Publications
Articles and Essays:
“Does Science Enable or Disenable a Nature Aesthetic?” in The Beauty Around Us: Environmental Aesthetics in the Scenic Landscape and Beyond, Suny Press, (forthcoming).
“Lewis’ Screwtape Letters: The Ascetic Devil and the Aesthetic God,” Mythlore 92 (2004): 26-36.
“Praise Worship’: Sharing A Pillow With God,” New Oxford Review 69 (2002): 43-45.
“Whence Human Evil?” Analytic Teaching 20 (2000): 38-40.
“The View from Nowhere and the Meaning of Life in Thomas Nagel,” Philosophy in the Contemporary World 4 (1997):19-23.
“Was Rationalism Christian or Modern?” Christian Scholars Review 27 (1997): 11-14.
“Russell’s Reticence with Religion” Russell 17 (1997): 27-41.
“A Missed Opportunity in the Philosophy Classroom” The Journal for the Development of Philosophy Teaching 8 (1997): 4-5.
“Nietzsche on Socrates as a Source of the Metaphysical Error” Dialogue 38 (1996): 50-55.
"Sagely Wisdom in Confucianism" Sagely Wisdom in Confucianism (pdf)
Fiction:
“Parental Grief,” The Bleeding Quill, forthcoming.
“The Daughter-in-Law,” Southern Gothic Online, November, 2006.
“Preacher Man,” Stormy Night Fiction, Fall 2006.
“Railing at the Parson,” Branchwood Journal, Spring/Summer 2006.
“The Saints,” VerbSap, April, 2006.
“The Squatter,” The Dead Mule, September, 2005.
“Honor Thy Brother,” Windhover 7 (2002): 116-119.
"The Saints" (pdf) TheSaints
"The Squatter" (pdf) The Squatter
Reviews:
Paul Corby Finney, Seeing Beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition, 1999, in Religion and the Arts 4 (2000): 418-420; George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought, 1999, in Analytic Teaching 20 (1999): 57-60; Robin Le Poidevin, Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, in Teaching Philosophy 14 (1998):191-195: Os Guinness, The American Hour: A Time of Reckoning and the Once and Future Role of Faith, 1993, in Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 9 (1997): 187-188; Stephen Rocker, The Validity of Hegel's Argument for the Identity in Content of Absolute Religion and Absolute Philosophy, 1995, in The Owl of Minerva 29 (1997): 243-253; Peter Auksi, Christian Plain Style: The Evolution of a Spiritual Ideal, 1995, in Religious Studies and Theology 15 (1996): 101-102; Lee Palmer Wandel, Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel, 1995, in Religious Studies and Theology 15 (1996): 121-2.
Presentations:
“Motivation for the Military and Money in the Cause of Religion: English Soldiers in the Netherlands and America, 1585-1640,” European Social Science History Conference, February, 2008, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
“The End of History as the Demise of Democracy,” Conference on Multiculturalism, Pluralism and Globalization at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, October, 2007.
“British Protestants, Economics, Politics, and American Christians,” The Institute for the Study of Religion and Culture, Payap University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, International conference on Religion and Culture, June, 2007.
“Nietzsche’s Last Men and the Fate of Europe,” Grove City College, Pennsylvania, April 2007. (Invited participant by Grove City College’s Center for Vision and Values).
“The Mao Zedong Controversy,” Asia Network Conference, Chicago, Illinois, April, 2007.
“Chinese Political Philosophy: A Comparison of Confucianism to Communism,” Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, October, 2006.
“Nietzsche’s ‘Last Men’ and O’Conner’s Dead Men,” Flannery O’Conner in the Age of Terrorism: An Academic Conference on Violence and Grace, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan, October 2006.
“Confucius and Christ: The Case of Cardinal Ricci,” World Religions Session, Upper Midwest American Academy of Religion Regional Conference, St. Paul, Minnesota, April 2006.
“Will Chinese House Churches Prompt a Chinese State Church?” 2005 Pruit Memorial Symposium, Global Christianity: Challenging Modernity and the West, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, November, 2005.
“Hegel’s Philosophical Consciousness, Incarnation, and the Suffering of the Christ,” Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, November, 2005.
“Philosophy or Religion? The Case of Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism,”
“The Satirical Defense of Mystery,” Mideast Conference on Christianity and Literature, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, October 2004.
“Confessions of a Philosopher, or Doubts about my Discipline: How can Scholarship/Teaching Intersect with Personal Experience?” Viterbo University Faculty Luncheon, La Crosse, Wisconsin, September 2004.
“The Hecklers,” Short Story, Midwest Conference on Christianity and Literature, Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, Indiana, September 2004.
“The Compatibility of Humanism and Iconoclasm in Kierkegaard’s Practice in Christianity,” Philosophy of Religion Session, Upper Midwest American Academy of Religion Regional Conference, St. Paul, Minnesota, April 2004.
“Evangelicals and Story,” Mideast Conference on Christianity and Literature, Bluffton College, Bluffton, Ohio, October 2003; “False Witness,” Short Story.
“Religion in Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra,” Philosophy of Religion Session, Upper Midwest American Academy of Religion Regional Conference, St. Paul, Minnesota, April 2003.
“Christian Economies and Secular Socialism: Ends and Ends,” Christianity and Economics Conference, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, November 2002.
“The Genealogy of Nietzsche’s ‘Last Men’ in Thus Spake Zarathustra,” Traditions of Thought in the Humanities Conference, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, La Crosse, Wisconsin, September 2002.
“The Fall into Objectivity: Philosophers in the Camp of the Religious,” Philosophy of Religion Session, Upper Midwest American Academy of Religion Regional Conference, St. Paul, Minnesota, April 2002.
“The First Shall be Last’ and Nietzsche’s ‘'Last Man,’” Midwest Society of Christian Philosophers Conference, Bethel College, St. Paul, Minnesota, March 2002.
“War and Peace and Maybe Tolstoy: Can Peace Conquer War?” Viterbo University Faculty Luncheon, La Crosse, Wisconsin, October 2001.
“Do Good Fences Make Good Neighbors? Private Property and Hospitality,” Ethics Across the Disciplines Conference, Viterbo University, La Crosse, Wisconsin, April 2001.
“Is There Religious Satire of the Secular?” Midwest American Academy of Religion Regional Conference, De Paul University, Chicago, March 2001.
“Friedrich Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape: Will the Real Devil Please Stand Up?” Midwest Conference on Christianity and Literature, University of Illinois-Chicago, Chicago, March 2001.
“C.S. Lewis on God and the Beautiful and the Devil and Puritanism,” Religious Faith and Literary Art Conference, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, February 2001.
“The Good, the True, the Beautiful and . . . Parameters?” Viterbo University Faculty Luncheon, La Crosse, Wisconsin, November 2000.
“Response to John Greco’s ‘Skepticism and the Modern Ontology,’” American Catholic Philosophical Association Annual Meeting, St. Paul, Minnesota, November, 1999.
“Is the Royal Society the Way to the Louvre?: A Response to Holmes Rolston,” Environmental Aesthetics Conference, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, October 1999.
“The Franciscan Tradition and Postmodernism,” Conference on Christian Philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Steubenville, Ohio, September 1999.
“The Aesthetic Bridge to Culture: C.S. Lewis and The Screwtape Letters,” Christianity in the Academy Conference, University of Memphis, Memphis, March 1999.
“The Aesthetic Devil and the Aesthetic God,” C.S. Lewis Centenary Celebration, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, July 1998.
“The Protestant Reformation and the Demise of Religious Art,” Upper Midwest American Academy of Religion Regional Conference, St. Paul, Minnesota, April, 1998.
“Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and the Nature of God,” Kierkegaard Society meeting, Eastern Division American Philosophical Association, Philadelphia, December 1997.
“Christian Perspective on the History of Philosophy,” Conference on Christian Scholarship: Knowledge, Reality, and Method, The University of Colorado Theology Forum, Boulder, October, 1997.
“Thomas Nagel and the Problem of the Meaning of Life,” Annual Meeting of the Wisconsin Philosophical Association, University of Wisconsin, Fond du Lac, April 1997.
“Philosophy and People--Where is the Connection?” Preparing Future Faculty Conference, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, March 1997.
Academic Memberships
Association of Literary Scholars and Critics; Conference on Faith and History; Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy; Conference on Christianity and Literature; Kierkegaard Society; Midwest Conference on British Studies
Grants and Fellowships
Fulbright Visiting Scholar, Programa em Teoria da Literatura, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa Lisbon, Portugal, Spring Term, 2008.
Faculty Access Program, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Research on Theravadian Buddhism in Southeast Asia, September 11-15, 2005
Freeman Foundation, College in Asia Program, Research and Travel in Japan, Taiwan, China, June 4-29, 2004
Other Professional Activities:
Textbook Reviewer, McGraw-Hill, Wadsworth, Longmann, and Prentice Hall; Peer Reviewer, American Political Science Review; Chairperson, Religion and Culture Session, Upper Midwest American Academy of Religion Regional Conference, 1997 to present
Philosophy of Education
My professional teaching experience has been in multiple contexts, ranging from the university to the military, seminary, and two years teaching in another language. I have taught students who had a grade school education, seminarians with graduate business degrees, beginning university freshmen philosophy majors and soldiers in classes on Soviet ideology who quizzed me on details of how Marx used Hegel's dialectic.
My own original interest in the humanities concerned the relation between Christianity and philosophy, and included the challenge that modern scientific thinking presented for both religion and philosophy. This initial desire to see truth as a whole still resonates in my approach to teaching, where students are expected both to make connections and to examine assumptions. The desire to make and see connections lends me to being a generalist, but springs from the motivation to see students understand and integrate the smallest subject or problem in a wider context of knowledge. I am strongly supportive of interdisciplinary academic programs for the opportunity they provide students for avoiding intellectual isolationism, and for the breadth that comes with making connections across disciplines. I am also an advocate for overseas travel for students to make connections with the larger world around them.
I believe a good and beneficial education is one in which the student comes to the realization that the level of our understanding is in great degree dependent upon the questions we ask, and that the benefit of truth is not to accommodate laziness nor to dispense with questions, but to guide our thinking. Relatedly, one of my primary goals in teaching the humanities is to foster a realization of how attention to the history of ideas facilitates the understanding of an idea, and to direct attention to how various ideas resonate at levels far removed from their point of origin.
My evaluation of students typically couples a requirement for objective knowledge--names, dates, places, movements, etc.--with interpretative essays requiring connections to be articulated within the subject matter. In this manner, the who's, what's, where’s and when's are ground upon which we approach the questions of how and why. The ability to ask these questions—in my mind the goal of a liberal arts education—takes place most naturally with some command of the former and appears empty in its absence.
Teaching Institutions:
Associate Professor, Viterbo University (WI), (2004-Present)
Assistant Professor, Viterbo University (WI), (1998-2003)
Instructor, College of Lake County (IL), (1998)
Instructor, Milwaukee School of Engineering, (1998)
Instructor, Marquette University, (1994-1998)
Awards and Honors:
2005 Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers
2004 Who’s Who in America
2002 Alec Chiu Memorial Academic Award For Engaging Students in Scholarly Activities, Viterbo University
1993-7 Full Tuition Scholarships, Marquette University
1987 U.S. Army Commendation Medal For Instruction in Soviet Ideology
1984 Philosophy of Religion Award, Trinity Seminary
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