The intellectual foundations of The Coherence Portfolio.
Our ventures draw upon three overlapping fields of inquiry: American Studies, Disability Studies, and Religious Studies. Together, they inform how we understand human experience, institutions, adaptation, and the possibilities for change.
American Studies
Grounded in formal scholarship and teaching, American Studies provides TCP’s historical and interdisciplinary foundations. Our work explores early America, natural history, wilderness, religious experience, and the institutions through which Americans have understood, organized, and transformed their world.
Disability Studies
Developed through independent study and lived experience with progressive muscular disability, this inquiry examines how human bodies encounter the systems and environments built around them. It explores disability as a source of knowledge, revealing overlooked problems and opportunities for innovation in technology, mobility, commerce, and everyday life.
Religious Studies
Grounded in formal training in American religious history and continuing participation in religious traditions, this inquiry examines how people construct meaning, community, and ethical obligation. Drawing particularly on the Abrahamic faiths and American religious experience, it brings historical scholarship into conversation with the practices of belief, interpretation, and everyday life.
Together, these fields connect how people understand the world, how they experience its limitations, and how they imagine and build alternatives.