About

I am a Senior Advisor for the Capital Markets Initiative at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., where I develop strategy and lead outreach and coalition efforts on ESG and capital markets. Before that, I served as Associate Dean and Grady Rosier Professor in the Sorrell College of Business at Troy University, where I also directed the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy. I’m also a Visiting Fellow at the Madden Center for Value Creation at Florida Atlantic University. My books include Literature and Liberty: Essays in Libertarian Literary Criticism (2014), Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Pragmatism, and the Jurisprudence of Agon: Aesthetic Dissent and the Common Law (2017), Of Bees and Boys: Lines from a Southern Lawyer (2017), The Southern Philosopher: Collected Essays of John William Corrington (2017), Writers on Writing: Conversations with Allen Mendenhall (2019), The Three Ps of Liberty: Pragmatism, Pluralism, and Polycentricity (2020), Shouting Softly: Essays on Law, Literature, and Culture (2021), A Glooming Peace This Morning (2023) (a novel), and Controversies Among Conservatives: Conversations on Conservatism, Vol. II (2024) (edited with Marcus Witcher and Kevin Hughes). My television show, “Success Stories,” airs on local television throughout Alabama, and my segment “Word to the Wise” appears on Troy Public Radio (WTSU 89.9, WRWA 88.7, WTJB 91.7). I write a weekly column for 1819 News, Alabama’s bold and innovative conservative news outlet. 

I hold a B.A. in English from Furman University, M.A. in English from West Virginia University, J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law, LL.M. in transnational law from Temple University Beasley School of Law, and Ph.D. in English from Auburn University.

From 2016 to 2020, I was Associate Dean and Founding Executive Director of the Blackstone & Burke Center for Law & Liberty at Faulkner University Thomas Goode Jones School of Law in Montgomery, Alabama. I edited Southern Literary Review for over a decade (2011-2022) and have been a visiting scholar (2020) and trustee (2023) at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), an adjunct legal associate at the Cato Institute (2009), a Mises Canada Emerging Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada (2014), an elected member of the Mont Pelerin Society (2024), an associate of the Abbeville Institute (2011-present), a Humane Studies Fellow with the Institute for Humane Studies (2011-2012), a staff attorney for Chief Justice Roy S. Moore of the Supreme Court of Alabama (2013-2016), Assistant Attorney General in the State of Alabama Office of Attorney General Luther Strange (2016), an AmPhil Fundraising Fellow with the Center for Civil Society of American Philanthropic (2023-2024), an Advisory Council Member of the Law & Liberty Circle at the Universidad Francisco Marroquin (2024-present), an elected member (2012) and former trustee (2018-2022) of the Philadelphia Society, an associated scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute (2017-present), a policy adviser for the Heartland Institute (2016-present), former president of the Alabama Association of Scholars (2017-2020), president of the Montgomery Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society (2013-present), and Chairman of the Board of Managers of the Alabama Center for Law & Liberty (2022-2024). In 2023, I was an inaugural recipient of the Freedom and Opportunity Academic Prize from the Heritage Foundation. In 2024, I was a Club For Growth Foundation Fellow and a Lincoln Fellow with the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey appointed me to the 2025-26 State Textbook Committee of the Alabama Department of Education. 

I have taught in university English departments, business schools, a humanities department, a law school, a Japanese private school (juku), and a penitentiary, and I serve or have served on numerous boards of organizations as wide-ranging as the Alabama Public Television Foundation Authority (2019-present), the Young Professionals Board of the Alabama Humanities Foundation (2015-2016), the Society for Law and Culture (a division of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal) (2017-present), Trinity Christian School (2017-2020), Ivy Classical Academy (2025-present), and the Philadelphia Society (2018-2022). I served on the advisory council of the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s Master of Arts degree and Certificate Program in Austrian Economics from 2021-2023. While in private practice in Atlanta, I represented non-profit corporations and litigated cases involving real property, contracts, collections, foreclosures, restrictive covenants, and real estate transactions. I graduated from Leadership Lee County (Alabama), the Alabama State Bar Leadership Forum (Class 14), and the Atlas Leadership Academy of Atlas Network. I have authored hundreds of publications, including fiction and poetry, and studied under the creative writers Gilbert Allen, Michael Blumenthal, William Aarnes, and Chantel Acevedo. 

My academic writing has appeared or is forthcoming in such peer-reviewed journals as The Journal Jurisprudence, The Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Public Choice, The Political Science Reviewer, Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Private Enterprise, The Texas Review of Law and Politics, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Contemporary Pragmatism, The South Carolina Review, Academic Questions, The Independent Review, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Modernist Cultures, The British Journal of American Legal Studies, and in law reviews published by Georgetown University Law Center, UC Berkeley School of Law, The University of Texas School of Law, Emory University School of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law, and Michigan State University College of Law.

My writing for popular media has appeared in Newsweek, Fox News, Fox Business, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, Pacific Standard, The Hill, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The American Conservative, City Journal, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, Public Discourse, Law & Liberty, The Epoch Times, The American Mind, The Freeman, Liberty, RealClearMarkets, The University Bookman, The Daily Signal, Chronicles, The Christian Lawyer, Writer’s Digest, The Conversation, and elsewhere. I have spoken at Harvard University, Brown University, Georgetown University Law Center, Francisco Marroquín University, Furman University, George Mason University, University of British Columbia, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Auburn University, West Virginia University, the Alabama State Capitol, the Alabama Supreme Court, and other universities and locations.

I have been quoted or cited in Fox Business, Fox News, Forbes, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The National Review, The Daily Caller, Le Monde, Times Higher Education, The College Fix, The Blaze Media, Campus Reform, Inside Higher Education, and U.S. News and World Report, and published by such organizations as the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada, the Mercatus Center, the Foundation for Economic Education, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the American Institute for Economic Research, the Charlemagne Institute, the Independent Institute, the Rockford Institute, the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, the American Ideas Institute, Atlas Society, the Heartland Institute, the Abbeville Institute, the National Association of Scholars, the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, and the Libertarian Alliance. I frequently appear on radio and television on networks as wide-ranging as Fox News, Newsmax, Alabama Public Television, NewsNation, Al-Jazeera, C-SPAN, Bill O’Reilly’s “No Spin News,” NTD News, The Daily Wire, Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” and BBC World News.  

Any views or opinions expressed on this website are my own and do not reflect the views or opinions of my current or past employers.