Core Faculty

Mary Kupiec Cayton, Professor and Chair, Department of History
Ph.D. American Civilization (1981) Brown University
caytonmk@muohio.edu
254 Upham Hall • Miami University • Oxford, Ohio 45056
ph 513-529-5140

Intellectual History, Theories of History

Mary Kupiec Cayton's most recent work has focused on religious experience in 18th and 19th century New England. "Toward a Democratic Politics of Meaning-Making: The Transcendentalist Controversy and the Rise of Pluralist Discourse in Jacksonian Boston" appeared in Prospects and "Who Were the Evangelicals? Conservative and Liberal Identity in the Unitarian Controversy in Boston, 1804-1833" appeared in the Journal of Social History. She is author of Emerson's Emergence , co-editor (with Elliott Gorn and Peter Williams) of The Encyclopedia of American Social History, and co-editor (with Peter Williams) of The Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History. Her current projects include a book-length study of the culture of Congregational evangelicalism during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Sheila Croucher , Paul Rejai Professor of Political Science

P.h.D. Political Science (1993) University of Florida

crouchsl@muohio.edu

327 Harrison Hall • Miami University • Oxford, Ohio 45056

ph 513-529-2459

Ethnic Politcs, Politics of Identity, Globalization, Gender and Politics

Sheila Croucher's work focuses on issues of identity politics and globalization. Her most recent book, Globalization and Belonging: The Politics of Identity in a Changing World (2004), examines how various forms of political and cultural attachment-citizenship, nationhood, ethnicity, and gender-are being reconfigured in the context of global change. She is also the author of Imagining Miami: Ethnic Politics in a Postmodern World (1997), which analyzes the construction and contestation of ethnic and racial identities in South Florida. She is currently studying the implications of 9/11 for American nationhood. 

Curtis W. Ellison, Professor
Ph.D. American Studies (1970) University of Minnesota
ellisocw@muohio.edu
323 King Library • Miami University • Oxford, Ohio 45056
ph 513-529-3991

American Regionalism and Popular Culture; History of Miami University

Curtis W. Ellison is Interim Director of the William Holmes McGuffey Museum and Professor of American Studies. He has published Country Music Culture: From Hard Times to Heaven, a history of country music featuring ethnography of fan and artist performance. He has also co-edited The Big Ballad Jamboree, a 1950s novel about country music by poet Donald Davidson. His early books were accounts of the critical reception of African-American novelists William Wells Brown, Charles W. Chesnutt and Martin Delaney. Ellison's current project places the social history of Miami University in the context of local culture, national social and economic forces, and the history of higher education since 1809.

Oana Godeanu, Visiting Assistant Professor
Ph.D. Canadian Studies (2006) University of Bucharest, Romania
godeano@muohio.edu
116 MacMillan Hall, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056
ph (513) 529-1582

North American studies, Transnationalism and globalization, American nationalism and popular culture, New literatures in English.

Oana Godeanu’s work focuses on comparative constructions of national identity in Canada and the U.S., dealing with literature, as well as with popular culture in general. Her book manuscript, based on her award-winning doctoral dissertation, explores the connection between the national mythologies of Canadian and American cultures and the debate over democracy and republicanism in 19th century North America. During her doctoral program, Oana Godeanu was a fellow at the JFK Institute for North American Studies in Berlin, Germany, at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, and at the Institute for Canadian Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada. Her other research interests include transnationalism, globalization and popular culture, and the comparative study of new literatures in English.

Kimberly A. Hamlin, Assistant Professor
Ph.D. American Studies (2007) University of Texas at Austin
hamlinka@muohio.edu
125 MacMillan Hall, Miami University, Oxford, 45056
ph 513-529-5978

http://www.users.muohio.edu/hamlinka/index.html

19th and 20th Century U.S. Cultural History, Women's History, History of Science, Women's and Gender Studies

Kimberly Hamlin's work focuses on the intersections of science, religion, and gender. Her current project, Beyond Adam's Rib, examines the ways in which Darwinian evolution altered popular understandings of gender and influenced U.S. feminist thought, 1870-1920. She has also worked on the history of the Girl Scouts and served as historical consultant on the PBS documentary "Troop 1500." Her teaching interests include encouraging undergraduates to engage with local history, their communities, and public culture; science and technology in American culture; and women's history and gender studies.

