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I am an anthropologist and lawyer (MA, U. Pennsylvania, 1986; JD, Georgetown U., 1989; Ph.D., U. Virginia, 2003), specializing in historical archaeology as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My research projects address aspects of African-American cultural heritage and the dynamics of social group affiliations among African Americans and European Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These research efforts include the development of interpretative frameworks focusing on diaspora studies, regional systems theories, theories concerning social group identities, ethnic group dynamics and racialization, stylistic and symbolic analysis of material culture, and the significance of consumption patterns.
In addition to teaching courses in anthropology and archaeology, my faculty work includes: faculty affiliate of the Center for African Studies and the African American Studies Program, offering courses addressing African diaspora subjects and issues of racialization; member of the College of Law faculty, offering interdisciplinary seminars for graduate and law students; and affiliate faculty member of the Department of Landscape Architecture, offering courses on landscape analysis and surveying techniques. Publications, including a new book, research papers, and works in progress, are listed in my resume. I am the editor of the African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter and a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Historical Archaeology.
I am also collaborating on a multi-year research project concerning the social history of New Philadelphia, Illinois, a demographically integrated town founded by a free African American in 1836. This project has offered archaeology field schools each summer, funded by the National Science Foundation's grant program for Research Experiences for Undergraduates. You can learn more about this project by following the related links below. Please follow the other links for information on my archaeology projects in Virginia and West Virginia, an award-winning internet project about the history and archaeology of the Plymouth Colony, resources I've created for the African Diaspora Archaeology Network, and course materials.
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Crossroads and Cosmologies: Diasporas and Ethnogenesis in the New World, with a foreword by Robert Farris Thompson. University Press of Florida, 2007.
"BaKongo Identity and Symbolic Expression in the Americas," an invited chapter in The Archaeology of Atlantic Africa and the African Diaspora, edited by Toyin Falola and Akin Ogundiran, pp. 210-50, Indiana University Press, 2007.
"New Philadelphia: The XYZs of the First Excavations," with Terrance J. Martin and Paul A. Shackel, Living Museum, 66(4): 8-13 (2004/2005).
"Fear and Greed in Tax Policy: A Qualitative Research Agenda," with Lee A. Fennell, Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, 13: 75-138 (2003).
"Group Identity, Individual Creativity and Symbolic Generation in a BaKongo Diaspora," International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 7(1): 1-31 (2003).
"Assessing Criticisms of Faunal Analyses and Environmental Reconstructions in the Tehuacán Valley Project," Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 29(3): 349-59 (2001).
"Conjuring Boundaries: Inferring Past Identities from Religious Artifacts," International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 4(4): 281-313 (2000). |
Last updated: January 20, 2008
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