About
I am a researcher at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies at Lund University in Sweden. I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Religion in 2021 with the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My primary expertise is in modern European philosophical and religious thought, though I am also more broadly interested in ethics, conceptions of the self, theories and methods in the study of religion, and the history of Christian theology. My fundamental research questions involve the role that religious ideas play in the architecture of the human being as a moral, intellectual, and political agent: How does the human's subjective encounter with the ideas of God and freedom structure moral obligation? What roles do concepts such as freedom, love, justice, eternality, and sin play in shaping the self? How do contradictions between ideals of divine justice and the reality of unjust suffering disturb or motivate moral engagement? My current major project (Kierkegaard, Modernity & Critique; funded by the Crafoord Foundation) investigates plausible contributions of Kierkegaard's concept of faith to pressing questions about public rationality. I also have served as a researcher and steering committee member on Lund University's research platform on Christianity and Nationalism, where I conducted research on the interface between nationalist politics and conspiracisms from a perspective empowered by modern European philosophy and classic theories of religion. I now continue this research effort for two collaborate projects since early 2023: At the End of the World, a large research program housed at Lund University, funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (PI: Jayne Svenungsson); and Beyond Truth and Lies, a collaborative project housed at Lund, funded by the LMK Foundation (PI: Patrik Fridlund). I am a member of Lund University's research profile in Human Rights (PI: Lena Hallendius). In addition to my positions at Harvard University and Lund University, I have served as a visiting researcher at the University of Copenhagen's Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre (2016–2018, 2023) and a guest researcher for a brief period at St. Olaf College's Hong Kierkegaard Library (summer 2015). Before beginning my doctoral studies, I received my MA in Religious Studies at the University of Virginia in 2010, and a BA in Religious Studies and a BS in Biology from Indiana University, Bloomington, in 2008. I have academic side interests in environmental and animal ethics; how present-day scientistic and technological movements deploy (consciously or unconsciously) ideas from the history of philosophy and religious thought; video games as texts; science-fiction and horror literature; and methods for conducting pop culture criticism.