About

Theology, ethnography, and politics.

I’m Jackson Wolford, a researcher in religion, ethnography, and the ancient art of trying to fit 16 synthesizers into a 215 square foot D.C. apartment. I currently work as a think tank researcher in Washington, D.C., mostly as a contributing to several book projects, including manuscripts on:

  • The history of American Christian political engagement
  • The political theory of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr

I received a master’s of Theological Studies from Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Prior to that, I graduated from the University of Virginia with focuses on Socio-Cultural Anthropology and Playwriting.

My personal research focuses mostly on the intersection of:

  • the messy, grounded business of the ethnography of religious experience;
  • the messier, often entirely un-grounded business of politics;
  • their intersection in contemporary questions of religious pluralism.

This continues the themes of my master’s thesis, Dramatic Tensions and New Resolutions: Seeking a Plausible Ethnographic Theology, which (God willing) no one will ever read.