"There is then creative reading, as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion."
--Emerson, from "The American Scholar"
"There is then creative reading, as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion."
--Emerson, from "The American Scholar"
My work at King has been a long apprenticeship: learning how to teach from my students and from colleagues; how to read from Virgil, Hawthorne, and Eliot; and how to be a member of a community of faith and learning. I teach American Literature courses and research Appalachia, particularly as it intersects with modernism and modernity.
My wife Mariel also teaches English, and we have two sons, Penn and Sam.
MA, English, East Tennessee State University
BA, English, King College
“Graphing the Appalachian Novel,” presented at the 2013 Appalachian Studies Association Conference at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina (March 2013).
“Bill Withers,” Encyclopedia of Appalachia Online, University of Tennessee (2010).
“A Case for the Song,” Faculty Lecture delivered at King College (October 2009).
“Frank Lloyd Wright’s Appalachian Modernism,” presented at the 2009 Appalachian Studies Association Conference at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio (March 2009).
“Albert French,” Encyclopedia of Appalachia, University of Tennessee (Spring 2006).
“Out of this Furnace,” Encyclopedia of Appalachia, University of Tennessee (Spring 2006).
“Robert Mitchum,” Encyclopedia of Appalachia, University of Tennessee (Spring 2006).
“Thunder Road,” Encyclopedia of Appalachia, University of Tennessee (Spring 2006).
“Gospel According to Bristol: The Life, Music, and Ministry of Ernest Phipps,” The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music, McFarland Press (April 2005).
I'm nearly finished with a PhD from the University of Tennessee in American Literature. My specialty areas are Southern Literature and Modernism, and my dissertation looks at examples of modernism in Appalachia.