In an essay on egalitarian education, Antonio Gramsci wrote: "Democracy, by definition, cannot mean merely that an unskilled worker can become skilled. It must mean that every 'citizen' can 'govern' and that society places him ... in a general condition to achieve this." I carry this democratic purpose into all of my classrooms, where I seek to not only teach American literature, history, and politics, but also to equip students with the critical thinking and close reading skills necessary to fully and responsibly practice their citizenship.

At Washington University, my self-designed courses include “What We Might Have Been: Utopianism and American Literature” and “Black Riders: 19th-Century African American Print Culture,” both housed in the English department and cross-listed in the American Studies, African American Studies, and Global Studies programs. I also teach the College Writing Program’s “College Writing: Power and Commodity Culture.”

In addition to traditional classroom settings, I have given lectures on radical literary history to public audiences at local bookshops and churches in St. Louis. I have also facilitated programs in which community members, academics, and journalists can all educate each other and share information about the work being done at the intersection of arts, culture, and political activism. In August 2024, the St. Louis Symposium on Radicalism in US Arts gathered 75 people at the St. Louis Public Library—Schlafly Branch for two days of presentations and gallery exhibits. My co-written chapter in the volume Teaching the Rust Belt, forthcoming from Rutgers University Press, proposes curricula for encouraging similar experiential learning opportunities for students beyond campus. Finally, in spring 2025, I am co-organizing the Local Public Humanities Workshop at Washington University, which will prepare graduate students to create equitable and effective scholarly collaborations with publics outside of the campus environment.

Presenting research on the Left Book Club at Ohio University, fall 2017. Photo courtesy of Lexi Browning/Ohio University Libraries.