Biography

My research interests lie primarily in early American religious history. My first book, To Live upon Hope: Mohicans and Missionaries in the Eighteenth-Century Northeast, explored the experience of Mohican Indians with German-Moravian and Anglo-Protestant missionaries and examined the distinctive forms of native Christianity that emerged out of the two mission settings. I spent the year 2011-2012 in Germany on a Fulbright fellowship working on a new book project, a biography of a Mohican-Moravian man named Joshua who lived through the many wars and revivals of the eighteenth century in a very precarious position as an Indian and a Christian. Together with Florida State University musicologist, Sarah Eyerly, I received an American Council of Learned Societies Collaborative Research Fellowship for 2017-2018 to research and revive eighteenth century Mohican language hymns. I also translated my love of food into a blog piece on food and religion, titled “Locavangelism: Eating as Spiritual Practice” for the blog, “Religion in American History.” I am also currently working on an article about Daniel Boone and Joshua, the Mohican.

Academic interests

American religious history, colonial American history, Native American religions, religion and food, religion and music

Teaching

Religion and Culture (R101) American Religion (R173) Prophets, Captives and Converts (R312) Native American Religions (R367)

Awards

Indiana University, New Frontiers Experimentation Fellowship (2015-16) IUPUI Arts and Humanities Initiative Grant (2015-16) Fulbright Senior Researcher/Lecturer at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz and Heidelberg Center for American Studies, Ruprecht-Karls University Heidelberg (2011-2012) Co-Leader, NEH Summer Institute, “"The Many and the One’: Religion, Pluralism, and American History” (2010) Indiana University President's Arts and Humanities Initiative (2004) NEH Fellowship for College Teachers (2000-2001)

Publications

To Live upon Hope: Mohicans and Missionaries in the Eighteenth-Century Northeast Cornell University Press, 2008 Articles in Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, Religion and American Culture: A Reader, Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture and The Journal of the Early Republic

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