Books

A writing life

My books have been a constant in a career spanning many fields. They range from literary history and Cormac McCarthy’s engagement with science to climate misinformation, influence operations, and apophatic theology.

Across this work runs a persistent question: How do people decide what is true, valuable, or worthy of trust when established ways of understanding the world come under pressure?

Current and Forthcoming

Sowing the West Texas Wind

Editor and contributor · Texas Tech University Press · 2026

In an age of information overload and polarized discourse, this interdisciplinary collection examines how misinformation takes root and spreads. Using West Texas as a revealing microcosm, its contributors address public health, climate communication, journalism, law, election interference, and Russian influence operations—and consider practical ways of rebuilding trust.

Russia’s Disinformation Machine: Inside an Internet Troll Farm

With Ori Swed · Lynne Rienner Publishers · Forthcoming January 2027

What happens when voices in a social-media feed originate not with ordinary people but with a coordinated production line? By reverse-engineering Russia’s Internet Research Agency, this book reveals the specialized actors, narratives, and tactics that make manufactured influence appear organic. It also considers how artificial intelligence is making false personas cheaper, faster, and harder to detect.

The God of Dark Matter: Apophatic Knowledge and Contemporary Scientific Discovery

Under contract with the University of Notre Dame Press

What might ancient traditions of negative theology contribute to contemporary encounters with scientific mystery? The God of Dark Matter brings apophatic thought—the practice of approaching reality through what cannot be said or known—into conversation with cosmology, quantum physics, consciousness, and artificial intelligence.

Science and Literature in Cormac McCarthy’s Expanding Worlds

Bloomsbury Academic · 2023

Cormac McCarthy’s fiction is inseparable from his fascination with physics, mathematics, evolution, ecology, and consciousness. This book traces his engagement with scientists and scientific ideas, including the intellectual community surrounding the Santa Fe Institute, and considers how science enlarged both the form and metaphysical reach of his work.

Selected Earlier Books

My earlier books examine literary history, documentary photography, archives, cultural memory, and the tangled relationships among religion, regional identity, and political power.