These are the questions I care about, and they're the ones at the heart of my present research agenda. Why this agenda? I came of age during the first Trump presidency and as a native Virginian and Southerner too, I've seen and wondered about how contention over the glories of the inglorious past matters today. As a result, I study white nationalism in its varied organized forms, though with a special interest in violent groups. Below I present some of the work I've done and will do that's specifically in an article-based format. For further information on my dissertation-in-progress, see the page on my Dissertation Book Project.
Abstract: Scholars of civil conflict have long sought to develop a unified theory of post-conflict political behavior surrounding identity and memory. In this article, I propose a process by which groups use their personal and collective memory of wartime experiences to craft boundaries between themselves and out-groups which did not experience that boundary. I contend that one way to observe this process is through a physical manifestation of this collective memory: monument construction. Using the American South in the aftermath of the American Civil War as the exemplar case, I test this. I find that while physical manifestations had different effects in the aftermath of the War, these effects attenuated in time. I conclude with several suggestions for what might shape post-conflict identities.
[Draft and appendices available upon request] | [Dataset and Replication Code available upon request]
Abstract: Recent contributions have sought to explain the successes and failures of Reconstruction-era counterinsurgency policy. However, they have failed toengage with one large contributor to the failure of them: violence by the first wave Ku Klux Klan. I introduce an original dataset on racial violence in the South from 1865 to 1871 which details, if only partially, the extent of Klan violence. In so doing, I find that the backlash effect of black troop deployments on violence posited by Byun and Kwon (2026) did not in fact exist during the Reconstruction era, suggesting that scholars have not yet developed an explanation of racial violence and Reconstruction’s effects, a large gap in political science’s understanding of nationbuilding policies and of American political development, nor of the consequences of Reconstruction-era counterinsurgency activity.
Working Draft | Working Draft Appendices | [Dataset and Replication Code available upon request]
All of these works listed are very much in development. They will grow, they will change, so will I. I am happy to discuss these in more detail if you're interested (or are interested in collaborating on them!), but realize there's less I can appreciably say yet about them. For the most part, these are in the "next up" section of my mind and don't appear on my CV.
In an intermediate stage of development but on hiatus due to the dissertation, this paper will look at the voices of the victims who testified in the 1872 Report of the Joint Select Committee Appointed to Inquire in to the Affairs of the Late Insurrectionary States. While still early, the data collection for this paper is fairly well complete. While my work acknowledges, and will continue to acknowledge, the lightly networked nature of the first Klan, this paper will inquire into commonalities both within and across space of victims' diverse experiences and try to contribute to the victimology of white supremacy. It will draw on, and expand on, contemporary models of blame attribution to explore those commonalities. (Because its data collection accompanied that for Ghosts above, this item appears on my curriculum vitae.)
In an early stage of development but also on hiatus due to the dissertation, this paper will examine unorganized election violence in the Reconstruction-era South through one of the bloodiest states for it, Louisiana. Drawing on testimony given to Congressional committees investigation elections in Louisiana at that time, and state committees if I can get my hands on their reports and testimony, it will at least present further data on the scale and scope of election violence in the Reconstruction-era South. Thus, it will at least contribute to open questions about the scale and scope of historical election violence globally.
In the earliest stage of development and also on hiatus due to the dissertation, this paper will drawing on later historiographic ideas of the first wave Ku Klux Klan as a conspiracy and ideas about coverups and lying in politics pioneered today, I intend to (eventually) explore the evolution of how the first wave Ku Klux Klan was discussed by contemporary Southern newspapers. Very up front: I know that there's a lot of variation in the specific ways Southern newspapers discussed the Klan and treated it. Some of that is a function of local conditions, but documentary evidence also points to consistent means, either dismissing it, tacitly supporting it, or lying about it. Why did Southern newspapers, and by extension their communities, lie about something that was claimed to be broadly supported? As a bigger picture question: why do consensus fictional views about politics change over time? And why do political fictions get used in the first place?