Am I an Activist?
Published at Chronicle Vitae on March 26, 2015.
Activism appears to have merit when it can be neatly attached to one’s scholarship or a vision of a shared politics. Since most of my work is on religious hate groups, my scholarship didn’t always neatly align with the expectations of departments and search committees. There seemed to be a sneaking suspicion that my work on the KKK revealed a white, conservative agenda. Perhaps I was hiding a Klansman in my closet? Maybe I should have invested in SPLC T-shirts or a Co-Exist bumper sticker to ease suspicion. I did neither.