I was the founding director of Brown University’s public humanities program at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage. Over the program’s twenty years more than two hundred students received MAs in Public Humanities, and many undergraduates took courses that introduced them to the field. The program shut down in 2024.

• “Representing the pain of others: Telling stories of violence, suffering and death in museum exhibits,” Human Remains and Violence: An Interdisciplinary Journal 8 (2), 40-57, 2022
• “Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage,” Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, 2018

• Revolutionary Little Compton: The Semiquincentary at a Local History MuseumAugust 31, 2026
  It’s the summer of the semiquincentenial, and no self-respecting historical organization can escape without some acknowledgement of the American Revolution. Anniversaries, especially big-deal anniversaries like this one, are generally not a good occasion for good history. And indeed, the national celebration has been, for the most part, a complete disaster.… Read more: Revolutionary Little Compton: The Semiquincentary at a Local History Museum
• Vibe-coding for local historyFebruary 20, 2026
  AI makes it possible to write interesting and useful programs even if you don’t know how to code. Describe what you want, wait a few minutes, and wow! Here’s your site. It’s called “vibe coding.” It’s not quite that easy. The first draft appears in a minute or two. It… Read more: Vibe-coding for local history
• “So near, yet, oh, how far”January 25, 2026
  I’m delighted that my article about the artists and writers who invented LIttle Compton as a summer destination has been published in Rhode Island History! “So near, yet, oh, how far” is a line from a 1869 Providence Journal article by Sara Helen Whitman describing her summer vacation in Little… Read more: “So near, yet, oh, how far”
• Teaching curatorial work and developing an exhibition, at the same timeJuly 9, 2024
  The semester is over and the exhibit is open, on time and on budget, and it’s been well-received. I think it’s pretty good. But it’s been a complicated journey to get to this point, and it seems worthwhile to think about why, and what I might learn from the process.… Read more: Teaching curatorial work and developing an exhibition, at the same time
• AI and Historical ResearchFebruary 16, 2024
  AI everything! For a month! That’s one way to describe the talk I gave for Brown’s AI and Humanities Research group, part of the Center for Digital Scholarship. Less clickbaity: How might historians use AI in their research? I tried a variety of AIs—ChatGPT, CoPilot, JSTOR AI, among other—on projects… Read more: AI and Historical Research
• Little Compton Landscape StoriesJune 5, 2019
  Last year (summer 2019) the Little Compton Historical Society took on the topic of landscapes. (Each year the organization focuses on a different topic.) We edited a book on Little Compton landscapes. (Available here.) We did an exhibition that showed off maps, landscape paintings, and some of the tools that… Read more: Little Compton Landscape Stories
• What might historic preservation learn from museums?November 6, 2016
  Every year, the Providence Preservation Society sponsors a symposium on key issues in historic preservation. This year’s symposium, on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1966 historic preservation act, asked:  Why Preserve?  From the introduction: The 2016 Providence Symposium, Why Preserve?, will bring together experts from across the nation as well… Read more: What might historic preservation learn from museums?
• Crossing borders, or not, at the AHAJanuary 4, 2015
  I go to the American Historical Association annual meeting about once every ten years. The usual complaints keep me away: too big, too crazy, most of the sessions too far outside my interests. And the more specific complaint you’d expect from someone interested in public history and public humanities: too… Read more: Crossing borders, or not, at the AHA