• ENG 102. Writing II
• ENG 220. American Literature I

• Ph.D., English, Notre Dame, 2020
• M.A., English, Notre Dame, 2018
• B.A., English (Literature) and Music, University of North Texas, 2014

• Wissentschaeftlicher Mitarbeiterin (postdoctoral researcher), University of Heidelberg, 2020-2023
• Adjunct Instructor, University of Notre Dame, Fall 2020
• Adjunct Instructor, Holy Cross College, Fall 2020

Publications:

• “Skepticism in Melville’s Late Poetry,” chapter in “The Routledge Companion to Herman Melville,” edited by Cody Marrs and Brian Yothers, which will be available in winter 2024 by Routledge Press.
• “Margaret Fuller and the Faithful Female Sceptic: The Politics of (Not) Publishing the 1842 ‘Credo.’” ESQ: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture 68.3 (2022).
• “Readerly Trust and the Art of the Scam in The Confidence Man.” In Blackwell’s Companion to Herman Melville, ed. Wyn Kelley and Christopher Ohge. 2022.
• “We Look Deep Down and Yet Believe.” Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies 30.1 (2018).

Presentations:

• “‘The history of nations is the history of individuals:’ James W.C. Pennington’s Vision of Black Self-Culture,” at the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers Conference, Oct. 17-20, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.
• “‘Not Warranted:’ Literary Games of Social Trust in Melville’s Late Fiction.” Biennial Conference of the Swiss Association of University Teachers of English. Conference Theme: Trust and Uncertainty. University of Fribourg, Switzerland. 2023.
• “The Chronicler, the Coppermind, and Kickstarter: Trust and Authority in New Models of Fantasy Publishing.” Co-presented with Prof. Dr. Trenton Ford. Conference: Trusting and Distrusting the Digital World in Imaginative Literature.” University College Dublin, Ireland. 2023.
• “Can a Skeptic be a Lady? Domesticity and Irreligiosity in Antebellum American Literature.” Oxford Early American Republic Seminar. Oxford University, UK. 2022.
• “Skepticism, Pyrrhonism, and Augustine’s Privation Theodicy in Emerson’s Poetics.” Pacific Ancient and Modern Languages Association Conference. Hybrid format, online. 2021.
• “James W.C. Pennington and African-American Skepticism.” James W.C. Pennington Conference. University of Heidelberg, Germany. 2021.
• “Melville’s Miasmatic Hermeneutics.” 12th Annual Melville Conference, New York University, NYC. 2019.
• “Margaret Fuller and Self-Doubt.” (Keynote address). University of Heidelberg English Graduate Student Conference. 2019.
• “Transcendentalist Darkness: Doubt, Scepticism, Infidelity, Madness.” Heidelberg Center for American Studies Spring Academy, University of Heidelberg, Germany. 2019.
• “Grief and Doubt in the Age of Melville: Tennyson’s In Memoriam and Melville’s Clarel.” 11th Annual Melville Conference, London, UK. 2017.
• “Looking for the Worst in People: Jessica Jones and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion.” Console-ing Passions Conference. University of Notre Dame, IN. 2016.
• “God Save the King of the… Witches?: Aemelia Lanyer and the Roots of Puritan Transgressive Exegesis.” Annual Conference of the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference. Bruges, Belgium.
• “A Message from Beneath the Stone: Language and Religion in Melville’s Clarel.” 10th Annual Melville Conference. University of Kyoto, Japan. 2015.

Public writings:

• “Who is Augustine of Hippo?” Christianity 102 column, Earth & Altar Mag. June 2023.
• Best of 2022 Award on r/AskHistorians

I’m currently working on three main projects.

1. I co-edited two final manuscripts accepted for publication by Oxford University Press in spring 2025: "James W.C. Pennington: Essays Towards Rediscovering an African-American Intellectual,” an anthology of writings by Pennington, a famous Black abolitionist, intellectual, and Reformed churchman (I also authored chapter in the book); and a companion volume of essays, "The Fugitive Blacksmith and Other Essential Writings of James W.C. Pennington,” for which I cowrote the critical introduction.
2. I’m editing my dissertation for publication. This project looks at how American Christians composed, revised, and published their spiritual autobiographies, during a period of intense concern about religious decline and secret unbelief.
3. During my postdoctoral studies at Heidelberg University, I studied representations of the Holy Land in Cotton Mather’s unpublished—but mammoth—Biblia Americana. Had it been published, the Biblia Americana would have been America’s first Bible commentary. I’m fascinated by how Mather and other eighteenth-century apologeticists presented information about the Holy Land as biblical interpretative aids. I’m even more interested in parabiblical reference aids embraced fiction alongside popular scholarship throughout the 19th century. What kind of imaginative work did the Holy Land perform for distant Americans? Who read this literature, and why? What cultural, artistic, and theological legacies did it leave?