About

I am a scholar of American religions, history, culture, and politics with a PhD in Religious Studies from Boston University. After graduating magna cum laude with Honors in Religion and History from Brown University in 2008, I spent six years working in marketing in the New York area before returning to academia. Currently, I’m a Lecturer in Religious Studies at Boston University and the University of Vermont. 

I am writing a book examining the spiritual and religious roots of vaccine resistance in U.S. history for Princeton University Press. In general, my work examines contestations over authority through the interactions between religion, alternative health movements, politics, and consumption. In short, my research investigates how various groups and cultural trends answer (and have answered) questions such as, “Who do I trust with my health?,” which I argue, is an essentially religious question. 

My broader academic and writing interests include religious conservatism and politics, as well as religion, health, and spirituality, specifically the ways in which consumer culture utilizes and creates religious concepts, imagery, and structures in secular capitalistic contexts. I’m also interested in women’s spirituality and how consumerism aids in the creation of meaningful forms of feminine expressions of both religious ideas and rituals as well as ideas about entrepreneurship and business.

Contact me at kgk@bu.edu.