Ryan Harper is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Colby College’s Department of Religious Studies, where he teaches courses on American spirituality, race, environmentalism, and the arts.  He is the author of an ethnography, The Gaithers and Southern Gospel: Homecoming in the Twenty First Century (University of Mississippi, 2017) and a poetry collection, My Beloved Had a Vineyard. (Press Americana, 2018). A jazz drummer and lover of all things outdoors, Ryan splits his time between New York City and Waterville, Maine.