Christopher M. Elias was born and raised in Massachusetts. His first book, Gossip Men: J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and the Politics of Insinuation, was released in 2021 by the University of Chicago Press.
His scholarly work examines issues of culture and identity in twentieth century America. He has written on a variety of topics, including 1950s gossip magazines, spirituality and gender in the work of filmmaker Terrence Malick, masculine nationalism in James Joyce's fiction, and national identity in German war cemetery design. His essays and commentary have been published by Air Mail, Slate, OutHistory, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Notches.
Chris currently teaches at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.