Eugene Metcalf, Professor

Ph.D. Comparative Americn Culture (1973) University of California

metcalew@muohio.edu

125 Peabody Hall, Oxford, Ohio 45056

ph 513-529-5668

The Culture and Politics of American Art; Ethnic, Folk and Outsider Art

Gene Metcalf’s work focuses on the cultural politics of American art, particularly ethnic and folk expression. His early books explore the critical reception of African-American writers Paul Laurence Dunbar, William Wells Brown, Charles W. Chesnut and Martin Delaney. He has also written extensively on the cultural reception and significance of self-taught and outsider art, and he edited the book The Artist Outsider.  In recent years Metcalf has focused his work on southern African American vernacular art, authoring essays , editing publications, and consulting on the creation of exhibitions, including projects at the Whitney Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Denver Museum of Art; the Walters Art Museum: and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He is currently working on two exhibitions and their accompanying publications for the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Kelly Quinn, Assistant Professor
Ph.D. American Studies (2007) University of Maryland, College Park
quinnk@muohio.edu
119 MacMillan Hall, Miami University, Oxford, 45056
ph 513-529-9287

Kelly Quinn examines the dynamic relationship between people and places in her research and teaching. She is keenly interested in the confluence of the arts, humanities, design and social justice.

Quinn was the Sojourner Truth Visiting Faculty Lecturer in Urban and Regional Planning and at the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan (2005-2007). During her time in Ann Arbor, Quinn won two teaching awards and the Dean’s Faculty Service Award in Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning. She served on the Arts of Citizenship Planning Committee and collaborated with others to launch FestiFools.

Quinn’s scholarship has been supported by a number of fellowships including AAUW’s American Fellowship, Pre-doctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art, and Mary Savage Snouffer Fellowship from College of Arts and Humanities at University of Maryland, College Park. She has also received awards and travel grants from Temple Hoyne Buell Center for Study of American Architecture, Graham Foundation, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, American Heritage Center, Center for Arts and Culture and Phi Delta Gamma. She received her Ph.D. in American Studies (2007), a Certificate of Historic Preservation (2005), Certificate of Women’s Studies (1998), and an M.A. in American Studies, (1997) all from the University of Maryland. She also holds an A.B. from Trinity College, Washington, DC (1991) Phi Beta Kappa and Cum Laude, and spent her sophomore year at St. Julie Hall, Oxford, England.

Helen Sheumaker, Adjunct Associate Professor

Curator of Education, McGuffey Museum

Ph.D. American Studies (1999) University of Kansas

sheumahd@muohio.edu

209 McGuffey Museum • Miami University • Oxford, Ohio 45056

ph 513-529-8379

U.S. Consumer Culture, Material Culture Studies, Women's History

19th Century U.S. Social History

Helen Sheumaker's work focuses on issues of consumerism in nineteenth-century
and early twentieth-century United States. Her book manuscript, Love
Entwined: The Story of Human Hair Work in American Society, is forthcoming with the University of Pennsylvania Press. Her current research project is a cultural history of secondhand shopping in the U.S. She is co-editing Material Culture: An Encyclopedia with Shirley Teresa Wadja for ABC-CLIO press. She teaches courses in American Studies, Public History, Popular Culture, and American History. She has worked with undergraduates to create local history web sites that incorporate original research with community studies.

Charles Stevens, Lecturer

American Studies and International Studies (joint appointment)

Ph.D. Anthropology (1996) University of Arizona

stevencj@muohio.edu

123 MacMillan Hall • Miami University • Oxford, Ohio 45056

ph 513-529-1926

Agrarianism in the U.S., Globalization, Historical Anthropology

Charles Stevens' work focuses on the political ecology of smallholder agriculturalists, the cultural construction of nature, agrarianism, globalization, environmental change and smallholder resource management. He is also interested in anthropological theory, historical anthropology, the Pacific Basin and the Midwestern United States. Dr. Stevens have a number of scholarly articles on the political ecology of Tonga. He is currently working on a rural field study of southeastern Ohio.

Peter W. Williams, Distinguished Professor
Ph.D. Religion (1970) Yale University
williapw@muohio.edu
101 Old Manse • Miami University • Oxford, Ohio 45056
ph 513-529-4305

American Religious History, Religious Architecture and Landscape of America

Peter Williams was born in Hollywood, Florida, in 1944, and attended private school in Detroit, Michigan. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1965 with a concentration in History and Literature, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received his Ph.D. in American Religious History from Yale in 1970. Since then he has taught at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he holds the titles of Distinguished Professor of Comparative Religion and American Studies and Faculty Affiliate in History. He recently served as Director of the Program in American Studies at Miami for ten years, and is currently Acting Chair of the Department of Comparative Religion. He has also held visiting appointments at Bowdoin College and Stanford University, as well as three grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is the author of Popular Religion in America (1980); America's Religions: Traditions and Cultures (1989, 2001); and Houses of God: Region, Religion and Architecture in the United States (1997); and editor of the Encyclopedia of the American Religious Experience (1988, with Charles H. Lippy); the Encyclopedia of American Social History (1993, with Mary Kupiec Cayton and Elliott J. Gorn); and the Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History (2002, with Mary Kupiec Cayton). He is also editor of the series Studies in Anglican History, sponsored by the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church, and Perspectives on American Religion and Culture (1999). He served as President of the American Society of Church History in 1998, and currently co- chairs the North American Religions section of the American Academy of Religion. His research interests focus on the built environment and landscape of religion in America and on religion and culture in the Progressive Era.