Research Interests
My research and writing focuses primarily on the struggle between spirit and intellect in 19th and 20th century American literature. I concentrate on the lives and creativity of individual writers, particularly those who use their poetry and fiction to wrestle with challenging personal and philosophical questions relating to faith, ethics, and politics.
My teaching takes in everything from Puritan poetics to American modernism, with a particular focus on American antebellum history and literary culture. I approach the history of American writing as a confluence of idealistic and violent energies, in which the greatest achievements are often intertwined with the greatest failures.
Selected Publications:
After the Whale: Melville in the Wake of Moby-Dick. University of Alabama Press, 1995.
Hawthorne's Shyness: Ethics, Politics, and the Question of Engagement. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
It Starts with Trouble: William Goyen and the Life of Writing. University of Texas Press, 2015.
God's Scrivener: The Madness and Meaning of Jones Very. University of Chicago Press, 2023.
