sample storytelling
Beyond the Plantation: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South
[lecturer]
Nineteenth-century Americans often invoked the yeoman farmer. But did this individual exist outside of Thomas Jefferson’s imagination? And if so, why are he and his family conspicuously absent from most histories of the Old South? Guest lecture in “History 55F: Civil War and Reconstruction, 1830 to 1877,” at Stanford University.
Look Closer: Public Opening at Monticello
[event + media producer]
What does it mean for a plantation-turned-museum to grapple with the history and legacies of slavery? In 2018, Monticello unveiled new exhibits and newly-restored spaces in conjunction with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the “Getting Word” oral history project, which records the memories of descendants of families enslaved by Thomas Jefferson. This video launched the public celebration on June 16, 2018.
Face the Nation: 50 Years Since Kennedy’s Assassination
[producer]
For a generation of Americans, this was a defining moment: Walter Cronkite announcing President Kennedy’s death, from the CBS newsroom, on November 22, 1963. On the fiftieth anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination, we dug into the network’s archive to recover this history — and its broader meaning — for a twenty-first century audience. This Emmy Award-winning broadcast aired on November 17, 2013.
recent appearances
3.23 conference panel: Myth and Memory
“A Soft Roof Over Sacred Ground: Slavery’s Memorial at Monticello” — a paper delivered at the fourth annual BOCA LONGA U.S. History Conference
11.22 book talk: Citizen Justice [moderator]
8.22 roundtable discussion: (Re)telling Race and Slavery in Institutional Memory
Remarks on “Remembering Slavery on a Presidential Plantation,” offered at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association — Pacific Coast Branch
11.21 fellows forum at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies
“Forever Retained as a National Shrine: Remembering Slavery at a Public Monticello” — an early set of reflections on my dissertation project.
8.21 book talk: Murder at the Mission [moderator]
2.21 book talk: Imperfect Union [guest interlocutor]