Selected Essays

On monsters and the monstrous... 

"Criminal Crossovers," Foreword to "American True Crime in the 21st Century Re-Examined," special issue, Crime Fiction Studies 3:1 (March 2022): v-xiii.

“Reading the Monster and Its Moment,” Pedagogy and American Literary Studies, October 22, 2018.

Review of Leo Braudy, Haunted: On Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Zombies, and Other Monsters of the Natural and Supernatural World, in American Literary History Online Reviews, Series XVI (2018).

"Stomping the undead: a blues theory of zombie culture," quarterly horse: a journal of [brief] American studies 1.3 (spring 2017).

"To understand us, Look at Monsters," Orange county register, October 29, 2014.

"zombie companies and corporate survivors," co-authored with carrie lane, anthropology now 7:2 (september 2015): 47-54.

"VAMPIRES, LITERATURE, AND THE CULTURE OF VIRAL PANIC," FORBES.COM, NOVEMBER 2, 2010. 

On teaching and education...

“Creativity and American Studies,” American Studier blog, February 27, 2021.

“Engaging Fan Cultures: What Students Learn When They Study Fandom,” co-authored with Ashley Loup, Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies 16:2 (2019).

“Making Context Matter: American Studies and the Connecting Imagination,” Society of Americanists Review 1:1 (Fall 2018): 113-133.

"All I Needed to Know About College Teaching I Learned as a High School Teacher," Hybrid Pedagogy: A Digital Journal of Learning, Teaching, and Technology, September 15, 2013.

"Teaching American Studies as a Habit of Mind," Encyclopedia of American Studies, Online Forum 3, 2010.

"The American studies habit of mind," and everyday life, june 15, 2010.

"SOLVING THE SCHOOL CRISIS IN POPULAR CULTURE: WHY JOHNNY CAN'T READ TURNS 60," ETHOS: A DIGITAL JOURNAL OF ARTS, HUMANITIES, AND PUBLIC ETHICS 2.1 (APRIL 2015): 4-20.

“John Dewey vs. the Terrible Miss Dove: Frances Gray Patton's Postwar Schoolmarm and the Cultural Work of Nostalgia,” Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy 23:1 (2012): 37-57.

“‘They Turned a School Into a Jungle!’ How The Blackboard Jungle Redefined the Education Crisis in Postwar America,” Film and History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies 39:1 (Spring 2009): 21-30.

"THE AMERICAN TEACHER, FROM SLEEPY HOLLOW TO THE STREETS OF MADISON," FORBES.COM, FEBRUARY 25, 2011.

"Teaching Childhood Through Myth and Counter-Memory," Society for the History of Children and Youth, September 9, 2013. 

"On Howard Zinn," And Everyday Life, February 4, 2010.

On literature and popular culture...

"American Adolescent: Holden Caulfield and the Culture of Not Growing Up," Forbes.com, January 30, 2010.

"A TRANSNATIONAL TALE OF TEENAGE TERROR: THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE," THE JOURNAL OF TRANSNATIONAL AMERICAN STUDIES 6:1 (2015). 

"LESSONS FROM THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE," EDUCATION WEEK 25:4 (SEPTEMBER 2005): 39-40.

"EDWARD ABBEY, NATURE, AND THE 'SHOCK OF THE REAL,'" FORBES.COM, AUGUST 17, 2010.

"LEARNING SOLITUDE," FORBES.COM, JULY 9, 2010.

"NUCLEAR NEW WAVE," FORBES.COM, SEPTEMBER 14, 2010.

"Popular Culture and the Ethics of Identity Theft," And Everyday Life, August 27, 2011.

"The Lonely Network," Forbes.com, February 4, 2011. 

"BROMANCE AND THE AMERICAN NOVEL," FORBES.COM, AUGUST 23,2010.

"Home for the holidays, with a book,' forbes.com, december 15, 2010.