Memory, Place, and New England

Dissertation Progress

Track chapter drafts, defenses, and evolving arguments on New England village memory and cultural identity.

A weathered New England town common in early autumn, photographed at eye level in crisp photographic realism. The central subject is an old white-painted wooden meetinghouse with a tall, steeple-less belfry, its clapboards slightly peeling and its windows wavy with antique glass. It stands behind an open grassy green edged by low stone walls mottled with lichen. Maple trees just beginning to turn red and gold frame the scene. Soft, late-afternoon overcast light creates gentle, even illumination with subtle shadows under the eaves. A narrow brick path leads from the foreground toward the door, adding depth and perspective. The mood is contemplative and calm, evoking layers of civic and cultural memory in small-town New England.

Updates

Overview

This page situates my dissertation within cultural history and memory studies, outlining core questions, methods, and archival bases—from town records and local museums to historical societies—and shows how New England villages reshape narratives of American identity.

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An archival research desk set up in a small New England historical society reading room, captured in clean, detailed photographic realism. On a broad oak table sits an open nineteenth-century ledger with yellowed, slightly curled pages, next to a stack of labeled manila folders and a magnifying glass. Behind the table, floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves hold uniformly sized, grey archival boxes with handwritten call numbers on their spines, no readable modern logos or text. Cool, diffused daylight filters through a nearby multi-pane window, creating soft highlights on the paper textures and gentle shadows beneath the boxes. Shot from a slightly elevated angle using shallow depth of field so the ledger dominates the foreground, the atmosphere feels quiet, focused, and scholarly, perfectly suited to a dissertation on regional memory and place.