Julie Ooms is an Assistant Professor of English at Missouri Baptist University in St. Louis, Missouri, where she teachers World and American Literature and freshmen writers. She spends her free time reading comics, keeping her cat, Book, out of trouble, and never again training for a half marathon (once was enough). She is a member of Crossroads Presbyterian Fellowship (PCA) in Maplewood, Missouri.

Beyond Otherness Is Where Friendship Begins

In contemporary U.S. society—as in Twain’s post-Civil War South, as in Le Guin’s 1960s culture war America—our shared humanity is dangerously easy to ignore.

Hamilton and Trump: Making America Great Through Self-Promotion?

Hamilton’s insistence that he can and must save himself echoes, in a slightly altered key, Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign.

Jessica Jones: The Hell of Losing Control

Jessica Jones, one of Marvel’s darkest characters, is trapped in the postmodern hell of losing control of her own life. Can she escape her suffering by helping other people?

‘Daredevil,’ Hell’s Kitchen, and the Good Samaritan

Daredevil is a Good Samaritan: he stops at the side of the road, helps a stranger, and makes community out of brokenness.

The Importance of Story in Super 8

Super 8 can mesh with Christian ideas about how we can communicated truth through story.