Cassandra Nelson
LUMEN AFFILIATE 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 an affiliate fellow in literature 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 Comment, Common Good, First Things, Plough, and The Point. She is the author of A Theology of Fiction (Wiseblood Books, 2025) and Who’s Afraid of the Still, Small Voice?: Essays on Teaching, Learning, and Faith (forthcoming from One Subject Press).
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.
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 an affiliate fellow in literature 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 Comment, Common Good, First Things, Plough, and The Point. She is the author of A Theology of Fiction (Wiseblood Books, 2025) and Who’s Afraid of the Still, Small Voice?: Essays on Teaching, Learning, and Faith (forthcoming from One Subject Press).
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.
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
- Member of Tech Working Hub, Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology
Selected Writing and Public Engagement
- VIDEO: “Can Good Fiction Deliver What Technology Can’t?” Upper House, Madison, WI, February 14, 2025
- VIDEO: “From the Golden Mean to Median Humans: Technology and the Sinking Middle,” Front Porch Republic 2023 Conference, Madison, WI, October 21, 2023
- 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
- A Theology of Fiction was chosen as the “Wisconsin Book of the Month” for June 2025 by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
- Who’s Afraid of the Still, Small Voice? was named an editor’s pick (and top 5th most read article of 2023) by Common Good magazine
Link to CV