Areas of Expertise
- Cultural sociology
- Historical sociology
- Political sociology
- Collective memory
- Social theory
Education
B.A. Bridgewater College, Sociology (2005)
M.A. University of Virginia, Sociology (2007)
Ph.D. University of Virginia, Sociology (2013)
Courses
- SOC 101 (F) LEC Invitation to Sociology
- SOC 232 SEM Symbols and Society (not offered 2026/27)
- SOC 302 (F) SEM The Quest for Meaning
- SOC 326 SEM Being Mortal (not offered 2026/27)
- SOC 328/COMP 325/AMST 328/THEA 328 SEM American Social Dramas (not offered 2026/27)
- SOC 362/COMP 362 SEM Stories We Tell (not offered 2026/27)
- SOC 380 SEM Who Cares? (not offered 2026/27)
Publications
Selected Publications
“Montgomery’s Monumental Truths” (with David Cunningham). Contexts 22, no. 3 (2023); also featured on the American Sociological Association’s podcast.
“Contesting Commemorative Landscapes: Confederate Monuments and Trajectories of Change” (with David Cunningham and Nicole Fox). Social Problems 69, no. 3 (2022).
“What We Talk about When We Talk about Culture” (with Jeffrey K. Olick). American Journal of Cultural Sociology 9 (2021).
“Mourning and Memory in the Age of COVID-19.” Sociologica 15, no. 1 (2021).
“From Legacy to Memory: Reckoning with Racial Violence at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.” ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 693, no. 2 (2021).
“Between Tragedy and Trauma” (with Jeffrey K. Olick). Social Research, vol. 87, no. 3 (2020).
“Marking Time in Memorials and Museums of Terror: Temporality and Cultural Trauma.” Sociological Theory, vol. 38, no. 1 (2020).
“Oprah and the Politics of Consolation.” Society, vol. 56, no. 3 (2019).
“Collective Memory.” Oxford Bibliographies in Sociology (2019).
“From Difficult Past to Imagined Future: Projective Reversal and the Transformation of ‘Ground Zero.‘” Poetics, vol. 67 (2018).
“Forgetting to Remember: The Present Neglect and Future Prospects of Collective Memory in Sociological Theory.” In Handbook of Contemporary Sociological Theory, edited by Seth Abrutyn. Springer, 2016.
“The Problem of Suffering in the Age of Prozac.” In To Fix or to Heal: Patient Care, Public Health, and the Limits of Biomedicine, edited by Joseph E. Davis and Ana Marta Gonzáles. New York University Press, 2016.
The Politics of Consolation: Memory and the Meaning of September 11. Oxford University Press, 2015.
“Rhetorics of Suffering: September 11 Commemorations as Theodicy.” American Sociological Review, vol. 77, no. 6 (2012).