Elizabeth Ammons, B.A., M.A., University of Cincinnati, 1964, 1966; Ph.D., University of Illinois, 1974; part-time and adjunct teaching positions at various institutions before coming to Tufts in 1976 as an Assistant Professor; Dean for Arts and Humanities at Tufts 1994-96; Harriet H. Fay Professor of Literature at Tufts, 1996 to the present; Professor of American Studies at Tufts; Chair of the English Department, 1991-1994; Director of the First-Year Writing Program at Tufts, 1998-2003; numerous departmental and university committees, including Tenure and Promotion and co-chair of the Equal Educational Opportunity Committee; recipient of Mellon, National Endowment for the Humanities, and American Association of University Women faculty fellowships; Phi Beta Kappa; recipient of Tufts University Multicultural Service Award, 1996; Fulbright Lecturer in Japan, summer 2003, giving lectures in Tokyo and Kyoto on American literature.
Eve Battinelli is the Director of the Somerville Museum. The Somerville Historical Society expanded its mission in 1988 with a focus on preserving Somerville's past, reflecting its present, and helping to shape its future. The Somerville Museum fulfills this mission in seeking to educate the public about the City's rich history, its lively contemporary arts, and the many cultural heritages which make up its diverse urban population.
David Bromwich, Ph.D. Yale University, writes on and teaches Romanticism and modern poetry. His books areHazlitt: The Mind of a Critic (1983), A Choice of Inheritance (1989), Politics by Other Means (1992), Disowned by Memory: Wordsworth's Poetry of the 1790's (1998), and Skeptical Music: Essays on Modern Poetry(2001). He is at work on a study of Edmund Burke.
Catherine Clinton earned her undergraduate degree in Afro-American studies from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in history from Princeton. She is the author of many historical works for children and adults, including I, TOO, SING AMERICA: THREE CENTURIES OF AFRICAN AMERICAN POETRY, and has taught African American Studies at Brandeis University, Brown University, and at Harvard University, where she is a fellow at the Dubois Institute. Dr. Clinton lives in Connecticut with her husband and two sons.
Marie Deuerlein received her B.A. in American History from Fairleigh Dickinson University, cum laude, and her M.S. in Library and Information Science from Simmons College . She has served as a Senior Reference Librarian and Business Information Specialist at several academic and business libraries in the greater Boston area, including Tisch Library. Her email is: Marie999D at yahoo.com.
David Herbert Donald is perhaps the foremost Abraham Lincoln scholar alive today. He is the author of numerous books, including Lincoln's Herndon, Lincoln Reconsidered, andThe Civil War and Reconstruction. He has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for biography: in 1961 forCharles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War and in 1988 forLook Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe. Mr. Donald's most recent book "We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends" was published in October, 2004.
Donald's biography, Lincoln, reflects both his years of comprehensive study and his mastery of his subject. Donald's Lincoln is not a bold, fiery visionary but a low-key, pragmatic fellow who plainly confesses that "events have controlled" him. He is portrayed neither as the hero of Gettysburg staring at us from the five dollar bill or the Great Emancipator who sits magisterially at the Lincoln memorial, but as a complicated, divided human being gifted with a folksy wit and a talent for oratory and cursed with bouts of depression and insecurity. From Lincoln 's youth in the log cabins of the Midwest to his early legal career with Herndon, through his days in the House and his Senatorial losses to Stephen Douglas, and finally through the turbulence of the Civil War, Donald succeeds in painting a remarkably human portrait of our greatest President. Donald has also written several more scholarly treatments of Mr. Lincoln, including the very readableLincoln Remembered.
The Charles Warren Professor of American History at Harvard University, he has also taught at Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Oxford, and Columbia. A native of Mississippi and the past president of the Southern Historical Association, he received his graduate training at the University of Illinois. He lives in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
Acclaimed for his “exemplary diction and rich baritone voice,” Aaron Engebreth maintains an active solo career in opera, oratorio and recital, and has devoted considerable energy and time to the performance of new music, often collaborating with composers. Mr. Engebreth has received significant recognition for his interpretation of early music and is a frequent soloist with many of the country’s finest early-music organizations including the American Bach Soloists, Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Early Music Festival, Miami Bach Society, Boston Baroque, San Francisco Bach Choir, Columbus Bach Ensemble, Boston Camerata, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Musicians of the Old Post Road and Boston Cecilia. Mr. Engebreth also sings regularly on the famed cantata series with Emmanuel Music under conductor Craig Smith, and was a national finalist and place-winner in the 2002 American Bach Society/Bethlehem Bach Competition. Also a committed interpreter of contemporary music, Mr. Engebreth has performed with the Firebird Ensemble, New Gallery Series, Weekends of Chamber Music of New York and Opera Unlimited and he collaborates frequently with composers, including Nicolas Maw, Daniel Pinkham, Lukas Foss, John Deak and recently, with Ned Rorem in preparation of the Boston premiere of his evening-length song cycle, Evidence of Things Not Seen with the Florestan Recital Project. The critically acclaimed performance, noting Mr. Engebreth’s “beauty of voice and eloquence,” (Boston Globe) has had subsequent performances.
