Research
Wild Experiment: Feeling Science and Secularism After Darwin
Duke University Press, 2022
Winner of the 2023 Ludwik Fleck Prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science
Winner of the 2023 Book Prize from the International Society for Science and Religion
Finalist for the 2023 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, Analytical-Descriptive Studies, from the American Academy of Religion
Reviews
Review of Wild Experiment and The Secular Paradox
Valeria Vergani, American Religion
How Secularism Feels
Amy Johnson Frykholm, Christian Century
Changing Our Minds Means Changing How We Feel
Tom Crompton, Common Cause Foundation
Review of Wild Experiment
Nur Yasemin Ural, Politics, Religion, and Ideology
Review of Wild Experiment
Rene Fransen, Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture
Review of Wild Experiment
Abdulrahman Bindamnan, Material Religion
Review of Wild Experiment
Evan Kuehn, Reading Religion
Review of Wild Experiment
Kostas Kampourakis, Quarterly Review of Biology
The Evolution of Affect Theory: The Humanities, the Sciences, and the Study of Power
Cambridge University Press, 2019
Part of the Cambridge Elements Series Histories of Emotions and the Senses.
Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power
Duke University Press, 2015
Reviews
Syndicate Network Symposium on Religious Affects
Editor: Jonathan Russell. Featuring Pamela Klassen, Devin Singh, Christopher Carter, Yasemin Ural, Jason Blum, Syndicate Network
Angels or Animals? Remixing Religion and Evolution with Affect Theory
Beatrice Marovich, Marginalia Review of Books
Donovan Schaefer’s Call For a Materialist Turn In Religious Theory
Jonathan Russell, Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory
The Word of Dog
Jonathan Benthall, Times Literary Supplement
Power Feels Before It Thinks: A Review of Religious Affects
Eleonora Adorni, Relations
Religious Animals and Animal Gods
Beatrice Marovich, Humanimalia
Review of Religious Affects
Abigail Kluchin, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
On the Side of the Apes
Kyle Byron, Cultural Studies
Review of Religious Affects
Lucas Scott Wright, Critical Research on Religion
Review of Religious Affects
Emma Rifai, Material Religion
Review of Religious Affects
Pooyan Tamimi Arab, Reading Religion
Review of Religious Affects
Alexander Cox-Twardowski, Journal of Religion and Popular Culture
Review of Religious Affects
S. Jonathon O’Donnell, Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religion
Review of Religious Affects
Matthew Sheedy, Religious Studies Review
Review of Religious Affects
Staci Poston Conner, Affectsphere
Review of Religious Affects
Michael Grisham, Animal Studies Journal
2023
Feeling Material Culture: Affect, Power, Sensation
Material Religion 19.1 DOI 10.1080/17432200.2023.2170110
Voracious Secularism: Emotional Habitus and the Desire for Knowledge in Animal Experimentation
Religion 53.4 DOI 10.1080/0048721X.2023.2258710
2022
Visions of Contempt: Emotion and the Visual Culture of the Scopes Trial
Material Religion 18.2 DOI 10.1080/17432200.2022.2048604
Rationalist Nostalgia: A Critical Response to Ruth Leys’ The Ascent of Affect
Capacious 2.4 DOI 10.22387/CAP2022.58
2021
Darwin’s Orchids: Evolution, Natural Law, and the Diversity of Desire
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 27.4 DOI 10.1215/10642684-9316824
The Territories of Thinking and Feeling: Rethinking Religion, Science, and Reason with Alister McGrath
Zygon 56.4 DOI 10.1111/zygo.12766
2020
Whiteness and Civilization: Shame, Race, and the Rhetoric of Donald Trump
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 17.1 DOI 10.1080/14791420.2019.1667503
Talal Asad’s Challenge to Religious Studies
Religion and Society 11.1 DOI 10.3167/arrs.2020.110102
2019
The Secular Twist: Nonreligion and the World Religions Classroom
Implicit Religion 22.1 DOI 10.1558/imre.40123
The Animality of Affect: Religion, Emotion, and Power
Religion, Emotion, Sensation: Affect Theories and Theologies. Bray, Karen, and Stephen Moore, ed. Fordham University Press, 19-37.
2018
Precopulatory Sexual Cannibalism and Other Accidents: Evolution, Material Trans Theory, and Natural Law
Gender and Sexuality 19.1: 28-35.
Beautiful Facts: Science, Secularism, and Affect
Feeling Religion. Corrigan, John, ed. Duke University Press, 69-91.
2017
Animal Politics: Species, Evolution, and Religious Affects
Bulletin for the Study of Religion 46(3-4): 40-45.
You Don’t Know What Pain Is: Affect, the Lifeworld, and Animal Ethics
Studies in Christian Ethics 30(1): 15-29.
The Science of Life
The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Christian Thought. Rasmussen, Joel, Judith Wolfe, & Johannes Zachhuber, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 89-107.
