Education:
Ph.D. candidate (History), University of Houston (2002- )
Primary Fields: Early American Religion and Culture
Secondary Fields: World, African History
Additional Competencies: Islam in Africa (primarily Sufism); Contemporary American Religion; World Christianity
Advisor: James Kirby Martin
Committee: Catherine Patterson (History); Dorothy Baker (English); Todd Romero (History); Thomas Kidd (History, Baylor University)
Dissertation: “ 'The Sad Tendency of Contention and Division in Churches:' Popular Religion and Pastoral Dismissal in British North America”
M. A. (History), Sam Houston State University (2001)
Thesis: “Rational Affection: The Religious Epistemology and Pastoral Theology of Charles Chauncy and Jonathan Edwards”
B. A. (History), Sam Houston State University (1999)
Teaching Experience:
Instructor (Department Chair), World History, U.S. History, AP European History (Upper School), Second Baptist School (Houston, Texas) Fall 2001-Present
Curriculum Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Core, Second Baptist School (Fall 2004); Topic: Culture and History of Sudan (students read Francis Bok, Escape From Slavery [St. Martin’s, 2003])
Participant, Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History Summer Teacher Seminar (July 2004), “Religious Movements in American History,” Huntington Library (led by Daniel Walker Howe, UCLA and Oxford University)
Coordinator/Speaker, "Imperative to Teach: Africa in the Classroom," (February 2006) Houston Holocaust Museum (a teaching workshop for high school history/social studies instructors)
Coordinator/Speaker, “W.E.B. Du Bois Teaching Workshop” (Fall 2008), Houston Christian High School (a teaching workshop for high school history/social studies instructors; co-taught with SDSU history professor Edward J. Blum; HCHS history instructor Eddie Carson< xml="true" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" prefix="o" namespace="">
Community Activities:
"Imperative to Act: Sudan and Darfur"
Awards:
Academic Affairs Scholar, SHSU (1999-2001)
Arts and Sciences Scholar, SHSU (2000-2001)
Winner, History Essay Contest, SHSU (Fall 2000) “Christology Informing Sacramentology: The Divinity of Christ and the Eucharist According to Martin Luther and John Calvin”
Winner, Zeta Kappa Award, Phi Alpha Theta Graduate Essay Contest, UH (2003-2004) “Islam in Africa: Intersections, Negotiations, and Mystical Spaces in Sufism”
Winner, World History Association/Phi Alpha Theta Student Essay Competition (2005) “Navigating the Indian Ocean: Exploring the Textures of an African Diaspora”
Outstanding Graduate Student, UH History Department (2005-2006)
Murray Miller Dissertation Fellowship, UH History Department (2006-2007)
State Finalist, Preserve America/Gilder Lehrman History Teacher of the Year Award (2008)< xml="true" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" prefix="o" namespace="">
Joseph B. Whitehead Educator of Distinction Award (2008)
Publications:
1. Books
Holy Mavericks: Evangelical Innovators and America’s Spiritual Marketplace (New York University Press, forthcoming), co-authored with Shayne Lee (Tulane University)
“Catholic Evangelicals and Ancient Christianity,” in Vatican II Forty Years Later: Envisioning the Church of the Future, ed. William Madges (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2006), 340-67
“Of Borders and Boundaries: World History, World Christianity, and the Pedagogy of Religion,” World History Bulletin 23/1 (Spring 2007): 7-14
3. Dictionary/Encyclopedia Entries
Contributor, Historical Dictionary of the Darwin Controversies, ed. Kenneth E. Hendrickson, III (Athens: Athens Institute Educational Research, 2006)
Entries written: Isaac Asimov; Michael Denton; Phillip Johnson; Francis Bacon; Alvin Plantinga; Chauncey Wright; Thorstein Veblen; George Wald; Frank Norris; Jack London; Bertrand Russell; John Tyndall; Henry Fairfield Osborn; Theodore Dreiser; Ashley Montagu; John Stuart Mill; Adolphe Quetelet; Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus; Jules Henri Poincare; Antoine Etienne Reynaud Augustin Serres; Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire; Marcel Pierre Toussaint de Serres de Maples; Sir Charles Lyell; H. G. Wells; Teleology (approx. 25,000 words)
