My website’s blog has been out of commission for the last several years, mainly because the kind of commentary I would do on my blog shifted to Twitter or X. However, I’d like to resurrect it in 2025: not for any serious commentary, but primarily for announcements, recent events, and a little personality. So, I thought it would be fun to do a recap of some highlights from 2024:
Writing & Presenting
This was a pretty successful year for writing. I had 4 essays in Law & Liberty, 2 op-eds in Deseret News, and one journal article in Interpreter. You can find links to them all in the “Writing” section of my website.
I was also invited by USU’s Patrick Mason to contribute a chapter to a volume on Latter Day Saint history. It will discuss how “Mormonism” was used by pro-slavery intellectual George Fitzhugh as a means of arguing against Northern liberalism. In short, Fitzhugh believed that Mormonism’s emergence from the North was evidence of the unnatural culture of Northern liberalism. It will be an expansion of my Law & Liberty piece on the same topic. The chapter was submitted last summer and we should (hopefully) see it in print through University of Illinois Press sometime this year.
I also finalized another chapter for a different volume on…wait for it…James Bond and religion. This will be part of Rowman & Littlefield’s Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture series. I’m a huge James Bond fan and have been since I was a kid, so I jumped at the chance to write on two topics that are so close to my heart. My co-author Guy Burnett and I argue that the James Bond of the novels is a reflection of the 20th-century post-Christian West. Sounds like a stretch, I know, but just wait until you read it. We’re hoping to see it in print at the end of 2025 or early 2026.
I’m nearing the completion of my book on the pro-sociality of markets. I’ve been working on this the last couple of years and I hope to have it completed by the end of the month or mid-February. Most of my Law & Liberty essays from this past year were partially lifted from the book. There’s some interest in the manuscript from a publisher, but I’ll just leave it at that. Don’t want to jinx it!
Finally, I presented at the Mercatus Center’s Markets & Society Conference. My presentation was titled “‘A Pacific System': Peace, Markets, and Doux Commerce.” I argued that economic centralization leads to greater state-on-citizen violence as well as citizen-on-citizen violence. You can see the slides here.
Professional
The most recent professional change came at the end of 2024: I was officially offered an online adjunct faculty gig at Brigham Young University-Idaho. I’ll be teaching international business during the Winter 2025 semester. Excited for this new opportunity!
In my role as manager of Academic Programs at AEI, I handle faculty relations. This relationship-building culminated in our inaugural AEI Faculty Summit in January 2024. We had a little over 30 attendees and a wonderful lineup of speakers, including Chris Scalia, Sam Abrams, Max Eden, Jim Pethokoukis, Leon Aron, Adam White, Peter Berkowitz, and Jenna Storey. It was a great way to kick off 2024.
Another part of my job is overseeing AEI’s Summer Honors Program, an intensive, fully-funded educational and professional development opportunity for top undergraduate students. The program provides participants the opportunity to connect with the ideas, research, and network of AEI through an intensive one-week seminar led by an AEI scholar or partner instructor. In the summer of 2024, we offered 20 courses (the most in SHP’s history), hosted about 300 students, and heard from some amazing speakers, including FIRE’s Greg Lukianoff and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik (pictured below). We also had a great trip with our Summer Honors Academy students to Philadelphia, where we visited Independence Hall and the National Constitution Center and received some on-site teaching from AEI fellow Jay Cost.
We also had a few student summits throughout the year. These included both our Spring and Fall Summits for the AEI Collegiate Network, which is our student network for current undergraduates. The Spring Summit was held at the University of Florida and co-hosted with the university’s Hamilton Center. Our final summit was the First Generation Student Forum, which is designed to bring current first generation undergraduate students to DC to enter into discussions about the state of the American Dream today.
I had the chance to attend a couple professional development seminars this year as well. The first was with Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy. While there, I was able to see the Makoto Fujimara exhibit they had on display. By random chance, I was able to briefly meet Fujimara and have him sign my copy of Art and Faith: A Theology of Making. Later in the year, I attended the Mercatus Center’s Pluralism Summit. There, I heard from Daryl Davis and his stories of converting Klansmen away from the KKK. I had the privilege of chatting with him for a little bit before snagging a selfie. Both seminars were fantastic.
Fun Stuff
The summer of 2024 was the summer of 90s nostalgia. I saw several concerts: Creed (w/ 3 Doors Down), Alanis Morissette (w/ Joan Jett), Beck, and Primus (w/ Coheed & Cambria). I also went to a guitar clinic with Mark Tremonti, guitarist of Creed, Alter Bridge, and Tremonti. He went over licks, picking patterns, exercises, improvisation, songwriting, and creative chording. The heat from him shredding up close and in-person nearly melted my face off. Afterwards, we got a rundown of his gear for that night’s Creed show. Cherry-on-top, his signature now graces the front of my Fender.
Lissette and I also did a few trips. In July, we did a visit of various Latter-day Saint historical sites in upstate New York and Pennsylvania. These included the Sacred Grove and Smith family farm, the Hill Cumorah, the Grandin Building (publisher of the Book of Mormon), the Whitmer farm, the Harris farm, and the Priesthood Restoration site in Oakland Township, PA. This was the first time we’ve ever visited these sites. Given my own historical work on Joseph Smith’s First Vision, it was very exciting. We also spent July 4 at Niagara Falls: another first for the two of us.
My father came to visit us this summer as well. He’s a history buff, so we all headed out to Gettysburg. We got a proper tour from a Gettysburg guide, who has probably forgotten more about the battle than I’ve ever known.
I went to Kentucky with a friend to do some bungee jumping for the first time ever. It was exhilarating. Did a couple of jumps. The pre-jump is nerve-wracking. You step the edge and the worker says, “Let go of the rail. Put your hands to your side. Alright, 3, 2, 1…” And then you leap. The first two seconds after you leave the platform are terrifying. Your bodily instincts kick in and you think, “I’ve killed myself.” But then you feel the bungee cord behind you, the calm sets in, and you just enjoy the ride. It was fun to do my own GoldenEye reenactment.
Finally, Lissette and I did something we’ve wanted to do for some time: we went on a Christmas cruise. It was our first time on the MSC line. We headed out of New York City and our first stop was in Florida at Port Canaveral. We visited the Kennedy Space Center, a first for both of us. Then we headed to the Bahamas, where we relaxed and took it easy.
Overall, it was an eventful year. I’m looking forward to 2025!