Laurie Wilkie

Wilkie Image

Laurie Wilkie

Type
Senior Fellow
Department
Anthropology
2016-17

Professor of Archaeology Laurie Wilkie (Anthropology) explores how nineteenth- and twentieth-century expressions of social difference, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sex, socioeconomics, and politics can be understood through the materiality of everyday life; and how a sense of material heritage has shaped human life in the recent past, and continues to do so today. Her books include The Archaeology of Mothering: An African-American Midwife’s Tale (Routledge, 2003) and The Lost Boys of Zeta Psi: A Historical Archaeology of Masculinity in a University Fraternity (University of California Press, 2010). Wilkie’s current research (with Dan Hicks, University of Oxford) explores the history of the modern preservation movements in New York City and London. This research rewrites traditional narratives of historical preservation, acknowledging the significance of the past to the practice of modern urbanism in the twentieth century and using methods from historical archaeology and anthropological material culture studies to contribute to current debates over the material remains of the modern city.