Research
My research focuses on the religious dimensions of literature, ritual studies and performance studies. My thinking about religion is influenced by cultural, interpretive and visual anthropology, literary and cultural criticism, discussions of religion the arts in the modern west, and ritual and performance studies. Much of my research to date has focused on the tensions and interactions between Protestant Christianity and modern culture, especially in Germany.
My SSHRC-funded doctoral dissertation examined the impact of German Pietism on the life and literature of the Nobel Prize winning Swiss-German author Hermann Hesse. A revised version of the disseration, titled Veneration and Revolt: Hermann Hesse and Swabian Pietism, was published with Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Read more about the book.
Postdoctoral research, also funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), involved an ethnographic-based study of Luther-themed festivity and pilgrimage in Lutherstadt Wittenberg. A manuscript and DVD, titled Performing the Reformation, is currently in production with Oxford University Press, and will appear in March, 2010. Read more about Performing the Reformation.