I teach mostly introductory world history, as well as seminars on modern Europe in / and the world, Latin America, race and ethnicity, classical and contemporary social theory, and gender. Research interests include Gramsci, Durkheim, Weber, and the history of complex systems theory in the human studies; identity formation; and the pedagogy of complex systems. I have a group blog, https://deadvoles.wordpress.com/, and a pedagogy and assessment blog, https://attentionsurplus.wordpress.com/. I've been Methodist University's professor of the year twice. I have a wife and three cats, and they have me. The wife is Rachel Herrick, a multimedia installation artist, whose current work is a sendup of the 'obesity epidemic' moral panic in the form of a fictional conservation museum: http://www.obeasts.org/.