Van Gogh

museums

research // teaching // museums // dolly // media // about // contact

Much of my academic and public-facing work, ongoing research, formal training, teaching, and community service focuses on museums–often, the relationship between religion and museums. I consider the history of the study of religion in museum anthropology settings, relationships between the history of the study of Indigenous religion and art, and contemporary museum practices. I am especially concerned with museum ethics, inclusion, and accessibility.

consulting + teaching + work w/ museums

I have taught classes on religion and museums (or that touch on this topic) at the University of Tennessee, Iowa State University, and the University of Minnesota. I have worked with museum staff to take students on tours through campus and local museums including the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art (mia). I’ve served as a museum consultant on issues related to incorporating academic approaches to religion into museum settings, and I joined the board of the Ames History Museum in January of 2025.

Current Affiliations

Consulting Experience

  • Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History
  • Indiana State Museum
  • Eiteljorg Museum

Teaching Experience

  • Religions of the World (University of Minnesota: spring 2026, featuring a tour to the Minneapolis Institute of Art [mia])
  • Exhibiting Religion: Museums & Sacred Matter in History, Theory + Practice (Iowa State University: spring 2024, spring 2022)
  • Religion in Museums (University of Tennessee, summer 2016)

Training + Professional Development

  • 2026: Association for Public Religion and Intellectual Life (APRIL), funded by the Henry Luce Foundation | Selected Participant, APRIL Summer Colloquium, “Representing Religion in Museums,” June 20-27, New York City
  • 2019: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) | Summer Scholar, “Museums: Humanities in the Public Sphere” Summer Institute, Georgetown University, June 30 – July 28. Seminar leaders: Karen Bassi & Gretchen Henderson; Visiting faculty: Amanda Cobb-Greetham (Chickasaw), Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Elaine Heumann Gurian, Steven Lubar
  • 2018: Professional certificate in Museum Studies, Northwestern University

research + publications

Contemporary Indigenous Art, Decolonizing and Indigenizing Museum Spaces

  • 2024 exhibit review: “A Review of Preston Singletary’s Raven and the Box of Daylight Exhibit” for the Association for Public Religion and Intellectual Life (APRIL)’s online magazine The Commons, August 13 https://www.aprilonline.org/preston-singletarys-raven-and-the-box-of-daylight/
  • 2024 volume introduction: “Remaking Spaces for Indigenous Art,” an introduction to a special issue on Indigenous art, Venue: A Digital Journal of the Midwest Art History Society Vol. 2 (September): viii-xi
  • 2024 scholarly chapter: “Rituals of Erasure and Transcendence: Exhibiting Indigenous Objects in Art Museums,” in Museums as Ritual Sites: Civilizing Rituals Reconsidered, edited by Lieke Wijnia and James Bielo. New York: Routledge, 203-216

History of Museum Anthropology

  • 2024 editorial: “Art, Object, Religion & Relationality,” Material Religion 20.1 (March): 2-4
  • 2023 scholarly journal article: “A Bitter Poetics of Differentiation: Cultural Evolution in the Verse of John Wesley Powell,” Political Theology 24.7: 666-86

presentations

  • 2026 invited panelist: Columbia University, Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life | “Memory and Religion” panel, part of the Shifting Paradigms in American Religion series, March 31
  • 2026 invited panelist: American Academy of Religion | Panelist, “Representing Religion in Museums” for the “Religion and America at 250” Webinar Series, March 3
  • 2025 invited presentation: Iowa State University, College of Design | “Religion in Museums” guest lecture for Museums and Society course, April 30
  • 2025 invited presentation: Iowa State University, College of Design | “Religion in Japan and the World’s Fair” guest lecture for Design 5460, “Paper Palaces: The World’s Fair and Japan,” February 6
  • 2024 panel organizer: “Collecting Religion: Media, Material Culture, and Museum Violence,” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Diego, November 23-26, 2024
  • 2024 conference presentation: “Ordering Religion: Museum Classification and Cultural Evolution,” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Diego, November 23-26
  • 2024 invited presentation: Iowa State University Museums | “Religious Pluralism at the Chicago World’s Fair,” September 24 (virtual)
  • 2023 conference presentation: “Salvage,” Keywords in Religion and Memory panel, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Antonio, November 18-21
  • 2019 invited presentation: Yale University, Material and Visual Cultures of Religion (MAVCOR) | “Salvage Theology: Museum Anthropology and the Study of Native American Religions,” September 10
  • 2019 invited presentation: DePaul University, Religious Studies Department | “Settler Colonial Origins of American Museum Practices,” April 17
  • 2018 conference presentation: “Museums and the Making of Native American Religious Materiality,” Midwest American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Muncie, IN, March 2-3
  • 2017 conference presentation: “Native American Religious Materiality: Creations, Undoings, Afterlives,” American Indian Workshop, London, July 4-7
  • 2015 conference presentation: “Early Anthropological Theories of Indigenous Religious Ritual,” Native American and Indigenous Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., June 4-6
Van Gogh
(Claude Monet, “Chrysanthemums” (1897): delicate painted flowers in light green, pink, lavender, and peach over a green and teal leafy backdrop, set in a golden frame. Photo: S. Dees, 2025)