Biography
My specialization is U.S. intellectual and cultural history. My research interests range widely and include the history of philosophy, literature, and politics; print and visual cultures; rallies, riots, and revolutions; the meaning of citizenship and community; exclusion and isolation in the American republic; and the transnational trafficking of ideas.
I am currently working on a popular history of the idea and practice of solitude in nineteenth- and twentieth-century American thought and politics. My research explores the paradoxes inherent in ideas about “aloneness” in the past to better understand how and why we ought to seek solitude in the present, and asks questions about how we ought to live as we face an increasingly uncertain future.
Education
M.A., 2014, American History, University of Alabama at Birmingham
B.A., 2007, History and Philosophy, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Field
- U.S./North American History
MA Title
- “‘Duty for to-day, hope for the morrow’: Alexander Crummell’s Communitarian Ideal”
Working Dissertation title
- “Seeking Solitude: Imagining Self and Society in America”
Selected Publications
- “Isolation, Loneliness, and Solitude: Hannah Arendt’s Triumvirate,” Tocqueville21 (19 July 2020).
- “Will COVID-19 Strengthen Our Bonds?,” Guernica Magazine (12 May 2020).
- “For Rachel Carson, Wonder Was a Radical State of Mind,” Aeon (27 September 2019).
- “Solitary Encounters: Making Our Selves and Our Stories,” The Garrison Institute (23 January 2018).
- “Solitary Contemplation, a Political Act,” Public Seminar (19 December 2017).
- “The Courage to Be in Solitude,” The Garrison Institute (19 December 2017).
- “The Difference between Loneliness and Solitude,” The Garrison Institute (14 November 2017).
- “A Short History of Walking,” The Garrison Institute (11 October 2017).
- “Listening to Silence, Hearing the Unspeakable,” The Garrison Institute (12 September 2017).
- “Before You Can Be With Others, First Learn to Be Alone,” Aeon (11 July 2017).
- “Stranger Things Have Happened: Hope in Alabama’s Senate Race,” Weld (1-8 June 2017): 14.
Selected Awards
- Minna Grotophorst Willis Fellowship, History Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Fall 2019
- Graduate School Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Academic Year 2018-2019
- Summer Research Scholarship, History Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Summer 2017
- Graduate School Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Academic Year 2015-2016
- College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Graduate Student in History, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2014
- David Hart White Prize in History, History Department, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2014
Courses Taught as TA
- History 461 – The American West to 1850
Courses Taught as Instructor
- History 102 — Western Civilization, 1450-Present, University of Alabama at Birmingham
- History 120 — U.S. History to 1877, University of Alabama at Birmingham