His dissertation, "Race, Memory and Communal Belonging in Narrative and Art: Richmond, Virginia's Monument Avenue, 1945-1996," locates memory and public memorials as a crucial site in the ongoing battle for civil rights and political power in Richmond, Virginia which culminated in the addition of a statue of African American tennis champion Arthur Ashe to a network of Confederate memorials.  He argues that while crucial symbols of racial exclusion fell, cultural values of morality and masculinity which had legitimated white supremacy were reaffirmed in the Ashe Monument.  His essay “Memory and Masculinity: Arthur Ashe in Word, Deed, and Monument” is forthcoming in _Southern Masculinity: Perspectives on Manhood in the New South_, Craig T. Friend (ed), University of Georgia Press.  His research and teaching interests include American Studies, Public Memory and the Civil Rights Movement, Popular Culture, American Literature, and Research and Writing.

Ph.D. in American Culture Studies, Bowling Green State University