Contributor, Colonial America: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural and Economic History, ed. James Ciment (M. E. Sharpe, 2006)
Entries written: Deism; Calvinism (approx. 1600 words)
Contributor, The World of Frederick Douglass, 1818-1895, eds. Paul Finkleman and L. Diane Barnes (Oxford University Press, 2005)
Entry written: Frederick Douglass and Africa (approx. 500 words)
Conference Papers (selected):“Jonathan Edwards as New Light Apologist,” Graduate Research Exchange, SHSU (April 2000)
“The Dismissal of Jonathan Edwards: Reflections on ‘A Farewell Sermon,’” American Academy of Religion Southwestern Region Meeting (March 2003); Chair, History of Christianity Session on “Jonathan Edwards”
“Early Desert Christianity in African-American Relief,” American Academy of Religion
Southwestern Region Meeting (March 2004)
“Catholic Evangelicals and Ancient Christianity,” College Theology Society Meeting, Spring Hill College (June 2005)
“Africa in World History and World History in Africa: Sudanese Dimensions in the Classroom,” World History Association Conference, Al Akhawayn University, Morocco (June 2005); also presented at the Sudan Studies Annual Meeting, York University (August 2005)
“Global Pedagogy: Locating World Christianity in the Classroom,” Pruitt Symposium on World Christianity, Baylor University (November 2005)
“Business as Usual?: Lakewood Church, Joel Osteen, and Houston’s Religious Economy,” American Academy of Religion Southwestern Region Meeting (March 2006)
“Of Borders and Boundaries: World History, World Christianity, and the Pedagogy of Religion,” World History Association Annual Meeting, University of California, Long Beach (June 2006)
“Bigger is Better: Joel Osteen, Lakewood Church, and America’s Religious Marketplace,” American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta (January 2007)
“Sermons in the City, Parables of a Prophet: W.E.B. Du Bois, Religion, and The Crisis, 1910- 1934,” Urban History Association Annual Meeting, Houston (November 2008)
Book Reviews (selected):
Dee E. Andrews, The Methodists and Revolutionary America (Princeton, 2000) in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 45/1 (March 2002): 170-172
Diane Batts Morrow, Persons of Color and Religious at the Same Time: The Oblate Sisters of Providence, 1828-1860 (University of North Carolina, 2002) in Journal of the Early Republic 23 (2003): 633
David Northrup, Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1450-1850 (Oxford, 2002) in Itinerario 38/2 (2004):171-173
Richard C. Foltz, Spirituality in the Land of the Noble: How Iran Shaped the World’s Religions (Oneworld, 2004) in Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies 18/2 (2004): 72-77
R. Andrew Chesnut, Competitive Spirits: Latin America's New Religious Economy (Oxford, 2003) in Fides et Historia 37 (Winter/Spring 2005): 142-144
Katherine Carlisle Schwartz, Baptist Faith in Action: The Private Writings of Maria Baker Taylor, 1813-1895 (University of South Carolina, 2003) in The History Teacher 38/2 (February 2005): 280-281
Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery (Princeton, 2003) in World History Connected 2/2 (May 2005)
Betty Jane Bailey and J. Martin Bailey, Who Are the Christians in the Middle East? (Eerdmans, 2003) in Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies 19/2 (2005): 86-88
Richard Godbeer, Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 (Oxford, 2004) in The History Teacher 39/1 (November 2005): 121-123
Richard C. Foltz, Religions of the Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Exchange from Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century (St. Martin’s, 1999) in Education About Asia 10/3 (Winter 2005): 65-66
Felicity A. Nussbaum, ed., The Global Eighteenth Century (Johns Hopkins, 2003) in World History Connected 3/2 (February 2006)
Philip D. Curtin, On the Fringes of History: A Memoir (Ohio, 2005) in World History Connected 4/3 (June 2007)
Colin Kidd, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000 (Cambridge, 2006) in World History Bulletin (forthcoming)
Edward J. Blum, W.E.B. Du Bois, American Prophet (Pennsylvania, 2007) in Fides et Historia (forthcoming)
Robert Wuthnow, After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion (Princeton, 2007) in H-Net/H-AmStdy (forthcoming)