Dr. Marguerite Shaffer
Professor of History and Global and Intercultural Studies (American Studies Program)
Affiliate, Institute for the Environment and Sustainability
Room 220 Shideler Hall
Oxford, OH 45056
Education:
PhD, Harvard University
MA, Harvard University
BA, University of Pennsylvania
Teaching and Research Interests:
- American Studies
- U.S. cultural history
- U.S. environmental history
- U.S. public culture
Courses Recently Taught:
- AMS 180 Nature and Culture: First Year Honors Seminar
- AMS 205 Introduction to American Studies
- AMS 206 Approaches to American Culture: Consumer Culture
- AMS 405/IES 440 The Anthropocene: A New Era in Human-Environment Relations
Selected Publications:
- "A Transnational Wildlife Drama: Dian Fossey, Popular Environmentalism, and the Origins of Gorilla Tourism," American Quarterly, Vol 67, No. 2, June 2015.
- Co-editor with Phoebe S. K. Young, Rendering Nature: Animals, Bodies, Places, Politics, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
- Co-author with Phoebe S. K. Young, "The Nature-Culture Paradox," Rendering Nature: Animals, Bodies, Places, Politics, eds. Marguerite S. Shaffer and Phoebe S. K. Young, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
- "Digit's Legacy: Reconsidering the Human-Nature Encounter in a Global World," Rendering Nature: Animals, Bodies, Places, Politics, eds. Marguerite S. Shaffer and Phoebe S. K. Young, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
- "Performing Bears and Packaged Wilderness: Reframing the History of National Parks," in Cities and Nature in the American West, ed. Char Miller, Las Vegas, NV: University of Nevada Press, 2010.
- Editor, Public Culture: Diversity, Democracy, and Community in the United States, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008
- See America First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880-1940, Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001
Selected Grants and Awards:
- Miami University Altman Fellow, 2014-15
- Miami University College of Arts and Science Distinguished Educator, 2010-11
- Elizabeth Kolmer Award for teaching and mentoring in the field of American Studies, Mid-America American Studies Association, 2011
- Harry T. Wilks Faculty Fellowship, 2007-08
Work in Progress:
Dr. Shaffer’s book in progress, Animal Encounters: The Strange History of Tourists and Wildlife in 20th Century America, is a cultural and environmental history examining a series of tourist-wildlife experiences that have defined popular environmentalism over the past century. Focused on four iconic wild animals inhabiting four distinct ecosystems--bears (Rocky Mountains), dolphins (Atlantic Ocean), gorillas (Virunga Mountains), and penguins (Antarctica)--each chapter traces the origins and experiences of the human-animal interactions that became popular during a particular historical moment in a particular ecosystem, while examining the larger implications of these human-animal relationships.