Sightings Articles
Monuments, Memorials, and the Resacralization of Space
The landscape of public space shapes collective understandings of the past
February 8, 2021
Is This America?
A distinction may bring some clarity to disagreements about the meaning of the Capitol riots
February 1, 2021
Of Memphis and Washington
White Supremacy's desecration of sacred spaces, in 1968 and today
January 18, 2021
OMG
“… a longtime Facebook staffer told me that to detect instances of suicide or murder on Facebook Live the company created a system that looks for sudden spikes in attention—‘by number of people viewing, by the rate at which those impressions are go...
March 18, 2019
#TheLateUnpleasantness
The war came, again, in August, this time in the guise of what The New Yorker’s Jelani Cobb dubbed “The Battle of Charlottesville.” Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” hopped their basket and marched on the Lawn of the University of Virginia on the eveni...
September 28, 2017
Nonwhitesome Mormons
Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, represent only about two percent of the American people, but “everybody” knows something or other about them. Ask your neighbor to discuss the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)...
September 25, 2017
For Southern Baptists, a Sudden Awakening and Turn on the “Alt-Right”
In a classic essay on “Denominationalism,” Sidney E. Mead observed that “[t]he denomination, unlike the traditional forms of the church, is not primarily confessional, and it is certainly not territorial. Rather it is purposive.” When Mead published ...
June 19, 2017
Dylann Roof, the Radicalization of the Alt-Right, and Ritualized Racial Violence
Dylann S. Roof, the self-professed white supremacist known infamously as the “Charleston church shooter,” was convicted last month of killing nine black churchgoers at (Mother) Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolin...