A Shakespeare scholar, my research focuses primarily on the religious dynamics of early modern and later literature. My teaching interests run from the late medieval period through the nineteenth-century novel, and include the works of Edmund Spenser, John Milton, Jane Austen, and Anthony Trollope. I like to read widely in history, philosophy, and religion; for fun I am especially keen on the Jeeves and Wooster novels of P. G. Wodehouse. In addition to being professor of English, I hold the Frank W. Mayborn Chair of Arts and Sciences at UMHB.

A native Iowan, I have lived in Missouri, Ohio, Barbados, and now Texas, which I am quickly coming to love, both for its semi-arid climate and the warmth of its people. My wife, Jennifer, is a native of Oklahoma, of Comanche and Kiowa descent, and worked most recently as a science and math professor. We are the parents of two children, and we also have a 15-year-old shih tzu near and dear to our hearts. We like to be outdoors, walk, swim, vegetable garden, listen to live music, particularly jazz and blues; and watch live theater, old movies, and soccer. I also have an abiding love of trees and of the natural world in all its created splendor.