2016
The Fault in Us: Ethics, Infinity, and Celestial Bodies
Zygon (Sept 2016) 51(3): 783-796.
Heavenbeast: A New Materialist Approach to Ulysses
Angelaki (2016) 21(2): 119-137. DOI: 10.1080/0969725X.2016.1182732
2014
Blessed, Precious Mistakes: Evolution, Deconstruction, and the American New Atheism
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (2014) 76: 75-94. DOI: 10.1007/s11153-014-9446-5
Embodied Disbelief: Poststructural Feminist Atheism
Hypatia 29(2): 371-387. DOI: 10.1111/hypa.12039
2012
Do Animals Have Religion? Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion and Embodiment
Anthrozoös, Vol. 25, 25th Anniversary Supplemental Issue
2024
For 150 Years, Black Journalists Have Known What Confederate Monuments Really Stood For
The Conversation, February 2024
2022
Buying into Conspiracy Theories Can Be Exciting – That’s What Makes Them Dangerous
The Conversation, July 2022
Feeling Science, Thinking Religion
International Society for Science and Religion blog, September 2022
Hiding in Horror: Feeling and Believing Climate Science
Counterpoint: Navigating Knowledge, July 2022
Secular Rationality/Secular Affects
Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network blog, August 2022
2021
How Do Words Work? (A Response to Craig Martin’s Discourse and Ideology: A Critique of the Study of Culture)
The Religious Studies Project, December 2021
2020
Affect (A Universe of Terms)
The Immanent Frame, April 2020
2019
The Face of the Sovereign: Affect Theory and Political Theology
Political Theology Network, February 2019
Credulity, or Science as an Intoxication
The Immanent Frame, February 2019
The Codex of Feeling: Affect Theory and Ancient Texts
Ancient Jew Review, January 2019
2018
Material Mourning in the Secular Sculpture Garden
The Immanent Frame, March 2018
2016
The Modern Mosaic of Science and Religion
Marginalia Review of Books, Sept. 2016
2015
How Not to Do What We Always Do: A Review of Hector A. Garcia’s Alpha God
The Revealer, Oct. 2015
2014
Our Peculiar Institution: 12 Years a Slave, American Protestantism, and the Erotics of Racism
Bulletin for the Study of Religion, 43(1)
2013
The Promise of Affect
Theory & Event, 16(2)
2011
On Dictionaryism: The Good News and Maledictions of Religious Literacy
Review of Stephen Prothero’s God Is Not One, Bulletin for the Study of Religion, 40(2)
2009
The Shape of the Field: Bruce Lincoln’s Discourse and the Construction of Society
Council of Societies for the Study of Religion
2023
Review of Embattled America: The Rise of Anti-Politics and America’s Obsession with Religion
Review of The Interplay of Things: Religion, Art, and Presence Together
Material Religion
2022
Review of Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt
Religion and Its Publics
2021
Review of Science under Fire: Challenges to Scientific Authority in Modern America
Isis
Review of Enter the Animal: Cross-Species Perspectives on Grief and Spirituality
Animal Studies Journal
2019
American Mania: A Review of Lawrence Grossberg’s Under the Cover of Chaos: Trump and the Battle for the the American Right
Cultural Studies
Review of David Chidester’s Religion: Material Dynamics
Reading Religion
2017
A Thinking Heart: A Review of John P. Gluck’s Voracious Science and Vulnerable Animals
PsycCRITIQUES 62(14)
2016
Review of Atheist Awakening: Secular Activism and Community in America
Journal of American Studies, 50(2)
Review of The Animal Question and Religion: Theoretical Stakes, Practical Implications
Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, 10(4)
2015
Review of Belief without Borders: Inside the Minds of the Spiritual but Not Religious
Secularism and Nonreligion, 4(9): 1-2. DOI: 10.5334/snr.bb.
2020
Material Secularisms
Collection of student reflections on the Material Secularisms workshop
2019
The Monograph as Laboratory
The Philosophers’ Cocoon blog
2017
Ideology Becomes an Addiction
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
2016
Affect Theory Is an Animalism (with “Becoming-Animal” by Maya Pindyck)
WTF Affect
Writing Space Interviews: Donovan Schaefer
WTF Affect
The Shared Fantasy of Redemptive Violence between ISIS and the Islamophobic Right
Religion Dispatches
Smelling the Sacred: Better (Lived) Religion through Chemistry
Religion Dispatches
Trump’s Evangelical Support in the Gut, Not the Theology
Religion Dispatches
Laying it All Out: On Moving from Dissertation to Book
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
2015
Did Pope Francis Just Change the Course of the Science-Religion Dialogue?
