Sophie Bjork-James

Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University

Areas of Expertise:

Connect with Sophie

About Sophie

Bjork-James has over ten years of experience researching both the US based Religious Right and the white nationalist movements. She is the author of The Divine Institution: White Evangelicalism’s Politics of the Family (2021) and the co-editor of Beyond Populism: Angry Politics and the Twilight of Neoliberalism (2020). Her work has been featured on the NBC Nightly News, NPR’s All Things Considered, BBC Radio 4’s Today, and in the New York Times.

Contributions | No Jargon Podcast | In the News | Publications

Contributions

We Crushed the Curve, the Far-Right Took This as a Recruitment Tool

Commentary, October 2020

Nearly Two Centuries Ago, a QAnon-Like Conspiracy Theory Propelled Candidates to Congress

Commentary, September 2020

In the News

Opinion: "Fueled by Virtually Unrestricted Social Media Access, White Nationalism Is on the Rise and Attracting Violent Young White Men," Sophie Bjork-James, The Conversation, August 2, 2022.

Quoted by Eric Tucker, Michael Kunzelman and Amanda Seitz in "Accused Buffalo Gunman Followed Familiar Radicalization Path," AP News, May 16, 2022.

Opinion: "QAnon Hasn’t Gone Away – It’s Alive and Kicking in States Across the Country," Sophie Bjork-James, The Conversation, April 26, 2021.

Opinion: " The Biggest Threats to American Democracy? White Nationalists and Politicians Who Embrace Them," Sophie Bjork-James, Los Angeles Times, October 10, 2020.

Quoted by in "Far-Right Internet Groups Listen for Trump’s Approval, and Often Hear It," The New York Times, November 4, 2018.

Quoted by in "‘Unite the Right 2’ Exposes White Nationalist Movement in Disarray ," The Hill, August 12, 2018.

Quoted by in "The Rise of Male Supremacist," The New Republic, April 4, 2018.

Quoted by in "Reporters Grapple With the ‘Right’ Way to Cover the Far Right," The Christian Science Monitor, December 28, 2017.

Guest on NBC Nightly News, August 13, 2017.

Guest on All Things Considered, July 5, 2016.

Publications

"Beyond Populism" (with Jeff Maskovsky) (West Virginia University Press, 2020).

Examines the new destructive projects of resentment that have surfaced in the political spaces opened by neoliberalism’s failures, particularly since the financial collapse of 2008. Contextualizes the recent history of the Global North.

"Training the Porous Body: Evangelicals and the Ex-Gay Movement" Anthropologist 120, no. 4 (2018): 647-658.

Examines how US evangelical opposition to LGBT rights stems from a unique understanding of sexuality and the person.

"Feminist Ethnography in Cyberspace: Imagining Families in the Cloud" Sex Roles: A Journal of Research 73, no. 3 (2015): 113-124.

Explores the relevance of the ethnographic study of the Internet for feminist scholars interested in families.