About Me
I understand the vocation of the intellectual as trying to turn easy answers into critical questions and putting those critical questions to people with power. The quest for truth, the quest for the good, the quest for the beautiful all require us to let suffering speak, let victims be visible and let social misery be put on the agenda of those with power. So to me, pursuing the life of the mind is inextricably linked with the struggle of those who have been dehumanized on the margins of society.
- Cornell West (1999)
I was born and raised in Louisiana. From an early age I became fascinated with the history and culture of the Deep South, particularly in my parents’ home region along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. I attended Louisiana State University and wrote my undergraduate thesis on the reception of Darwinism among Catholic schools in 1920s Louisiana. In graduate school at the University of Notre Dame, my interests in the religious, social, and cultural history of the U.S. and Latin America developed under the guidance of several talented and passionate scholars in history and religious studies. My dissertation, “Religion, Race, and Rights in Catholic Louisiana, 1938-1970” draws upon another important dimension of my early historical consciousness in Louisiana: the history of Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement. I embrace the challenges and possibilities of historical teaching and research in an ever broadening range of fields, including environmental history and U.S. Latino immigration. The intellectual energy and commitment to service that I find at my new home at the College of the Holy Cross excites me a great deal!
College: Louisiana State University (B.A. 2000)
Graduate School:
M.A. and Ph.D., University of Notre Dame (2004; 2007)
Interests
Catholic Relief Services
Adult Literacy Programs
Swimming
Boxing
LSU Football
Detroit Tigers Baseball
My favorite songs
“Melissa” - The Allman Brothers
“Tears of Rage” - The Band
“Tracks of My Tears”
“A Change is Gonna Come”
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-Sam Cooke
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
2008-presentAssistant Professor of History and Alexander F. Carson Faculty Fellow in the History of the United States, College of the Holy Cross
2007-2008Lecturer in Humanities and History, Christ College, Valparaiso University
2006-2007Adjunct Instructor in History, Tulane University
2005-2006Instructor in History and Freshman Writing, University of Notre Dame
2005-2006Senior Graduate Assistant, Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, University of Notre Dame
2004Adjunct Instructor in History, Our Lady of Holy Cross College (New Orleans, Louisiana)