Craig Mattson

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.

Book Publications

• Digital Overwhelm: A Mid-Career Guide to Coping at Work. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024.
• Why Spiritual Capital Matters: Activating Latent Resources in Your Organizational Community. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2021.
• Rethinking Communication in Social Business: How Re-Modeling Communication Keeps Companies Social and Entrepreneurial. Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2018.

Selected Essay 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 2018).
• “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).

Selected Public Scholarship

• Spiritual Capital. Interview podcast focused on the role of contemplative practice in organizational leadership and life.
• Substack newsletter and podcast, The Mode/Switch. (since 2022, more than a thousand subscribers) focused on how to convert the pressures of America work culture into something livable and sustainable.
• NetVUE Vocation Matters blog, 2022 – 4-part series of articles on Gen Zs, Millennials, and vocation.
• Faith & Leadership – “Ditch the Hero Narrative and Tell a Story about Your Community” (December 14, 2021).
• “The University and Community Engagement: Recent Approaches,” Review Essay. Christian Scholar’s Review (Spring 2024)