Hello and welcome to The Adventures of Mr. Chris.
This site is a mix of my academic research, political writings, travelogues and other miscellany. If you are looking for my professional info, here is my current CV (9/22). If you need a high-res head shot you can find one here.
About Me
I earned my PhD in Politics from the New School for Social Research in New York City. My dissertation research focused on the intersections of social and environmental justice and Indigenous rights politics through the lens of the Anthropocene, with special attention to issues of land and agrarian struggles (Nepal in particular). In it I developed an innovative social history of the Anthropocene in Nepal and a theoretical argument about a new social movement formation I refer to as the Earthbound people. I’m working on a side project around this idea, which you can learn more about here: Institute for Earthbound Studies.
In Nepal, on pilgrimage to Mt. Kailash (2016)
Currently I’m teaching at Denison University as a Visiting Assistant Professor in International Studies and the Writing Program. Prior to that I was a Lecturer in the department of Comparative Religion and Humanities at CSU, Chico. Before CSU Chico I was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Grand Valley State University (GVSU), teaching in the Department of Area and Global Studies. I worked for many years at the India China Institute in New York before that, where I coordinating international research programs with scholars, activists, and practitioners from India, China, Nepal, Tibet and the US. These projects ranged from work on sacred landscapes, everyday lived religion and cultural change in mountain communities to developing mentoring and academic support for emerging scholars working on issues of prosperity and inequality in India and China. I also led a digital mapping project on sacred landscapes, with a focus on Mount Kailash in western Tibet, and helped with the publication of a series of folk story collections from the Himalayas.
I have taught a range of courses in Political Science, Historical Studies, Liberal Studies, Area and Global Studies, Religious Studies, and International Studies programs. You can find some sample syllabus on my teaching page. You can also find more of my academic work on my academia page here.
I’ve been involved with social movement since the mid 1990s, and I bring a passion for social justice work into my teaching and research. I’ve served on university social justice committees, investment advisory committees, community public access media boards, and several national activist or student organizing groups over the years. I’ve learned a great deal in the process of doing all this, and apparently enjoy politics enough to study it for a living!
I’ve always loved to write. You can read some of my work in various forums over the years in the New School Free Press, on Public Seminar, and as a Contributing Scholar at State of Formation–in addition to my blog posts here. I also produce occasional multimedia side projects with rv media. You can see some of those projects on YouTube. Most recently I’ve been exploring the world of online radio with my End of the World podcast show, which you can listen to here.
The Past
From its humble beginnings on a Frognet server in the hills of Athens, Ohio in the mid 1990’s, this site has gone through many iterations as a place for my online writings and ideas. As I have slowly moved more into academic work and professional research, I wanted this site to show that evolution of my work as well.
I’ve been a storyteller all my life, something I credit to my late grandfather Crews. As a child he would send my brother and I letters that combined fabulous adventures with cut-out animal photos from magazines or other clip-art to help illustrate his stories. Even as a young “whippersnapper” I was writing, and I started illustrating my own short stories by 6th grade. Whether it is poetry, short fiction or academic analysis, I still have a love of storytelling. This site honors that tradition, merging the best of multimedia, digital storytelling and creative writing.
