Scholarly Writing:
“Vulgarizing American Children”: Navigating Respectability and Commercial Appeal in Early Newspaper Comics— PhD Dissertation. Abstract can be found here.
“Reverse Racism: A Discursive History” in Race Still Matters: The Reality of African American Lives and the Myth of Postracial Society, edited by Yuya Kiuchi (SUNY Press, Series in Afro-American Studies, 2016.)
Why “Hacking”?— Introductory essay to the edited volume Hacking the Academy, edited by Dan Cohen and Tom Scheinfeldt. (University of Michigan Press/digitalculturebooks, 2013.)
“Doing History” in the Digital Age: Developing an Undergraduate-Level Syllabus in the Digital Humanites— History & New Media teaching field statement & syllabus completed in the course of my PhD in History at George Mason University, 2012.
Culture and Communications in the Early Nineteenth Century— Historiographical field statement completed in the course of my PhD at George Mason University, 2012.
Curation:
Project DAPS: The Desegregation of Arlington Public Schools— Served as curator and Project manager for this project documenting the school improvement and desegregation efforts in Arlington County, Virginia between 1941 and 1971. Project was work-for-hire on behalf of the Center for Local History of Arlington Public Library.
Nauck/Green Valley Heritage Project— While working as an employee of the Center for Local History at Arlington Public Library, I helped to spearhead this collaborative project digitally collecting the cultural heritage of Arlington, Virginia’s historically Black Nauck/Green Valley neighborhood, reaching out to partners within the community to get digital donations from a community that had historically been underrepresented in the Center’s archives.
Systems at Work, Smithsonian National Postal Museum— I served as assistant curator on this exhibit, primarily focusing my research and writing on the 1968-present period. One of many highlights of the exhibit was the opportunity to serve as the lead on the immersive panoramic film experience at the center of the exhibit:
(Best viewed in person, but barring that, watch it on full screen.)
In the Press
After 50 Years On TV, Has Sesame Street Been Gentrified? Current.org, 27 August 2019. Reworking of a conference presentation on the topic for an online trade publication for public broadcasters.
A Tale Of Two Virginias: When Arlington Defied The State And Integrated Its Public Schools, by Ally Schweitzer, WAMU-FM, 8 March 2017. Piece highlighting Project DAPS exhibit and archive that I worked on for Arlington Public Library.
The Sunday Funnies at the Armory Show, Hyperallergic, 14 April 2014. Written by me in conjunction with my talk on the topic at the MOCA Festival.
P.S. Last Call for the Postscript, Wall Street Journal, by Katherine Rossman, 14 November 2012. (I was quoted from an interview with the journalist. For more on my thoughts on the topic, please see this post.)
Presentations
“‘Whose Street?’: Who Gets Left Behind In The Gentrification of Sesame Street” at the New England American Studies Association annual conference, Fitchburg MA, June 2019. (The title ended up being somewhat inaccurate as the topic shifted somewhat while preparing the presentation. The linked title is the more accurate.)
“‘If Not Actually Evil… Vulgarizing’: Contextualizing the Moral Panic Around Comics Circa 1909” at the International Comic Arts Forum, Columbus OH, November 2014
“The Katzenjammer Kids go to the Armory Show: Cartoonists and Modern Art, 1913” Invited Presentation at the Society of Illustrators’ MoCCA Festival, New York, New York, April 2014
“The Katzenjammer Kids go to the Armory Show: Cartoonists and Modern Art, 1913” Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum Triennial Festival of Cartoon Art, Columbus OH, November 2013
“All I Need to Know About Birtherism I Learned from the ‘Feejee Mermaid’: Audience Reception and Interrogating Truth Claims in Communications Revolutions” New England American Studies Association Conference, Providence RI, October 2012
“Visually-Oriented Social Tools: Pinterest, Tumblr, and…?” (Facilitator) THATCamp Prime 2012, Fairfax, Virginia, June 2012
“From Common Ground to Public Park: The American Revolution and the Meaning of Boston Common” Joint Conference of the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association, Boston MA, April 2007.
“The De-Centering of the Ethnic in Early Hearst Newspaper Comic Strips” New England American Studies Association Conference, Worcester MA, September 2005
