Katherine Heupel

Assistant Dean of Studies

Academic Program Affiliation(s): Language and Thinking Program

Biography:

Katherine Heupel (B.A. University of Chicago; M.A., Columbia University, MPhil. Columbia University, Ph.D Columbia University) completed her PhD in Anthropology and Archaeology. Her dissertation, "Materiality, Memory and Living History at New Buffalo Commune: An archaeological narrative of a sixties counter-cultural site through its unexpected discards," is a historical archaeological accounting of a sixties countercultural commune (New Buffalo) in the American Southwest (near Taos, NM). Her research analyzes the ways in which former residents relate to the objects they discarded in the 1960s and 1970s—and that she excavated in 2010—and therefore to their histories and to dominant historical narratives coming out of the present. After a season of archaeological excavations at the commune, she shared artifacts with former residents, developing a type of object-elicitation in interviews oriented specifically around these things. Her goal was not only to elicit stories they had once been a part of but also to see how they intervened upon, and disrupted, existing narratives of the past. In these interviews, the artifacts (which were not heirlooms or treasured items but the minutiae and forgotten things of remembered moments) were foregrounded, literally unearthed for the first time in over four decades. They allowed former residents to articulate a new space of nostalgia, forgotten memories, and to reinterpret fondly remembered stories. Many experienced surprise encounters with new reflections upon life at the commune and therefore upon the meaning of the counterculture so many years later. Katherine's publications include pieces in Oxford Handbook of the Contemporary Past (with Severin Fowles, Columbia University), Archaeological Institute of America New York Society News and North American Dialogue. She has also presented her work at the American Anthropological Association and the Society for American Archaeology annual meetings. Katherine began teaching L&T in 2014, and taught that same year with IWT for three weeks in Myanmar at the University of Yangon. This summer she will be teaching in the Bard in Hudson Summer Academy. She will begin a one-year teaching position at Bard High School Early College Queens in September 2016. In addition to teaching at Bard and BHSEC Queens, Katherine has been working with the Bard Women’s Soccer Program as a volunteer and assistant coach. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her spouse, Sophia, where they spend time rejuvenating their 100+ year old home. Katherine is excited to begin work on her newest endeavor - the Robbie Gordon Project - a multimedia, collaborative exploration of Robbie's life.

Contact:

Phone: 845-758-7231
E-mail:
Department: Center for Student Life and Advising
Location: Sottery Hall - Center for Student Life and Advising