In a classic example of constructing a historical and theoretical scaffolding for my personal crises, I have written about the religious roots of vocationalism for JSTOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/the-spiritual-side-of-vocation/

I just published an essay over at The Millions about the history and form of unfinished novels. This has been a hobby horse of mine for a long time, and I'm very pleased to have finally found an opportunity to write about it. For anyone who's interested in such things, here's my ongoing list of … Continue reading In Praise of Unfinished Novels

There's a new piece of mine up at JSTOR Daily revisiting the profession of mediumship in the wake of the current women's movements. Drawing from the work of R. Laurence Moore, it details how nineteenth-century women used the professional opportunities afforded by the rise of spiritualism to assume male social roles, to achieve some measure of autonomy, … Continue reading The Weird World of 19th c. Mediums

In my latest for JSTOR Daily, I recall how a feud between Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany erupted in the pages of Frederick Douglass's Newspaper over the meaning and purpose of Uncle Tom's Cabin. This is the last time I will write publicly about Stowe until someone lets me gush about The Minister's Wooing.

Religion Dispatches just published an essay of mine on the Mormon influences (and imperatives) of Jeff Flake's recent anti-Trump speeches. This piece digs deeper into how Mormon commitments to empiricism (of a kind) and models of prophecy drawn from the Book of Mormon inflect Flake's most recent speech on the political and theological importance of truth telling.