Major Interests: I received my BA in Religious Studies from Occidental College in 2008, then spent three years working in special education in California. I originally became interested in Religious Studies through a more general interest in Critical Theory, an interest which I continued to pursue at NYU. I am broadly interested in the definition of the category of “religion,” especially the way in which public (i.e. politicized) definitions with particular histories come to be manifested in personal ones. Currently, I am focused on contemporary debates and instantiations within the frame of modern capitalism. My thesis centers on the new affective and intellectual spaces for identity formation and world-building opened up by internet-based mediative technologies.