Why Religion?

“Religion? Really?” tended to be the response I got in undergrad when I told people what I studied and what I wanted to do for a living.

As a facet of human society, religion has interested me since childhood. It impacts our daily lives in ways we don’t always recognize — food, clothes, language, social interactions, politics, media consumption, etc.

Politics, global affairs, and digitally mediated identities over the last decade have changed the response I get. Now I hear, "That's really important" or "You have a lot to work with." This signals to me that working at the intersection of religion, media, & politics was and will be necessary and critical to understanding society. 

I applied my interest in religion towards getting a Ph.D. in Media Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder. There I researched the impact of religion on conceptions of national narrative and imaginaries, national belonging, and nationalism/patriotism, especially looking at the rhetoric and embodiment of civil religion and the mediations of protest, religion, and citizenship. Additionally, I explored material religion and digital religion. To learn more, visit the "Research & Publications" page. 

As a student of investigative journalism in the M.A. program at American University, I stepped over to the media side to learn the skills to be a multimedia journalist and to understand how the news chooses to frame religion. This experience allowed me to intern at The Washington Post and Interfaith Voices, while also covering meetings on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. 

My interest in the intersection of religion and media began during my M.A. in Religious Studies at the University of Chicago Divinity School where I began questioning the ties between religion and the enigmatic concept of patriotism in the United States. I researched the iconography of civil religion in political cartoons, performances of political religion on Twitter, and rhetorical patriotism in denominational publications.