Yoknapatawpha Daze

An announcement is due, which if you saw my homepage, you knew. In just two weeks I’ll be starting work as Assistant Teaching Professor of Religion at the University of Southern Mississippi.

If we had a chance to talk IRL, you have probably known that like many academics, I had long wondered whether finding steady work in the business was even possible for someone like me. The market swallowed a lot in my life. These days I am feeling humbling gratitude for the support and the luck I have had. I am also trying to be reflective on what is, I hope, an end to a precarious phase of life and the social and political economy in which I’ve lived my working life.

Don’t get me wrong! I’m raising glasses. The opportunity is significant, and the work is just beginning. I’m looking forward. If you’re ever in the New Orleans area, let’s be in touch.

Extremism and the Defense of Democracy

Here’s my latest piece on Sightings, the UChicago Divinity School’s blog on religion and modern life. In it, I think about the limits of a defense of democracy based in policing political extremism in light of the federal government’s ongoing inquiry into the attack on the US Capitol on January 6. If you have any thoughts, do be in touch.

Pandemic Consequences of China Panic

Here is a piece I wrote for Medium on nationalism, prejudice against Asian and Asian-American people, and critical coverage of China in the US press. I argue that while anti-Asian prejudice is as easy to oppose as it is to find, the implicit “new Cold War” stance taken in much of the US media obscures geopolitical, ecological, and macroeconomic problems where more collaboration is urgently needed.