2014-2022) and Humanities and Leadership Development (2022-present) programs, as well as teaching in the graduate programs in English and Cultural analysis and Social Theory. I also oversee the biennial Laurier Stedman Prize for Young Writers, a short fiction contest for high school students in the Brantford, Grand Erie and Six Nations areas.
I grew up on a small farm in the Slate River Valley outside of Thunder Bay, and still love to get back North of Superior when I can. I like to spend my spare time with my kids, but seeing as how they’re in their teens and twenties now, I often have to do the next best things, such as swimming, finding new trails on my old mountain bike and hoping my knees won’t give out as I try to keep up with my partner on the various killer hikes that she loves.
Before coming to Laurier Brantford I did academic work at several places, including Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, McMaster in Hamilton, SUNY Buffalo and Dalhousie in Halifax. At Laurier, I have taught in and administered the Contemporary Studies (2011-14), English (2014-2022) and Humanities and Leadership Development (2022-present) programs, as well as teaching in the graduate programs in English and Cultural analysis and Social Theory. I also oversee the biennial Laurier Stedman Prize for Young Writers, a short fiction contest for high school students in the Brantford, Grand Erie and Six Nations areas.
I grew up on a small farm in the Slate River Valley outside of Thunder Bay, and still love to get back North of Superior when I can. I like to spend my spare time with my kids, but seeing as how they’re in their teens and twenties now, I often have to do the next best things, such as swimming, finding new trails on my old mountain bike and hoping my knees won’t give out as I try to keep up with my partner on the various killer hikes that she loves.
I am currently working on a SSHRC-funded project provisionally entitled The Evangelical Imagination in the End Times of White Christian America. I am also co-guest editing a special issue of The Journal of American Culture (winter 2024) tentatively entitled "Apocalypse Deferred: American Evangelicalism in the End Times of White Christian America."
I currently teach the following undergraduate courses in English:
- EN 111: Literature and Crime
- EN 218: Contemporary American Literature.
- EN 264: The American Tradition (special topics course on Moby Dick)
- EN 265: American Literature before the 20th Century.
- EN 266: American Literature of the Early 20th Century.
- EN 301: Literary Theory
Every couple of years I teach a course in the English Graduate Program entitled:
- EN 692w: Fantasy and the Modern Social Imagination
I have taught (and may again teach):
- EN 692x: Evangelical Fiction and American Faith.
- CQ 642: Jesus Junk and Redneck Pride: Class and Consumption in “White” America.
- “Allegory in Modern Christian Fiction.” The Oxford Handbook of Allegory, ed. David Parry. Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2022.
- "Apocalypse, now what?: Evangelical Decline and the Turn to Conservative Conspiritualism” Post45 Contemporaries. “W(h)ither the Christian Right?” Post45.org. forthcoming, summer 2022.
- Review of Daniel Silliman’s Reading Evangelicals: How Christian Fiction Shaped a Culture and a Faith (Eerdmans, 2021). American Literary History, Review XXXII. (forthcoming, 2022).
- “Types and Tropes: History and Moral Agency in Evangelical Inspirational Fiction.” Christianity & Literature, vol 69, no 1, March 2020, pp. 73-90.
- “Unsafe Fantasy: Faith, the Fantastic and the Evangelical Imagination.” The Journal of American Culture, vol. 42, no. 3, Sept 2019, pp. 229-241. doi.org/10.1111/jacc.13071
- with Robert Feagan. "The Role of Academe in Enhancing Civil Society Engagement." in Patricia Daenzer, Ed. Civil Society Engagement: Achieving Better in Canada. Routledge, 2018, pp. 31-46.
- “Typological Realism and Contemporary Evangelical Fiction: Tragedy, Eternity and The Shack." English Studies in Canada 37.1 Spring 2012.
- "Homiletic Realism,” a review of Jackson, Gregory, The Word and Its Witness: The Spiritualization of American Realism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 22.2. Summer 2010.
- "Romance Narrative in Conservative Evangelical Homiletic." The Educated Imagination.
- "Separation of Church and Fourth Estate" a review of Marci MacDonald's The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada. J-source
- with David Haskell and Stephanie Burgoyne. “Defending the Faith: Easter Sermon Reaction to Pop Culture Discourses. Review of Religious Research. 50.2 (2008), 139-156.
- Sex, Paranoia and Modern Masculinity. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2006.
Contact Info:
Office location: 320 Research and Academic Center West (RCW 320)
Office hours:
Thursdays, 12:30 to 1:20 p.m. and Fridays, 12:30 to 2:20 p.m.