Short story long: I received a B.A. in Psychology from California State University, Northridge, and then an MA and PhD from the Religious Studies Department, University of California, Santa Barbara. While a graduate student there I was lucky enough to spend a year in Paris, studying at the Center for Critical Studies and the Sorbonne. I was hired in the Department of Religion at Emory University after graduating and am now the Goodrich C. White Professor of American Religious History and Cultures.

 

Some of the courses and seminars I have taught while at Emory include US Religious History; Mind, Medicine, and Healing; Death and Dying; Theory and Method; Sacred Drugs; Introduction to Religion; Religion and Music; Health and Healing; Religion and Sexuality; and Entertaining Religion.

 

My latest book is Sacred Drugs: How Psychoactive Substances Mix with Religious Life (Routledge, 2025), which seeks to highlight the deep-rooted but still pertinent connections between varying degrees of altered states of consciousness and religious cultures. Other books I’ve written include Sacred Matters: Celebrity Worship, Sexual Ecstasies, the Living Dead, and Other Signs of Religious Life in the United States (The New Press, 2009) an exploration of the sacred in American life; two books on the history of death in America: The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883 (Yale University Press, 1996) and Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America (Oxford University Press, 2003). And a short memoir and collection of articles, Don’t Think About Death: A Memoir on Mortality (Deeds 2020).

 

In addition to writing some books, I’ve also co-edited two multivolume encyclopedias, Religion and American Cultures: An Encyclopedia of Traditions, Diversity, and Popular Expressions (4 vols., ABC-Clio, 2003, with Luis Leon; voted best reference by Library Journal in same year) and Science, Religion, Societies: Histories, Cultures, Controversies (2 vols., ME Sharpe, 2006, with Arri Eisen and a foreword by His Holiness The Dalai Lama). Within my first couple of years at Emory, and just in time for the 1996 summer Olympics, I edited Religions of Atlanta: Religious Diversity in the Centennial Olympic City (Oxford University Press, 1996; with a foreword by President Jimmy Carter).

 

I’ve been interviewed a lot on topics in American religious cultures, ranging from death and funerals to horror films and psychedelics, in a variety of media, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and other newspapers; US News and World Report, Ebony, The Lutheran, Vice and other magazines; the Joe Rogan Experience, On Point, Odyssey, and other radio shows and a variety of podcasts; as well as on the NBC Evening News, The Today Show, Charles Osgood CBS Morning Show, and other television and documentary broadcasts, including the surprise hit at HBO, The Mortician. Some of my shorter essays have appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Huffington Post, Sacred Matters, Smithsonian Magazine, “Religiousness” with Psychology Today, and other religion blogs and outlets.

 

I was also fortunate enough to be one of the founders of the online religion magazines, Religion Dispatches (created and initially directed with Sheila Davaney in the early 2000s), and then started Sacred Matters on my own. Collaborative projects have brought me a great deal of scholarly enjoyment, mostly, and have been supported by a range of organizations, including the Lilly Endowment, Center for Theology and Natural Sciences, the Ford Foundation, and Emory.

 

Earlier in my career when I was a go-getter and had a great deal of energy, I organized numerous conferences at Emory University, including “Religious Diversity in Metropolitan Atlanta,” “Religion in the American South,” “Science and Religion: Perspectives on Suffering and Healing,” “Against Death: Scientific and Religious Perspectives on Prolonging Life,” “New Perspectives in Health and Healing: Can Science and Religion Work Together,” and “Contesting Religion and Religions Contested: The Study of Religion in a Global Context”. More recently I’ve been reenergized by drugs, by which I mean the study of, of course, and helped initiate a Sacred Drugs Salon here at Emory and a Drugs and Religion unit for the American Academy of Religion.

 

In Fall 2006, I was a visiting fellow at the University of Victoria, BC, a splendid and productive few months with wonderful colleagues, and in Summer 2007, I participated in the Nanzan American Studies Summer Seminar as a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer.

 

I have also served a lot of time, at Emory that is. It’s difficult to remember it all but I started out as Associate Director of the Graduate Division of Religion for a few years, followed by three years as Director. Then I became Chair of the Department of Religion and willingly served eleven years in that capacity.