I'm a late-blooming scholar, a transplanted Canadian, and an anthropologist among historians. I started out being fascinated by myth and ritual, found my way from there into American history (via the Civil War and studying the people who reenacted it), and then started trying to figure out where the heritage business fits in the postindustrial knowledge and service economy. I live in north-central Massachusetts, a part of New England most people don't know about (which is just fine with us, thank you) with my husband, Fred, who plays the trumpet, and a fluctuating number of cats, who don't.

Curriculum vitae

Education

2004 - Ph.D., Interdisciplinary Doctorate Program, Tufts University
        Areas of concentration: Cultural Anthropology/History/Museum and Heritage Studies
        Dissertation: "The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Postindustrial City"
1997 - M.A., Graduate Program, Vermont College of Norwich University
        Areas of concentration: Cultural Anthropology/American History/Performance Studies
1994 - B.A., Adult Degree Program, Vermont College of Norwich University

Research interests

Tourism, heritage, museums, public history, myth and ritual, cultural performance, culture-led redevelopment, automobility

Teaching and consulting

2001-present - Affiliate Faculty, B.A. in Liberal Studies/Union Institute & University
1998-present - Consultant, Northeast Region Ethnography Program, National Park Service
2004-2008 - Lecturer, Anthropology Department, Tufts University
Undergraduate courses: Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology (ANTH 10), History of Anthropological Thought (ANTH 130), Myth, Ritual, and Symbol (ANTH 132), Global Cities (ANTH 39-01), Performance and Politics (ANTH 149A), The Anthropology of Tourism/Tourism and Social Justice (ANTH 149-04, ANTH 185-04), Food, Culture, and Community + The Civil War in American Memory (Experimental College)
2005 - Lecturer, History Department, Suffolk University
Undergraduate course: Public History (HST 310)

Selected academic publications, reports, and recent conference papers

with Jane Becker, "In the Heart of Polish Salem: An Ethnohistorical Study of St. Joseph Hall and Its Neighborhood." Special Ethnographic Study produced for Northeast Ethnography Program, National Park Service and Salem Maritime National Historic Site
Review of John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor in The Public Historian, (Fall 2009)
"The Past as a Public Good: The U.S. National Park Service and 'Cultural Repair' in Postindustrial Places" in People and Their Pasts: Public History Today, Hilda Kean and Paul Ashton, eds. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)
"Performing the Postindustrial: The Limits of Radical History in Lowell, Massachusetts." Radical History Review 98(2007)
with Myrna Breitbart, "Touring Templates: Cultural Workers and Regeneration in Small New England Cities." In Tourism, Culture and Regeneration, Melanie K. Smith, ed. (CAB International, 2006)
"Cultures in Flux: New Approaches to 'Traditional Association' at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site." Ethnographic Overview and Assessement produced for Northeast Ethnography Program, National Park Service.
American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C. Paper: "Modernity's Exoskeleton: Cultural Work as Shelter from the Storm"
National Council on Public History conference, Santa Fe, NM. Paper: "The Lowell Delivery System and Radical Public History"
The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Postindustrial City, (University of Massachusetts Press, 2006)
"Serving Up Culture: Heritage and its Discontents at an Industrial History Site." International Journal of Heritage Studies (Vol. 11, December 2005)
"Outside the Frame: Assessing Partnerships between Arts and Historical Institutions." The Public Historian, winter 2005
Society for Applied Anthropology conference, Santa Fe, NM (March 2005). Paper: "Hybrid Traditions: National Parks as Ethnographic Resources for 'Living Historians'"
with Stephen Belyea, "'Their Time Will Yet Come': The African American Presence in Civil War Reenactment" in Hope and Glory: Essays on the Legacy of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, Martin Blatt, Tom Brown, Donald Yacovone, eds. (University of Massachusetts Press, 2001)
"Historians and the Web," review essay, The Public Historian (vol. 23:1 [2001],119-125)
"Battle Road 2000," review article, Journal of American History (vol. 87:3 [2000], 992-5)

Awards and academic service

Board member, National Council on Public History (2008- )
2007 National Council on Public History book award for The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Postindustrial City
Editor, H-Public listserv, (2005-present)
Honorable mention, Alliance for Community Media, for documentary video "An Evening with Howard Zinn," 2004
Graduate student paper award, Northeastern Anthropological Association, 2003
Finalist, Judge's Special Merit Award, Alliance for Community Media, for documentary video "Music for the People: The Life and Times of the Orange Community Band," 1998