My courses in American history, African American history, the Atlantic World, and the digital humanities all require students to perform as historians: analyzing primary documents, crafting arguments based on these documents, and evaluating the arguments of other historians. Students of history become careful readers, creative thinkers, and clear communicators—all essential skills for success in contemporary life.
My research explores how people of faith have understood social injustice, particularly around issues of race and ethnicity. I am the author of
Bonds of Salvation: How Christianity Inspired and Limited American Abolitionism (LSU 2020) and the co-editor of both
The American Yawp: A Massively Collaborative Open U.S. History Textbook (Stanford 2019) with Joseph L. Locke and
Apocalypse and the Millennium in the American Civil War Era (LSU 2013) with Zachary W. Dresser.
I have three new book projects. The first is a single-authored monograph that unfolds the religious roots of modern imperialism through an exploration of the British and American colonization of Africa. The second is a synthetic work aimed at a public audience that tracks the history of Christianity and slavery in the United States from Jamestown to the present. Finally, I am working with Joseph L. Locke on a co-authored monograph historicizing digital history.
My scholarship on the history of antislavery has brought me into contact with activists working on issues of modern slavery and human trafficking. I believe that history should inform these contemporary movements and I serve on the board of
Historians Against Slavery and am a member of the
Children at Risk Institute.
I have a particular interest in the teaching opportunities and democratizing potential of digital technology. I continue to direct the work of hundreds of historians at
The American Yawp. I am also a co-organizer and co-editor of
The Age of Revolutions in the Digital Age, a forthcoming symposium and volume on the digital humanities and early American studies under advance contract from Cornell University Press. I am also the coeditor of
abolitionseminar.org, a NEH-funded resource for K-12 teachers. My interest in critical pedagogy has led me to serve as managing editor of the Teaching United States History Blog (
teachingushistory.co).
When not writing or teaching, I am likely listening to the music of Bruce Springsteen or rooting on my beloved Green Bay Packers.