Telling Ghost Stories is as American as American History!
Dr. Julie King
This session explores the meaning and power of telling ghost stories, sometimes as narratives that reinforce social and cultural truths and, at other times, as counternarratives that challenge social and cultural hierarchies. Come prepared to share, analyze, and interpret your favorite ghost story! Julia A. King is professor of anthropology at St. Mary's College of Maryland and has written about ghost stories at Point Lookout. She is currently exploring the nature and meaning of reported hauntings of Pocahontas Parkway near Richmond, Virginia.
Julia A. King has 30 years experience studying, writing, and teaching about historical archaeology and Chesapeake history and culture. She has held fellowships with Harvard University's Dumbarton Oaks, the Virginia Historical Society, and Winterthur Museum and has received six major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. From 2003 until 2011, King served as an Expert Member on the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, a Federal agency that advises the president and Congress on matters of national historic preservation policy. Her book, Archaeology, Narrative, and the Politics of the Past: The View from Southern Maryland, received a Book Award from the American Association of State and Local History in 2013. In 2018, the Society for Historical Archaeology presented King with the J.C. Harrington Award in recognition of her scholarly contributions to the discipline. King is one of the youngest members to have received the Harrington. She has also received awards from the Register for Professional Archaeologists and the Archaeological Society of Virginia. Her current research focus includes Indigenous history and colonialism in the Chesapeake region.