I study how people have constructed–physically and metaphorically–the urban environment in which they live. I am completing a book manuscript in which I explore how urban memorials and public art reveal the changing nature of cities and community identity in the twentieth century. I am also researching air racing, exploring how Americans constructed identity, risk, and spectacle in the first half of the twentieth century.
In my courses, I use the regional urban environment as a research laboratory in my courses. Recently, in conjunction with undergraduates and regional teachers, and colleagues, I developed a website devoted to the history Cleveland Cultural Gardens. Currently, students in my courses are contributing to the Euclid Corridor Transportation Project in collaboration with Cleveland Public Art, ideastream and the Greater Cleveland Regional Transportation Authority. We have crafted a parallel oral history project. To date, we have collected over 300 oral histories. Moveover, in conjunction with our partners, we are interpreting the region’s history in multimedia stories that will appear in interactive, multimedia kiosks located along Euclid Avenue in 2009. We demonstrated a prototype of the kiosksat the Ingenuity Festival in 2007.
I live in Chagrin Falls (where I am told that the “unknown don’t even go”) with my partner Kristin, two children, Amelia & Eli, and dog London Patches. I have begun epxerimenting with editing audio clips for presentation on the web.