Mr. Engebreth has performed extensively as a recitalist and is a co-founder of the Florestan Recital Project, an organization devoted to the song recital. The series, now in its fifth season, has garnered notable acclaim. Among numerous venues throughout the country and abroad, Mr. Engebreth has performed in recitals at the Les Concerts de l’hotel Cail of Paris, Liederkranz Recital series of Manhatten, Center for American Music of Boulder, Boston Public Library Performance Series, King’s Chapel Recital Series, the Old South Church of Boston where he performed in an acclaimed performance of the rarely heard AIDS Quilt Songbook and with WCRB’s Concerts at Copley Square, at which he appeared with Keith Lockhart, conductor of the Boston Pops performing works of Richard Rogers with Mr. Lockhart at the piano.
Mr. Engebreth has served on the music faculty of Brown University and at Tufts University, where he was a two-time recipient of a faculty development grant to study vocal music of the French Baroque in Paris. He currently serves on the voice faculty at the Boston Conservatory. He lives with his wife, Katherine and daughter Daphne, in Portland, Maine.
Max Felker-Kantor, a 2005 Gilder-Lehrman History Scholar, spent six weeks this summer transcribing, summarizing, and cataloging the 33 letters of Union soldier Laurens Wolcott. Max has also done research in the history of education, and has worked at Facing History and Ourselves, a Brookline, Mass.-based organization that creates a tolerance-teaching curriculum. In the fall of his junior year, Felker-Kantor worked at Boston PBS TV affiliate WGBH, contributing to the civil rights section of the station's Teachers' Domain website. A senior at Tufts, Felker-Kantor is also involved in the Tufts Wilderness Orientation Program.
Jay Griffin graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a B.A. in education and history, and has taught history in the Medford Public Schools for the past thirty years. Highly involved in the Medford community, he has served as a member of the Medford Historical Commission, and also as Vice President of the Medford Brooks Estate Land Trust. Mr. Griffin served as the Vice President of the Medford Historical Society from 1975-1995, and has served as its President for the past decade.
Barbara Wallace Grossman, Ph.D., chairs the Department of Drama and Dance at Tufts University where she has been a member of the faculty since 1991. An Associate Professor of Drama, her specialties include American popular entertainment, musical theatre, women in theatre, and the Holocaust on stage and screen. Author of Funny Woman: The Life and Times of Fanny Brice, she is writing a book on American actress Clara Morris for Southern Illinois University Press's “Theatre in the Americas” series. A Presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts (1994-1999) and the United States Holocaust Memorial Council (2000-2005), she continues to serve on the Holocaust Museum's Committee on Conscience. Member and former Chair of the American Repertory Theatre's Advisory Board, she serves on the board of MassEquality, as well as on the Statewide Steering Committee for the Campaign for Cultural Facilities. She chairs the Committee on Student Life at Tufts, where she also is a member of the Grievance Committee, the Hillel Advisory Board, the Media and Public Service Advisory Board, and the University College 's Faculty Steering Committee. She has received several awards for arts activism and community service, among them the Hubert H. Humphrey Humanitarian Award from the National Jewish Democratic Council, the Dean's Arts and Humanitarian Services Award from Boston University, the American Repertory Theatre's first Leadership in the Arts Award, and Opera Boston's 2005 Innovation Award.
Barbara lives in Newton with her husband, Steve, a business leader and political activist. They have three children, David, Ben, and Josh, and are the grandparents of Will, son of David and his wife, Mary Jo Sisk.
Michael Lasser, well-known lecturer, broadcaster, writer, and teacher. Mr. Lasser has taught the history of the American musical at the University of Rochester and Nazareth College, and has been a free-lance writer for a wide range of national magazines. He has served as a panelist for the New York State Council on the Arts, and has taught at Rutgers University, St. John Fisher College, and Fairleigh-Dickinson University. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College, holds an M. A. from Brooklyn College, and did additional graduate work at Rutgers University. For over 20 years he has hosted the nationally-syndicated public radio showFascinatin' Rhythm, a weekly program which explores the history and themes of American popular music through a series of "radio essays" illustrated by recordings. Heard on over 100 stations from coast to coast, Fascinatin' Rhythm won the prestigious Peabody Award in 1994 for letting "our treasury of popular tunes speak (and sing) for itself with sparkling commentary tracing the contributions of the composers and performers to American society."
