I am Professor of Literature and Director of the Humanities Program at the University of California, San Diego. I’m not sure that labels matter very much, but I consider myself a literary and cultural historian. I’m thankful that I’ve been able to publish on a wide range of interests, from the origins of individualism in the eighteenth century to the history of American prisons. A selected list of my publications appears in my CV, on this site.
I am a libertarian, and much of my research has to do with the history of classical liberal and libertarian ideas and writers. I am the biographer of Isabel Paterson (1886-1961), who first identified the little constellation of ideas and attitudes that is characteristic of American libertarianism. Since its founding in 1987 I have been a senior editor of the journal Liberty, and since 2005 I have been editor in chief. My writing has appeared in every issue of Liberty, whose online archive can be found at libertyunbound.com. Since 2002 I have written a monthly column for Liberty called “Word Watch,” which is an analysis and critique of contemporary language, especially as affected by politics.
I suppose that my book on the Titanic disaster (1999) is connected with my interest in libertarian ideas, because libertarianism is about individual decision making, and the book is about the choices that individual people made on the night of April 14-15, 1912. Some of my other books are only tangentially, if at all, related to those ideas. My book about American prisons (2009), my book about the New Testament and its literary patterns (2006), and my book about how things change in American Christianity (2014) contain something to offend almost everyone, including libertarians.
What else shall I say? I am an Episcopalian Christian. I am gay. I have lived in California throughout my career, but I come from rural Michigan, and the history of my home country continues to interest and amuse me.
On this site, I plan to provide selections of things I’ve written that were fun to write, and I hope are fun to read. I also plan to show examples from the large collections of pictures I’ve assembled while doing my research. Some of my major collections are about churches, prisons, small-town Michigan, and the area of Southern Illinois (basically, Lawrence County) where my extended family has lived for the past 200 years.
Stephen D. Cox 
Dear Professor Cox,
As one of your former undergraduate students at UCSD (Class of 1981), I am reaching out to thank you once again for being a mentor to me back in the day. I don’t know how often you receive thanks from former students, but however often it is, it probably isn’t often enough.
To refresh your memory, I was an English major with aspirations of becoming a physician. Of course I took a lot of science classes too but I really loved the humanities most of all and still do. Of all my college professors you were by far the most approachable and I recall having several very enjoyable conversations with you during your office hours. When I applied to medical school you graciously agreed to write a letter of recommendation for me. Whatever you said, it must have helped!
I am happy to report that I did indeed fulfill my dream of becoming a physician and had a very rewarding and satisfying career. I served in the Navy for 24 years and then another 13 years in civilian practice. I specialized in General Surgery and later did a fellowship in Vascular Surgery.
I have been happily retired for four years now and often reflect upon my past, as probably most of us do at this stage of life. As a result of these reflections it has occurred to me that there are people that I would really like to thank once more. You are one of those special people.
In the course of looking you up on the internet I came across your YouTube interview from 12 years ago and the Liberty website where I read two of your most recent posts. I must say that I found them to be very witty and humorous! I laughed aloud more than once and was overjoyed to learn that there are still some folks with common sense in academia! Well done!
So thank you once more…even now I continue to enjoy your teaching. I hope life has been very good to you. If you would like to catch up more sometime by phone or other correspondence I would look forward to it. I now live in Roanoke, Virginia very close to the Appalachian Trail and Blue Ridge Parkway.
Best Wishes,
Hans Brings
I’m very happy to hear from you! As you may have guessed, this wordpress site is something I started and that I have not kept up. I’m glad I found your message, and to continue our correspondence, please reply to me at sdcox@ucsd.edu, which is the email I actually use! Looking forward to hearing from you, Stephen