One important but under-considered aspect of the connection between television’s rise and the Cold War is the anxiety that the rapid growth in the cultural influence of television produced in its wake, most notably a concern about the older, traditional American culture ostensibly being left behind. Included within this “traditional” culture was…[Read more]

An unsubmitted draft of a chapter from my dissertation that discusses the creation, definition, and study of the concept of religion and why the concept has no analytical value to my dissertation.

Against the background of the often female-focused view of sexual abuse victims, this paper addresses the issue of male-identifying victims of sexual violence through the lens of the Bible. I tackle one particular form of sexual abuse: female-on-male sexual violence, of the “forced/made to penetrate” type through a re-reading of Genesis 19:…[Read more]

With the brazen privatization, if not pending chaotic collapse of Twitter, millions of people are looking for alternative spaces to share their work, thoughts, and ill-conceived memes. Among the many digital migrants are a significant number of academics who looking for guidance, and familiar faces, as they try to make sense of the many new…[Read more]

This paper argues that the practice of description is frequently understood as definition, which is too often precisely prescription. It contends that reduction to necessary and sufficient features is alien to the natural development and use of conceptual categories like religion, and so an alternative approach to description is recommended.