Barbara Mangum is a conservator of sculpture, decorative arts, and ethnographic and archaeological material. She holds a B.A. in chemistry and art history cum laude from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, an MFA from the State University College at Oneonta in NY and a certificate in Conservation of Historical Artifacts and Works of Art from the former Cooperstown Graduate Program (1983). She eventually achieved the position of Chief Conservator for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, from which she resigned in 2000. At that time she founded Sculpture and Decorative Arts Conservation Services LLC, which is located in Somerville at Joy Street Studios near Brickbottom. In 2002, Mrs. Mangum joined the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission and began her acquaintance with the Civil War Monument of Milk Row Cemetery. In 2004, she founded the nonprofit “Historic Somerville” to raise awareness and funds to preserve the historic patrimony of Somerville. Historic Somerville's most recent project was the Halloween historic tour of the Milk Row Cemetery entitled The Ghosts of Somerville.
Beverly Morgan-Welch is the Executive Director of the Museum of Afro-American History, Inc. in Boston and Nantucket, Massachusetts. The Museum is composed of four historic 19th century sites, the African Meeting House and Abiel Smith School on Beacon Hill in Boston and the African Meeting House and Higginbotham House on Nantucket. This unique New England institution provides exhibits, tours and education programs for children, adults and teachers to local audiences and to international travelers.
Ms. Morgan-Welch has held strategic positions in corporate philanthropy for Raytheon Company, Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company and The Bank of Hartford. She brought her management, development and technical expertise to not-for-profit institutions as President of Kemsit Consulting, Inc., and as Executive Director of the Greater Hartford Arts Council. While Ms. Morgan-Welch was the Development Officer at the Wadsworth Atheneum, she secured funds for the acquisition of a collection of 7,000 African American objects, establishing the Amistad Foundation. During that time and as a volunteer she raised funds for the Bishop Desmond Tutu Southern African Refugee Scholarship Fund. Ms. Morgan-Welch has always worked in and with academic institutions and was first Assistant to the Dean of Students then Assistant Dean of Admission at Amherst College where she directed the Springfield Amherst Summer Academy for high school students.
Ms. Morgan-Welch is member of the Board of Directors of the Boston History Collaborative and the Old North Foundation and a Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. A graduate of Smith College with a major in Theatre and Speech, Beverly Morgan-Welch resides in Andover, Massachusetts with her husband, the Reverend Mark Welch and their daughter, Alexandra.
Phillip Muñoz joins the Department as an assistant professor. He teaches and studies political philosophy and American constitutional law. His recent scholarly articles include, "James Madison's Principles of Religious Liberty" and "George Washington on Religious Liberty." His writings have appeared inAmerican Political Science Review, The Review of Politics, First Things, The Claremont Review of Books and The Wall Street Journal. In 2004 he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the matter of "Religion in the Public Square." Professor Muñoz received his BA in Economics and Government from Claremont McKenna College, his MA in Political Science from Boston College, and his PhD in Political Science from Claremont Graduate School. He is currently completing a book on religious freedom and the American Founders.
Bryna O’Sullivan is a member of Tufts class of 2008. This summer, she spent six weeks as one of two student interns at the Middlesex County Historical Society in Middletown, Connecticut. Among her responsibilities were the cataloging of the Society's military collection and the preparation of a multimedia presentation encompassing excerpts from letters and diaries written on both sides of the conflict and images of artifacts to be used in a future expansion of the Society's Civil War exhibit. A sophomore history major and Medieval Studies minor, she has studied both the American Civil War and the role of women in the early Christian Church intensively. At Tufts, she is involved with the Catholic Community at Tufts and the Residential Hall Council program.
