Family, Careers, and Sexuality: Spiritual Trends in College Men of Faith

I'm excited to share an article based on my dissertation findings published in Church Life from the University of Notre Dame:

Where are the men? How do we get more men involved and engaged in our ministries? I hear these questions time and time again from people across the country in my travels as an educator, minister, and scholar. I hear them...

Click here for the full article. 

Sacred Narratives: College Men at the Intersection of Masculinity & Spirituality

I am excited to share my most recent work, Sacred Narratives: College Men at the Intersection of Masculinity & Spirituality, published in ACPA Developments:

Be a man…but also a man of faith and spirituality? Missing from the contemporary discourse on college men and intersectionality is an analysis of how college men reconcile and make meaning of their gender (masculinity) and faith/spiritual identities...

Read more here and download here.

Intersectionality & College Men: Complicating The Single Story

I recently authored a guest post titled "Intersectionality & College Men: Complicating The Single Story" for Higher Education Scholars @ Boston College, which is a PhD student blog.

"The single story of today’s college men is the assumption that they are doing just fine, due to their privileged gender identity status and historical dominance in the academy. The foregone conclusion that these factors will ensure success for an overwhelming majority of men is simply untrue and not supported by empirical research. This oversimplification is harmful to all men, particularly those from historically disadvantaged populations who are made up of multiple oppressed identities and groups, and therefore, may experience additional stereotyping due to the multiplicity of their identities.

The single story is often reinforced when scholars and practitioners of higher education focus on men solely as gendered beings, rather than from an intersectional approach..."

The full post is available here.

* A PDF of the post is available here

 

Book review: The Sacred Project of American Sociology, by Christian Smith, Oxford University Press, 2014.

Zepp, D. A. (2014).  A review of the book The Sacred Project of American Sociology, by Christian Smith. ACCU Collegium News, 3(18), 13-14. Retrieved from http://collegium.org/fall14.pdf

I recently had the pleasure of reviewing The Sacred Project of American Sociology by Christian Smith, which was published in Collegium News, Fall 2014 issue.  The Collegium newsletter is distributed to alumni faculty and graduate fellows of Collegium.  I attended the Collegium annual Colloquy on Faith & Intellectual Life as a graduate fellow this past summer at the College of the Holy Cross, along with seventy faculty and five other graduate fellows from Catholic colleges and universities across the country.  We engaged in conversations around the Catholic intellectual tradition, with a primary focus on the development of one's own sense of vocation as intellectuals in a contemporary context. 

Here is my book review from the Collegium Fall 2014 Issue, pp. 13-14 (click to enlarge): 

To view more of my scholarship, see scholarly publications.

Man Up? Redefining Masculinity Through Ignatian Ideals - NJSLC 2014

Boston College is hosting the National Jesuit Student Leadership Conference this week (July 23-27).  I am excited to be presenting Man Up? Redefining Masculinity Through Ignatian Ideals on Thursday @ 10am (Session #2) in Stokes Hall South #S111. 

Program Abstract:

This interactive presentation will help student leaders come to understand the tensions between society’s definition of what it means to be a man and the central tenets of Ignatian spirituality.  Participants will be asked to reflect on their own understanding of masculinity and its cumulative impact on effective student leadership.

For more information, see the evaluations of my NJSLC presentation.

To view my other presentations, see presentation samples and speaking samples.