He works at the intersection of politics, literature, and popular culture, paying particular attention to issues of race in the United States. He is the author of American Mourning. Tragedy, Democracy, Resilience (Cambridge, 2017), Republic of Readers? The Literary Turn in Political. Thought and Analysis (SUNY, 2007), and co-editor of A Political Companion to John Steinbeck (Kentucky, 2013). He is currently working on two projects, one about the role of Harper Lee’s work in shaping white America’s racial understandings; the other about race, popular music, and political thought.