Tom O’Toole, baritone, has performed a wide variety of roles including Escamillo, Germont, Mozart's Figaro, Father (Hansel und Gretel), and Sir Roderic (Ruddigore). His 2005 credits include the role of Friedrich Bhaer in the Boston premiere of Marc Adamo's Little Women (Boston Opera Project), Baritone Soloist for Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (Raylynmor Opera), Alidoro in La Cenerentola (Raylynmor Opera), and Basilio in Barbiere di Siviglia (Commonwealth Opera). Mr. O'Toole can be heard singing excerpts from Don Carlo and Le Nozze di Figaro on the soundtrack of the Filmline International release, Hollowpoint, starring Donald Sutherland and Tia Carrere. As a Richard Owens Founder's Fellow at the American Institute for Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, Mr.O'Toole was featured as Scarpia in the Institutes's 30th Anniversary Concert Season. A past recipient of the Anna Sosenko Artist Assist Trust Grant, he was a finalist in the 2005 Connecticut Opera Guild Competition. Mr. O’Toole is a California native and holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Music and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Drama from the University of California, Irvine. He currently resides in South Hadley, MA and is a student of Susan Ormont. Previous teachers include Mahlon Schanzenbach and Oren Brown.
Guy Peartree has been telling stories since 1989. He performs historical characterizations of Frederick Douglass, William Brown and George Washington Carver; as well as folktales from around the world. Guy Peartree also writes his own tales and believes the task of the writer and the storyteller is the same:
"To let the voices of our culture and imagination speak."
Guy Peartree has performed in museums, colleges, schools, churches and libraries throughout New England and the country. He brings a love of folklore, writing, and history to the craft of storytelling and employs storytelling to motivate children to write creatively.
His storytelling is signatured by engaging characterizations evoked through voice, pantomime and dialogue. His historical portrayals are faithful to the folkloric elements that broaden and enliven history.
Born in North Carolina, Mr. Peartree is African-American with a mix of Cherokee. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Anthropology and Linguistics from University of Massachusetts and a Masters in Religious Education from Andover Newton Theological School.
Barbara and Patri Pugliese are a world famous teaching duo, known for their great experience regarding 1900 Century Ballroom dances.
Dr. Patri J. Pugliese is a dance historian, whose speciality is dances from the 19th century. He has been working with vintage dances since 1970 where he studied at the Harvard University. He took his PhD in History of Science in 1982. He has earlier been a member of the Board of Directors of the Dance History Scholars.
Patri Pugliese has held courses in America and all over Europe on 19th century dances e.g. Regency Period Waltz, Quadrille, Country dances and mid- and late- 19th century turning dances (Waltz, Polka, Redowa, Galop, Schottische, Five-step Waltz, Polka Mazurka, Varsovienne, etc.), Set dances (Contra dances and Quadrilles).
Barbara Pugliese has taken her Master of Library Science at Simmons College. She assists her husband as a teacher and has for many years worked with civil traditions from the 19th century. She´s considered an expert on dress and costumes from this period. Both teach everyday at The Commonwealth Vintage Dancers in Boston.
David Quigley teaches a wide range of courses for undergraduates and graduate students at Boston College. In addition to surveys on American Civilization and Modern History, he teaches upper-level courses on the American Civil War and Reconstruction; the history of New York City ; the Transcendentalists' New England ; and the Atlantic World. His research has explored the paradoxes of race and democracy in New York between the late-eighteenth and late-nineteenth centuries. In addition, he has written on transcendentalism and its audiences; W.E.B. DuBois and the memory of the Civil War; and the political cultures of nineteenth-century New England. He is currently working on a new project, tentatively titled "An International History of the American Civil War" (under contract to Hill & Wang).
Connie Reik, M.S.L., M.A., has been a reference librarian at Tisch Library at Tufts University for over 15 years, and history is one of her subject areas in instruction and research. She has been researching her family on and off for over 25 years.
The music of Eric Sawyer has been played at New York 's Weill and Merkin concert halls and at Tanglewood, as well as in England, France, Germany, Romania and Bulgaria. Recent performances include works on programs by the Brentano String Quartet and San Jose Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Sawyer has received the Joseph Bearns Prize, a commission from the New York Youth Symphony, and awards from the Tanglewood Music Center and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Following four years as Chair of Composition and Theory at the Longy School of Music, Mr. Sawyer recently joined the composition faculty of Amherst College.
George Scarlett is a professor in and deputy chair of Tufts University 's Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development. His teaching, research, and writing have been about children's play, children's behavior problems, and spiritual development. His work on spiritual development includes writings on spiritual exemplars, those individuals and communities who provide insight into the nature of spiritual development and spiritual maturity. Included in these writings are essays on Lincoln, his faith development and what that development teaches us about an American experience of spirituality and spiritual development.
Alan Schneider, tenor, has performed in opera, operetta, and music theatre productions with many groups in his native New England, including the North Shore Music Theatre, Opera New England, and Commonwealth Opera. Last season he made his Boston Lyric Opera debut as the Second Jew inSalome, and returned in September to sing the Comte de Lerme inDon Carlos.
