Almost all of my scholarly life, I’ve researched, written, and taught about depressing topics: the Ku Klux Klan, white supremacy, doomsday prophets, apocalypticism, religious intolerance, horror, and zombies. I spent more than six years of my life analyzing Klan newspapers; too many hours to count making myself familiar with the construction, deployment, and privilege of […]
When It Hurts To Write Read More
I’m not kidding. Really. I made it onto the site. No, I’m not all of a sudden a celebrity, nor did I do something distasteful enough to be noticed (much to the relief of my family). Instead, it is the fault of Neil deGrasse Tyson, or rather, it is the fault of my recent piece
Look, I made Gawker! Read More
This piece appeared at Chronicle Vitae on February 26, 2014. As my year off moves by slowly, I often wonder how I arrived at the situation I am in. Was there a pivotal moment that set me on this path? When did I begin to doubt that I would ever fit neatly within the academy?
The Impermanent Adjunct Read More
2013 was more eventful than other years. I won the Chancellor’s Award in Teaching Excellence, and then, I quit my job as a lecturer. My family moved to my home state of Florida. We bought a house. The Zombies Are Coming! was published in July (Listen to me talk zombies with Carol Howard Merritt and Derrick
2013: Year in Review Read More
Yesterday, Religion Dispatches posted my piece on Elf on the Shelf as a prelude to surveillance culture. Here’s an excerpt: “I need to be good because of the elf that lives my room,” my five-year old explained. “The what? Who lives where?” I ask. “The elf that knows if I’m bad or good,” she replies.
“How do we know they are coming?”–Karin Lane (Mireille Enos) “They’re coming.”–Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), World War Z Zombies are everywhere. Brad Pitt battles them in the film adaptation of World War Z. AMC’s The Walking Dead follows human survivors in a post-apocalyptic zombified world. You can download Plants vs. Zombies for your smart phones, or be chased by these monsters for
The Zombies Are Coming! Read More