slowly, slowly, this becomes a page about religion.

In university, I studied religion! Religion is one of my absolute favorite areas of study and exploration.

my personal background with religion

I was raised Unitarian Universalist and was very involved in my congregation from a young age, especially because one of my parents worked at our church. My childhood sickdays were spent napping in my parent's office at church. My childhood snowdays were spent playing outside in the snow in the winter landscape around our church. From a young age, I felt grounded and like it was my second home.

My upbringing informed a lot of how I see the world, but in particular it emboldened me to approach the study of relgion and life informed by the Unitarian Universalist principles, a set of seven beliefs & affirmations. While many people have assumed I would want to study religion from a position or frame of faith, I feel really grounded in an approach characterized by openess regarding dogma or personal religious beliefs (though ofc we all come to academic study with implicit biases and assumptions; I certainly continue to work through those).

My personal beliefs at this time feel almost secondary of my love and enthusasism for learning about religion. I am looking forward to sharing that here!

areas of study and interest

• early Christian literature
• Patristics; especially Origen and, my most beloved & best of the Cappodocians, Gregory of Nyssa
• apophatic theology & mysticism
• critical perspectives on the category of 'religion' and the academic discipline as it has developed