Books for Big Kids
I write non-fiction for teens and adults.
Because I am just a big nerd who loves to write and read—and learn all the things.
underway
If you are a fan of Disneyland history, Disneyland attractions, or just plain ol' Art History, then these short books will appeal to you! This is a deep dive on the references you can find in different attractions to specific art and architecture from around the world. It's like one big scavenger hunt for Disney, history, and art history buffs!
"A review cannot do justice to the richness of this book...."
Review by Joseph F. Chorpenning, O.S.F.S. (Saint Joseph's University) about Holy Organ or Unholy Idol?
"The range and multivalence of this monograph is impressive, and, as many excellent and thought-provoking study should, it also raises a variety of questions in terms of the "roads not taken."
Review by Jessica A. Boon (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) about Holy Organ or Unholy Idol?
Academic Nonfiction
For the truly nerdy!
The books below are ones that are intended primarily for a scholarly audience, though I also think they are pretty cool.
Holy Organ or Unholy Idol
The Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Art, Religion, and Politics of New Spain (Brill, 2018)
Holy Organ or Unholy Idol? focuses on the significance of the cult of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and its accompanying imagery in eighteenth-century New Spain. Lauren G. Kilroy-Ewbank considers paintings, prints, devotional texts, and archival sources within the Mexican context alongside issues and debates occurring in Europe to situate the New Spanish cult within local and global developments. She examines the iconography of these religious images and frames them within broader socio-political and religious discourses related to the Eucharist, the sun, the Jesuits, scientific and anatomical ideas, and mysticism. Images of the Heart helped to champion the cult’s validity as it was attacked by religious reformers. You can check it out on Brill's website.
Visualizing Sensuous Suffering and Affective Pain in Early Modern Europe and the Spanish Americas
co-edited with Heather Graham (Brill, 2018)
Visualizing Sensuous Suffering and Affective Pain in Early Modern Europe and the Spanish Americas is a trans-cultural collection of studies on visual treatments of the phenomena of suffering and pain in early modern culture. Ranging geographically from Italy, Spain, and the Low Countries to Chile, Mexico, and the Philippines and chronologically from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, these studies variously consider pain and suffering as somatic, emotional, and psychological experiences.
From examination of bodies shown victimized by brutal public torture to the sublimation of physical suffering conveyed through the incised lines of Counter-Reformation engravings, the authors consider depictions of pain and suffering as conduits to the divine or as guides to social behavior; indeed, often the two functions overlap. You can check it out on Brill's website.
Emotions, Art, and Christianity in the Transatlantic World, 1450–1800
co-edited with Heather Graham (Brill, 2021)
Emotions, Art, and Christianity in the Transatlantic World, 1450–1800 is a collection of studies variously exploring the role of visual and material culture in shaping early modern emotional experiences. The volume’s transatlantic framework moves from The Netherlands, Spain, and Italy to Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and the Philippines, and centers on visual culture as a means to explore how emotions differ in their local and global “contexts” amidst the many shifts occurring c. 1450–1800. These themes are examined through the lens of art informed by religious ideas, especially Catholicism, with each essay probing how religiously inflected art stimulated, molded, and encoded emotions.
Contributors: Elena FitzPatrick Sifford, Alison C. Fleming, Natalia Keller, Walter S. Melion, Olaya Sanfuentes, Patricia Simons, Dario Velandia Onofre, and Charles M. Rosenberg. You can check it out on Brill's website.
