Skyler Reidy
Skyler Reidy is a PhD candidate in the history department at the University of Southern California. His dissertation analyzes material religion in nineteenth-century California, and argues that settler colonialism drove secularization in the state. Skyler has also published work on the origins of Pentecostalism, and has spoken to academic and public audiences about the history of the California missions.
Articles by Skyler Reidy
Nature, Labor, and a Goat Named Alcibiades
As I cranked the lever I could watch the forest become pasture. I was using a come-along, a simple winch for tightening wire, to run a new fence. As the…
Airports are Non-Places
As I write this, Edward Snowden is moping his way through exile in the Moscow airport. He can't leave because crossing through passport control would mean legally entering Russia, and…
The Monster and the City
“I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man.” So says Frankenstein's creature. After being animated, the beast…
John Taylor of Caroline and Energy Policy
When Odysseus visited Hades, he spoke with many of the greatest fallen Greeks: Achilles, Agamemnon, the prophet Tiresias. He sees many others, and considers seeking out Pirithous and Theseus. “But…
The Coiled Hose
I spent the last eight months working on a dairy farm, and every morning after finishing milking and cleaning the stanchions, I would coil up the hoses in the corner…
The Country That Banned Milk
What would we think of a government that banned milk? Would we think it over-reaching, even oppressive? Would we condemn it for rejecting a great gift from God? Would we…
The Politics of the Clothesline
Yesterday I ambled towards my cottage, returning from putting the cattle out to pasture for the evening. The sun was sinking low in the Texas sky, turning the clouds to…