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About
About
Nathan E. Fleeson is an educator and independent scholar working at the intersection of Religion and Literature, specifically the ways literature establishes sacred narratives and sets apart sacred spaces.
As an educator, Dr. Fleeson has spent the past several years teaching at Peachtree Ridge High School in Suwanee, GA as a member of the English Language Arts faculty. Courses focus on improving student writing and literary analysis and include AP Literature and Composition, Creative Writing, and 10th Grade Literature and Composition. Coming from a background in collegiate education with concentrated experience in writing instruction and material culture, his courses help students establish their voice as a writer, see learning and writing as a process over time, and put literature within a global context. These goals have led to extensive partnerships with local Media Specialists to encourage material learning and participation in writing-specific professional development, such as the Red Clay Writing Project.
As an independent scholar and researcher, Nathan Fleeson completed a PhD in Religion and Literature from the University of Georgia, where his work explored fantasy literature’s potential as a narrative pathway for religious meaning-making and community. That dissertation utilized material culture of fanzines and books of hours, along with religious theory to build connections between the fantasy literature of the 20th Century (including J. R. R. Tolkien) and the hagiography of the medieval Christian church. Since then, his work has continued to explore the permeable boundaries between the sacred and profane through journal articles about museums dedicated to saints and the queer theology of Oscar Wilde and an edited volume on religion in the books of Rick Riordan.
Recent Updates
Recent Updates
New Edited Book Published - Questing through the Riordanverse: Studying Religion with the Works of Rick Riordan
New Edited Book Published - Questing through the Riordanverse: Studying Religion with the Works of Rick Riordan
In June 2024, I co-published with Carolyn Medine an edited collection of essays related to Religion and Rick Riordan's writing, entitled Questing through the Riordanverse: Studying Religion with the Works of Rick Riordan. The volume contains chapters exploring the themes of monsters, identity construction, and New Age religions that take their inspiration from pop culture. For the volume, I contributed a chapter on Character Deaths and their religious value for readers, a co-written Introduction about teaching Arts, Literature, and Religion in the 21st Century, a co-written Conclusion about the future of the Riordanverse. I also worked on the Appendix, which brings together student reflections on Pop Culture and Religion based on the Introduction to Religious Thought class I taught at UGA for 5 semesters. One of the things I love about this collection is working on it with my former major professor/mentor and my students. In many ways it is a representation of the academic forces that shaped me, how I attempted to make sense of them, and what my students did with those legacies. You can order Questing through the Riordanverse now through Rowman and Littlefield at the link below!
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