About Me

Curious about the “Shreds and Patches” name? This post explains it.

I am a folklorist, ethnologist, and cultural anthropologist whose current research is focused on heritage policies and practices, craft as a kind of material culture, and museum collections as resources for both historical ethnography and community-based cultural revitalization efforts. I lead two projects based in the Material Culture and Heritage Studies Laboratory that I direct. The first is primarily fieldwork-based and is known as the “Craft and Heritage in Upland Southwest China” project. The second is primarily museum-based and is known as the “Museum Ethnography in the Native South” project. These two projects build on a longer run of work studying in ethnographic museum collections since 1989, collaborating with Native American communities in Oklahoma (USA) since 1993, and with colleagues and partner institutions in China and the United States since 2013. [research more]

At Indiana University I am a Ruth N. Halls Professor of Folklore and Anthropology as well as the editor of the Indiana University Press book series Material Vernaculars.  [teaching more]