About
A long road toward better questions.
I am a Texas-born writer, researcher, translator, and educator. My work grew out of an early interest in religion and philosophy, then widened through years of teaching and research across the United States and Europe.
That path has taken me through Boston, Denver, Vienna, Florence, Rome, Zagreb, and Houston; through doctoral research at the University of Denver; and through research appointments at the European University Institute, the University of Vienna, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria.
It has also taught me the value of changing one’s mind in public. My dissertation on secularization revised an argument I had previously published after deeper study of the evidence and the relevant intellectual tradition. I still think that is the most important intellectual habit: follow the argument where it leads.
Beyond the academy
Alongside scholarly work, I have edited public-facing writing, translated literary work from Italian, and taught learners in classrooms, libraries, and online learning environments.
What I am building now
I am building a public-facing body of work: essays, research, and teaching that bring rigor to cultural questions without making them inaccessible.
