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Hello!

I am a third-year PhD student in English and American Literature at Washington University in St. Louis. I study the British literature of the long eighteenth century, with particular interest in the triangular relationship between poetry, religion, and enlightenment. 

I am in the process of preparing to write my dissertation. Some questions that guide me as I do this are: 

• How does the poetry of the period inform and reflect religious belief? 
• How do changes in religious belief inform and reflect “the Enlightenment”: that century-or-so’s onrush of reform, agitation, outrage, and optimism semi-posthumously spotlit and thusly christened? Is the Enlightenment as secular a phenomenon as much previous historiography has asserted? 
• Finally, how are we to understand the relationship between literature and the Enlightenment? Does the former catalyze the latter, by fostering the public cultivation of egalitarian sympathy? Or, as has often been claimed, is Enlightenment thought an engine of disenchantment, devaluing or neglecting the richness of qualitative experience, including literary experience? 

My dissertation will engage such questions (albeit without Enlightenment-era certitude about finding timelessly correct answers). Relatedly, I helped organize a 2024 international conference hosted by WashU and Saint Louis University on the Catholic Enlightenment, and wrote about the conference here. 

I believe in the value of generalist criticism. For Little Village magazine, I write Plain Spoken, a column about literature and the Midwest. I have written a book review for Literature and Theology and a forthcoming review-essay for The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation. I have also written for the public on contemporary political topics. Please see here for a selection of my writing.

I have a separate and sustained interest in the history of liberation theology in Central America. This summer, through the receipt of the International Thomas Merton Society’s Shannon Fellowship, I completed archival research on the friendship between the U.S. monk Thomas Merton and the Nicaraguan poet-priest Ernesto Cardenal. Also this summer, via WashU Libraries’ Newman Exploration Travel (NEXT) Award, I undertook archival research on the intellectual history of liberation theology in El Salvador. 

I am happy to hear from most people for most reasons. Please feel free to reach out to me here.