I believe that we make meaning by way of sensuous interaction with the material world — through our external aesthetic encounters and internal haptic imagination — as much as, if not more than, by way of ratiocination. My academic research and creative pursuits are a reflection of this belief. My research interests include issues of body and embodiment; the social dimensions of aesthetic power; culture, materiality, and meaning-making; hermeneutic phenomenology; social and sociological theory; interpretive sociology; poiesis, semiotics, and aesthetic philosophy; art and design; sex and gender; and practices and beliefs about “good death.” When I am not teaching, editing, wrapping up a book project (see Interpreting the Body), or conducting research for my dissertation, I write and publish poems, make art, and spend as much time as I can with my two children. Currently I do these things in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

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