Craig Mattson


Craig Mattson

Education

  • Ph.D., Regent University
  • M.A., Pensacola Christian College

Biography

Professor Mattson taught and conducted research for 20 years at Trinity Christian College on the south side of Chicago, where he and his wife brought up four children. Now, having moved to Grand Rapids, Craig and Rhoda enjoy hiking, playing racquetball, and walking their Shih Tzu, an extremely timid creature named Chaucer. Craig writes quite nearly every day of his life and enjoys reading hard books in the company of good-humored folk. 

Professional experience

  • Arthur DeKruyter Chair in Faith and Communication - 08/22-present
  • Full Professor, Trinity Christian College 08/09–08/2022  
  • Director of Honors Program, Trinity Christian College 08/10–present  (co-director since 2018)
  • Associate Professor, Trinity Christian College 08/06–08/09
  • Assistant Professor, Trinity Christian College 08/02–08/06

Publications

Rethinking Communication in Social Business: How Re-Modeling Communication Keeps Companies Social and Entrepreneurial. Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2018. 

Why Spiritual Capital Matters: Activating Latent Resources in Your Organizational Community. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2021.

Refereed Publications

“Woo-Woo for Gainful Good? A Critical Examination of Social Entrepreneurs and Spiritually Invested Storytelling,” Journal of Communication & Religion. 44.1 (Spring 2021).

“Better Feeling for Making the World Better? TOMS’s Tropes and the Buy-One-Give-One Mode” Rhetoric Society Quarterly. 48.5 (Dec 2017).

“Stop Talking that Way! An Affective Approach to Uncanny Speech in the Christian College Classroom,” Christian Scholar’s Review. XLV.2 (Winter, 2016). Co-authored with Bethany Keeley-Jonker.

“From Wimsey to the Wire: Distracting Discourse and Attentional Practice.” Quarterly Journal of Speech. 100.1 (March, 2014).

“Buying Stuff, Saving Lives—A Critical Account of Product (RED)'s Economics of Attention.” Southern Communication Journal. 77.3 (2012).

“Eros at the World’s End: Apocalyptic Attention in the Novels of P.D. James and Graham Greene.” (co-authored with Virginia LaGrand). Renascence. 64.3 (Spring 2012).

“Never at Home in Glome: A Rhetorical Account of C. S. Lewis’s Last Novel.” Journal of Communication & Religion. 31.1 (April, 2008).

“Peter Wimsey & Precious Ramotswe: Castaway Detectives and Companionate Marriage.”Christianity and Literature. 56.4 (Summer, 2007). Co-authored with Virginia LaGrand.

Digital Disseminations

Spiritual Capital. Interview podcast focused on the role of contemplative practice in organizational leadership and life. 69 episodes, available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Substack newsletter The Mode/Switch. A playful but reflective examination of the spiritual experience of early-career professionals. (Begun January, 2022) 

Decade of experience as voice talent for faith-based radio network (1998–2007). 

Popular Publications 

“Ditch the Hero Narrative and Tell a Story about Your Community,” Faith & Leadership (December 14, 2021).

“Real Presence: On Podcasting,” Books & Culture (September-October, 2016).

“Blessed Are the Twee?” Think Christian, Reframe Media (April 22, 2016).

“Walker Percy and the 21st-century Moviegoer,” Think Christian, Reframe Media (June 17, 2016). “Surveillance and Revelation in the Bourne Movies,” Think Christian, Reframe Media (July 20, 2016). 

“Miranda Sings and the Many Faces of Narcissism” Think Christian, Reframe Media (June 4, 2015). 

“How to Speak in Public: Surfing the gulfstream of God's speech,” Books & Culture (February 7, 2014).

“Why Intellectual History Matters: A Conversation with Susan Schreiner.” (co-conducted with Michael VanderWeele). Books & Culture. (Nov/Dec 2013).

“Living Well and Speaking Well: Public Speaking and Mental Hygiene,” Books and Culture. (Jan/Feb 2012).

“The Jesus Diet: Eugene Peterson's Conversations in Spiritual Theology, Books & Culture (September 1, 2007).

How Faith Happens: A Winsome Memoir of Doubt and Perplexity and Blessed Assurance,”

 Books & Culture (January 29, 2007).

“Politics & Petunias: Wayne Booth Reconsidered,” Books & Culture (January 1, 2006).

“A Theology of Sound: Attentive Listening,” Books & Culture (May 1, 2005).

Book chapters

“Impossible to Say: Walker Percy’s Moviegoing Epideictic in Crisis Conditions.” Communication Ethics and Crisis: Negotiating Differences in Public and Private Spheres. Ed. S. Alyssa Groom and Janie Harden Fritz. Fairleigh Dickinson (December 19, 2011).

Response to James Olthuis’s “Where There Is Love, There Is Vision? : Witnessing in/under/through Worldviews” in After Worldview. Eds. Matt J. Bonzo and Michael Stevens. Dordt College Press (March 16, 2009).

Anthologizing of already published article: “Peter Wimsey and Precious Ramotswe: Castaway Detectives and Companionate Marriage” originally published (with Virginia LaGrand) in Christianity and Literature, Volume 56.4, Summer 2007 has been reprinted in Contemporary Literary Criticism 268 (April 2009).

Scholarly Book Reviews 

Review Essay in Christian Scholar’s Review (Winter 2022, in press), examining these works:

  • Scott R. Burson, All about the Bass: Searching for Treble in the Midst of a Pounding Culture War (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2021).
  • David French, Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2020)
  • Justin Giboney, Michael Wear, Chris Butler, Compassion (&) Conviction: The AND Campaign's Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement (Downer’s Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2020).
  • Tim Muelhoff and Richard Langer, Winsome Conviction: Disagreeing without Dividing the Church (Downer’s Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2020).

Review of Eric S. Jenkins, Surfing the Anthropocene: The Big Tension & Digital Affect in Communication Research Trends, 2021.

Review of Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: Conversations in Spiritual Theology. Selected for Reprinting in 50th Anniversary Issue, Christian Scholar’s Review (Fall 2021).

Review of Tim Muehlhoff and Richard Langer. Winsome Persuasion: Christian Influence in a Post-Christian World. Christian Scholar's Review 48.4 (Summer 2019).

Review of Michael Hyde, Perfection: Coming to Terms with being Human. Christian Scholar’s Review, Winter, 2011.

“Keeping Company with Wayne Booth.” Review Essay. Christian Scholar’s Review. Winter 2009.

Review of Robert S. Fortner, Communication, Media, and Identity: A Christian Theory of Communication, Christian Scholar’s Review, Spring 2009.

Review of Thomas De Zengotita, Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It in Christian Scholar's Review 37.1 (2007).

Review of Andreea Ritivoi, Paul Ricoeur: Tradition and Innovation in Rhetorical Theory. 

Reviewed in Journal of Communication & Religion, Nov2008, Vol. 31 Issue 2, p329-334, 6p.

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