Religion Dispatches
2014
Religion as Little Something: Kathleen Stewart’s Ordinary Affects
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
Defining Postsecularism: A Response
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
Partisan Science: Evolution and Creationism in Postsecular American Politics
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
The War on Christmas, Affect, and the Closet of Disbelief: Postsecular Atheisms, Part 1
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
Post-Atheism and Deconstruction: Postsecular Atheisms, Part 2
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
Blackfish: The Misbehavior of Compassion: Embodied Ethics, Part 2
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
2013
On the Muslim Question: White Atheism and Islamophobia, Part 1
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
Bill Maher and the Bowl of Common Sense: White Atheism and Islamophobia, Part 2
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
I Know Exactly What That Is: White Atheism and Islamophobia, Part 3
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
Casual Apocalypticism: Conspiracy Theory, Masculinity, and American Religion
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
Independence Day: American Christianity and Why American Liberals Aren’t Liberal
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
An Institution Is Not a Text: Pope Francis, Affect, and Power
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
“I Like When They Stay Standing Up”: Embodied Ethics, Part 1
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
Theses on Guns, Apocalypticism, and American Religion
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
2012
Blessed Are the Merciful: Religion, Power, and Pussy Riot
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
Religion and Cartoons: Nina Paley, Durkheim, Politics
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
Profile Me: The Confederate Flag, Shame, and White Male Terror
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
Religion as Foreign Policy: The Russian Orthodox Church, Syria, and the Christian Community
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
A Separation: Religion, Class Secularism
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
2023
Book Launch: Wild Experiment: Feeling Science and Secularism after Darwin (with Mary-Jane Rubenstein)
2022
60-Second Lecture: Feeling Is Believing
2021
Religious Animal Bodies: Notes on an Affect Theory of Religion
2017
New Directions in Religion and the Science of Life
2014
Dad Wanted a Boy: Gender, Embodiment, and Transcendence in Gravity and 2001
2024
Video: “Is a Monument a Text?”
Material Texts Seminar, University of Pennsylvania
2023
Podcast: New Books Network Interview on Wild Experiment: Feeling Science and Secularism after Darwin
Interview with Alison Renna
Podcast: The City’s Salvation: Frank Rizzo and White Christian Nationalism in Philadelphia (with Anthea Butler)
Religion, Race, and Democracy Lab, University of Virginia
Video: God or Nature? Does It Even Matter? (with Joshua Swamidass)
Veritas Forum, University of Pennsylvania
Video: Book Discussion: Wild Experiment: Feeling Science and Secularism after Darwin
Foundation for Creative Social Research, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Audio: Did You Get Lost on the Trip? Serial Endosymbiosis Theory
Machines in Between podcast with John Modern and Libby Modern
2022
Podcast: Knowledge, Feeling, and Belief
Interview with Charlie McCrary, Tracy Fessenden, and John Carlson for the “Recovering Truth” Podcast
Why Are There So Many Conspiracy Theories Out There?
Interview with CJAD Montreal
Q&A with Author Donovan O. Schaefer
Interview with Jessica Covil-Manset for the Duke University Press Blog
What Role Do Feelings Play in Conspiracy, Racism, and Climate Denial?
Interview with Megan Goodwin for Religion Dispatches
Cognition Feels
Interview with Omnia Magazine (Penn Arts and Sciences)
Atheists, Social Media, and American Politics
Interviewing Chris Stedman for The Revealer
2021
Podcast: Facts vs. Feelings
Interview for Fear and Loathing in Science podcast
Podcast: Affect Theory and Religion
Interview with Brian Carwana for The Classical Ideas Podcast
Podcast: Affect Theory, Veganism, Species, and Race
Interview with Shea Watts for CreatureKind’s “Let’s Dish” podcast
2017
Debating Religion: Science, Religion, and Reductionism
Interview with Jessica Frazier at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies
2016
Chimpanzees: Spiritual but Not Religious?
Interview with Barbara King in The Atlantic
Is Secularism a World Religion?
Interview with Christopher Cotter for the Religious Studies Project podcast
Nature’s Weirdest Events
Television interview for Series 5, Episode 2, BBC Two
Trauma Makes You
Interview with Nathan Rein and Matthew Sheedy in the Bulletin for the Study of Religion 45(2)
Religious Affects
Interview with Sarx on religious approaches to animal welfare
In the Beginning Was Not the Word
Interview with Andrew Aghapour and Michael Schulson for Religion Dispatches
An Interview with Donovan Schaefer on Religious Affects
Interview with Christian von Scheve of the Freie Universitat Berlin’s Affective Societies Collaborative Research Centre
Religious Affects Interview Part I
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
Religious Affects Interview Part II
Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
Interview with the Author: Religious Affects
Practicum
2015
Better Get to Know the Religion, Affect, and Emotion Group
Interview with Ipsita Chatterjea on the Bulletin for the Study of Religion blog
The Role of Emotion in Religion
WUNC public radio interview with John Corrigan and Sarah Ross
Science, Religion, Secularity, Emotion, and More
Podcast interview with the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, Cambridge
2013
US Passion for Guns Survives Newtown Shooting
Voice of America interview with Jerome Socolowski