Read on Twitter
Thread: some updates and highlights for followers new and old!
I've been somewhat quiet #OnHere lately, but this interview is one of the things I've been working on, and I'm quite proud of it.
Read on for more of what I'm about and what I've been up to!
#TuesdayMotivation https://twitter.com/C_Stroop/status/1321134188368523264
I've been somewhat quiet #OnHere lately, but this interview is one of the things I've been working on, and I'm quite proud of it.
Read on for more of what I'm about and what I've been up to!
#TuesdayMotivation https://twitter.com/C_Stroop/status/1321134188368523264
So, who is this weirdo? I grew up in Indiana and Colorado Springs, indoctrinated in Christian schools and evangelical churches to fight the Christian Right's culture wars.
Breaking away was a slow, painful process for me. I didn't recognize my repressed queerness till I was 33.
Breaking away was a slow, painful process for me. I didn't recognize my repressed queerness till I was 33.
In the middle of getting away and trying to figure out who I was, I ended up getting a PhD in modern Russian history at Stanford (graduated in 2012). While there I managed to get both married and divorced. I then taught at a Russian university in Moscow and continued my research.
While I was there, Putin cracked down on queer people and other "othered" groups and annexed Crimea, causing my ruble-denominated salary to be severely devalued while I was trying to deleverage from debt in dollars. Also we lost access to good French cheese. Wheeee
I had always planned to try to come back to the US, Canadian, or EU academic world, but I was unable to get a tenure-track job. I did, however, land a postdoc and then visiting instructor position at the University of South Florida in Tampa, where I worked from 2015-2018.
After that I had to give up on the dream of a stable academic job. Only precarious academic work was open to me, so I decided to try to become a writer, the childhood dream I'd put off in order to follow a "safe" academic path.
I moved back in with my parents in Indiana.
I moved back in with my parents in Indiana.
After a year, thanks to support from readers like you as well as finding new outlets to write for (often via Twitter) and getting more regular gigs, I was able to move to Portland, OR and start medical male-to-female gender transition. Which I very much need health insurance for.
Gonna stop here to plug my Patreon. If you value my work and can afford to support it with a monthly pledge of any amount, please do so. Freelancing doesn't pay all the bills and I'll be even worse off when the ACA is gone.
Sharing this link helps too! https://www.patreon.com/cstroop
Sharing this link helps too! https://www.patreon.com/cstroop
Heads up, part II of my interview with @charleskriel and @katgellin about People You May Know just dropped at @RDispatches. Shout-out to @gloriousbeth here too. Check it out!
https://religiondispatches.org/people-you-may-know-reveals-a-war-on-democracy-being-waged-with-big-data-part-ii/
#2020Election #TuesdayThoughts
https://religiondispatches.org/people-you-may-know-reveals-a-war-on-democracy-being-waged-with-big-data-part-ii/
#2020Election #TuesdayThoughts
So, to get back into the swing of this thread, what you read above is the really abbreviated version of the super weird life trajectory that allowed me to gain visibility on Twitter because of my very unusual combination of lived experience and academic expertise.
I first got interested in Russia through youth mission trips, something I came to find so embarrassing that I mostly stayed silent on it for 20 years.
I spilled the beans in Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church, coedited with @laureneoneal: https://www.amazon.com/Empty-Pews-Stories-Leaving-Church/dp/1946093076
I spilled the beans in Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church, coedited with @laureneoneal: https://www.amazon.com/Empty-Pews-Stories-Leaving-Church/dp/1946093076
Knowing both Russia and the Christian Right well has allowed me to publish timely commentary over the last few years not only about both those entities, but also about the connections between them.
In this regard see especially my work for @PRAEyesRight https://www.politicalresearch.org/bio/chrissy-stroop
In this regard see especially my work for @PRAEyesRight https://www.politicalresearch.org/bio/chrissy-stroop
Over the last few years, I've been an occasional contributor to PRA, @damemagazine, and @ForeignPolicy, and a regular contributor to @Playboy (for a time) and now to @RDispatches and @Convo_ist. Check out my author pages:
https://www.playboy.com/profile/chrissy-stroop https://foreignpolicy.com/author/christopher-stroop/
https://www.playboy.com/profile/chrissy-stroop https://foreignpolicy.com/author/christopher-stroop/
Author pages continued:
https://www.damemagazine.com/author/chrissy-stroop/
https://religiondispatches.org/author/chrissy_stroop/ https://conversationalist.org/writer/chrissy-stroop/
https://www.damemagazine.com/author/chrissy-stroop/
https://religiondispatches.org/author/chrissy_stroop/ https://conversationalist.org/writer/chrissy-stroop/
I do commentary and occasionally investigative advocacy journalism, as well as speaking gigs, which in this time of COVID I continue to do virtually (please book me!)
https://cstroop.com/contact/
I'm also an advocate for embracing pluralism as essential to democracy:
https://cstroop.com/contact/
I'm also an advocate for embracing pluralism as essential to democracy:
