I am a lecturer in Religious Studies at Gonzaga University, teaching courses in the World/Comparative Religions core.
Trained in folk studies, religious studies, sociology of religion, and American religious history, I approach religion through its lived expressions and practices. I am particularly interested in the ways that people creatively and constantly negotiate identity, significance, and power through religious idioms in the dense contexts of their everyday lives. I am also interested in issues related to the classifying of something as religious or not, and the formations of religion produced in specific contexts.
My research follows these interests into the worlds of work and labor, exploring how particular occupational cultures, material settings, and relations of exchange inform and are informed by religious idioms and formations. My first book about this subject was a study of coal miners in eastern Kentucky that looked at a variety of ways that miners and their families responded religiously to the introduction of industrial coal mining into their lives.
I am currently engaged in a long-term research project on the religious worlds of seafaring, focusing initially on New England’s whaling industry. This project takes me into realms of globalization, oceanic studies, and intercultural exchanges between Americans, Pacific Islanders, and others. It explores not only the work of whaling, but the impact of global networks and exchanges on formations of modern perspectives on religion as well.
My work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Lilly Endowment, the American Academy of Religion, the Missouri Humanities Council, the University of Missouri Research Board, the MU Research Council, the MU Center for Arts and Humanities, and the MU Arts & Science Alumni Organization.