Department of Religious Studies

• American literature and culture, 1640-1860
• History of the book in America
• American religious and intellectual thought
• Religious publishing
• Literacy studies

My own academic interests tend to be eclectic. My training is in American Studies, so I favor approaches which are highly interdisciplinary in nature. My specialized field of research is the history of publishing and literacy in the United States. More commonly, I work in the area which has come to be called history of the book studies, and I work primarily in the North American context. I am interested in how different forms of writing influence a vast array of cultural practices from religious preaching to proper etiquette at meals. More specifically, I have spent my career working on religious publishing in the United States and have written extensively on the production of the English Bible in America. My two most recent books include: Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy and The Book of Mormon: A Biography. I have also edited a collection of essays on typography and textual interpretation and an anthology on 19th century American popular literature.

The Book of Mormon: A Biography (Princeton UP, 2012)

Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy (Oxford UP, 2011)

American Popular Literature of the Nineteenth Century, 1200-page anthology (Oxford University Press, 2001)

Illuminating Letters: Essays on Typography and Literary Interpretation, co-edited with Megan Benton, (University of Massachusetts Press, 2001)

An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777-1880, (Stanford University Press, 1999>

• ENG-L 111 - American Best Sellers, 1790 - Present
• ENG-L 204 - Introduction to Fiction
• ENG-H 203 - Nineteenth-Century American Classics
• ENG-H 203 - American Detective Fiction
• ENG-H 203 - Banned Books in America
• ENG-H 203 - The American Social Protest Novel
• ENG-L 351 - American Literature, 1800-1865
• ENG-L 355 - American Fiction to 1900
• ENG-L 384 - Studies in American Culture: American Dreams and Schemes
• ENG-L 390 - Children's Literature
• ENG-E 302 - English Literatures 1600-1800
• ENG-E 303 - English Literatures 1800-1900
• ENG-L 680 - Nineteenth-Century American Popular Literature
• ENG-L 680 - Melville, Moby-Dick and American Culture
• ENG-L 705 - The History of the Book in the United States
• ENG-L 779 - (Re)Forming America: The United States in the 1850s

• President's Arts and Humanities Initiative, Indiana University, 2002-2003
• Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, College of Arts and Sciences, Indiana University, 2000-2001
• Fellowship, Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University, full academic year 1999-2000
• Pew Program in Religion and American History Faculty Fellowship through Yale University, full academic year 1997-1998