Last fall, Mr. Schneider made his Jordan Hall debut with Boston Bel Canto Opera, in what T.J. Medrek of the Boston Herald called "an especially promising performance." Two seasons ago, he covered and performed the role of Nanki-poo in The Mikado with the Huntington Theatre Company.
This past summer, he took part in the Glimmerglass Opera Young American Artists Program in Cooperstown, NY, appearing inLe nozze di Figaro and Chabrier's L'Etoile. In the summer of 2000, he performed roles inLa Rondine, Ariadne auf Naxos,and Street Scene with the Chautauqua Opera, and was chosen by that company to receive a Shoshana Foundation Richard F. Gold Career Grant.
In addition to these stage works, Mr. Schneider has given a number of recitals, in Massachusetts, New York and Georgia, and has appeared in concerts with the Chautauqua and Omaha Symphonies.
He is an alumnus of The University of Massachusetts at Amherst and received his Master's Degree from Boston University where he appeared as Acis inAcis and Galatea, Reverend Pollard in Stephen Paulus'The Village Singer, and as the Mayor inAlbert Herring. Mr. Schneider is currently a member of Boston University's Opera Institute.
Joshua Wolf Shenk is a writer based in New York City and the author of the critically acclaimed Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness, published in 2005 by Houghton Mifflin. Based on seven years of research on Lincoln and the medical, intellectual, and political culture around him, the book was previewed by Shenk's July, 2005 cover story in Time Magazine and adapted as a cover story in the October, 2005 Atlantic Monthly.
Shenk's work has also appeared in Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, GQ, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and other publications. He is a contributing editor to The Washington Monthly and has been a correspondent for The New Republic, The Economist, and U.S. News & World Report . His essay “A Melancholy of Mine Own” appeared in the national bestseller, Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression, edited by Nell Casey.
He began his work on Lincoln's depression as a Rosalynn Carter Fellow in Mental Health Journalism at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. His other honors include a fellowship at the New York Foundation for the Arts in non-fiction literature, a Frank Whiting Scholarship at the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Blue Mountain Center.
Mr. Shenk is a member of the advisory council for the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, and served as chief consultant for a forthcoming History Channel film on Lincoln 's depression. He teaches writing at the New School University and serves on the board of “Stories at the Moth." He is also a member of the advisory council to the Shul of New York.
Nina Silber has worked extensively on topics related to gender and the Civil War, and the Civil War in public memory. She is currently completing a book on Northern women on the Civil War homefront and is also author ofLandmarks of the Civil War(2003) andThe Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South, 1865-1900(1993). She teaches in the history department at Boston University.
Steven Smith, Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1981, is the Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science and Master of Branford College at Yale. His research concerns the history of political philosophy. He will be teaching a course on Constitutional Democracy. Publications include: Reading Althusser, Hegel's Critique of Liberalism; Spinoza, Liberalism and the Question of Jewish Identity, which was awarded the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, and Spinoza's Book of Life, currently in press, and several other books and articles.
Cathy Stanton is a Tufts alum, having received her Ph.D. in Anthropology / Heritage Studies. Her special interests include history and memory, cultural performance, heritage, tourism, myth and ritual. She is currently a lecturer in the Anthropology Department of Tufts University, as well as in the History Department of Suffolk University.
Jan Turnquist is the founder and director of InterAct Performances, an organization devoted to the wonderful impact that living history presentations and meaningful seminars can have in the worlds of education, business, and personal enrichment.
Jan is an educator, actress, and historian. She holds her teaching certification and degrees in English and Comparative Literature from the University of Wisconsin. She has been featured in television roles on PBS, the Fox Network, and several BBC productions. Now a consultant toOrchard House Museum, where Louisa May Alcott wroteLittle Women in 1868, she spent 18 years on staff there as Living History Coordinator, Education Coordinator, and Historic Interpreter.
Through InterAct Performances, Jan currently leads programs across the country. Her living history portrayals are popular with schools, universities, libraries, museums, civic groups, conventions, senior groups and the like. She has also developed a successful offering of seminars and workshops in order to share more of her natural talents, developed skills, and researched material with teachers, business people, students, elderhostel attenders and others.
Jan's delightful personality, impressive communication skills, and extensive knowledge make her a hit with all who attend her programs.
Donald Yacovone is senior associate editor at the Massachusetts Historical Society and editor ofThe Massachusetts Historical Review. He has collaborated on many public history programs in the Boston area and has written extensively on the antislavery movement, the Civil War, and nineteenth-century gender roles. His latest book isFreedom's Journey: African American Voices of the Civil War (2004), a documentary history.
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