Cassandra Nelson
LUMEN AFFILIATED FELLOW, Literature
Areas of Expertise
American literature, faith and fiction, Christianity and culture, writing and composition, media studies, scholarly editing, university and nonprofit communications
Bio
Cassandra Nelson is a visiting fellow at the Lumen Center and an associate fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. Her scholarship centers on faith and technology in American literature and contemporary culture, and has appeared in publications including Plough, Comment, Common Good, First Things, and The Point. Her first book, A Theology of Fiction, began as an essay of the same name for First Things and will be published in substantially expanded form by Wiseblood Books in early 2025.
In addition to her writing, Dr. Nelson has extensive editorial experience. Her work as a scholarly editor includes an edition of Samuel Beckett’s More Pricks than Kicks (1934) for Faber and Faber in 2010. She is currently at work on a collection of short stories by Betty Wahl, which is under contract with Catholic University of America Press as part of their Catholic Women Writers series. In addition, she serves as the editor of Metaxy, a monthly newsletter on moral ecology and character education published the Moral Ecology Trust.
From 2015 to 2018, she taught literature and composition at the United States Military Academy, where she developed a profound interest in effective and inspiring writing pedagogy for first-year undergraduates, virtue ethics, and character education.
External Appointments
Selected Writing and Public Engagement
Education
Selected Honors/Awards
Link to CV
American literature, faith and fiction, Christianity and culture, writing and composition, media studies, scholarly editing, university and nonprofit communications
Bio
Cassandra Nelson is a visiting fellow at the Lumen Center and an associate fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. Her scholarship centers on faith and technology in American literature and contemporary culture, and has appeared in publications including Plough, Comment, Common Good, First Things, and The Point. Her first book, A Theology of Fiction, began as an essay of the same name for First Things and will be published in substantially expanded form by Wiseblood Books in early 2025.
In addition to her writing, Dr. Nelson has extensive editorial experience. Her work as a scholarly editor includes an edition of Samuel Beckett’s More Pricks than Kicks (1934) for Faber and Faber in 2010. She is currently at work on a collection of short stories by Betty Wahl, which is under contract with Catholic University of America Press as part of their Catholic Women Writers series. In addition, she serves as the editor of Metaxy, a monthly newsletter on moral ecology and character education published the Moral Ecology Trust.
From 2015 to 2018, she taught literature and composition at the United States Military Academy, where she developed a profound interest in effective and inspiring writing pedagogy for first-year undergraduates, virtue ethics, and character education.
External Appointments
- Associate Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia
- Editor, Metaxy, The Moral Ecology Trust
Selected Writing and Public Engagement
- VIDEO: From the Golden Mean to Median Humans: Technology and the Sinking Middle, Front Porch Republic 2023 Conference, Madison, WI, October 21, 2023.
- Tradition and the Individual Christian Talent: The Prospects for Catholic Fiction in the Twenty-First Century (review essay of two books about Catholic fiction), The Hedgehog Review 25.3 (Fall 2023), 142–147.
- Authority is Dead, Long Live Authority, Comment (Cardus), July 21, 2022.
- ‘Hard Liberty’: The Hellish Internet’s False Promise, Plough Quarterly, March 25, 2021.
Education
- Ph.D., English, Harvard University
- M.A., Editorial Studies, Boston University
- B.A., English, Boston University
Selected Honors/Awards
- Who’s Afraid of the Still, Small Voice? named an editor’s pick (and top 5th most read article of 2023) by Common Good magazine
- Meringoff Nonfiction Award, Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers, for Manichaeism and the Movies: Flannery O’Connor and the Roman Catholic Response to Film and Television at Midcentury (2014)
Link to CV