About Me

I’m a theologian, but I’m not religious. I’m interested in the strange memories that are buried, or maybe just muted, by all the surface noise of late capitalism. So, I got into this ancient, esoteric, largely forgotten discipline: a kind of pipeline into cosmic speculations that—for many—no longer feel true. I’m basically an archaeologist of the imagination.

I’m also the author of Sister Death: Political Theologies for Living and Dying. I have a forthcoming book about more than human power, and the afterlives of theology. I’m currently working on a book about underworlds, and their evolving meaning.

About This Newsletter

I’m interested in underworlds because I’m interested in buried memories, and secrets. I’m not nostalgic for the past, and I don’t want to hide in it. But I want to do more than study it. I want to understand how it’s still moving through me, in ways I can’t always see or recognize. I want to see how it connects me to people who are long dead, and forms of life that are evolutionarily distant. I want the past to remind me of the things that are worth wondering at, and to remind me what kinds of wonder are still possible.

I write about the things that shape my little ecological context: reading, books, teaching, academia, the humanities, AI. I also write about existential problems: how we cope with mortality, what sort of meaning we make out of nature, how gods and other supernatural forms of life have shaped the way we think and act.

Why Subscribe?

If you’re a little bit irreverent (but also in awe of the wild planet we live on), if you hate the way that we’re often served pre-packaged forms of meaning that don’t digest well, and if you like to think, subscribe to stay in touch with me. I think we’ll get along.