Welcome to my website!
This site is a gateway for my research, teaching, and related interests (see my C.V.). I am a professor in the sociology department at the University of Minnesota.
I study religion in the United States. My main interest is in how religion shapes moral culture -- ideas of right and wrong, of what is a "good" family, how we think about race and racial inequality, or about good citizenship. My recent work looks at religion and family. How have religious communities adapted to rapid and fundamental changes in family life? How does a person's family context shape the way she thinks about -- or participates in -- a religious community? I've also been working on a project on religion and race in the U.S. -- how we come to have, and value, a sense of religious or racial identity, and how Americans think about religious and racial diversity. These projects have allowed me to continue to work on the "big questions" that have motivated my research since graduate school:
How does religion shape the way we think about "the good" in public and private life?
When and how and why is religion powerful? When does it shape individual lives, local communities, our laws and institutions, and national debates?
How does religion bring people together in our society, and when does it reinforce the boundaries that separate us?
Recently, I've explored these issues in a review of Daniel Dennet's book Breaking the Spell for Contexts, and in an entry on religion in the current Presidential race for SSRC's religion blog, "The Immanent Frame."
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For me, being a professor in a state University means being part of the community. I live in Minneapolis, and like spending time in the Warehouse District and along the Mississippi River. I'm the proud owner of Max, a tabby cat who, thanks to a recent diet, is now quite healthy. I enjoy being part of a book group and a theater group (theater-going, not acting), and getting out to the many state parks and natural areas nearby.
I like all kinds of travel, including poking around backroads in Minnesota, which is where I got this shot of the bluffs near Redwing last October . . .
And nearby, which is where I got this shot with dusk coming on in the Badlands . . .
