Expertise

U.S. Literary and Cultural History, Public History

Biography

Hilary Iris Lowe is an assistant professor in the History Department and an Affiliate Faculty member in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program.  She teaches courses in U.S. cultural history, public history, and American studies. Her current research seeks to understand how humans have used historic places and literary objects to connect with literature and the past.  She holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Kansas. Her first book, Mark Twain’s Homes and Literary Tourism, was published in 2012 and is part of the Mark Twain and his Circle Series at the University of Missouri Press.  She and Jennifer Harris edited the collection From Page to Place: American Literary Tourism and the Afterlives of Authors (2017).  She is currently working on two long-term research studies, the administrative history of the John F. Kennedy National Historic Site and a monograph, Open House: House Museums, Gender, Sexuality, and Politics of Memory, which is in early stages.

Website | Curriculum Vitae

Selected Publications

  • Mark Twain’s Homes and Literary Tourism, Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2012, Mark Twain and His Circle Series. 
  • From Page to Place: American Literary Tourism and the Afterlives of Authors, co-edited with Jennifer Harris, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2017.
  • “Dwelling in Possibility: Revisiting the History of Narrative in the Historic House Museum” The Public Historian, 37, no. 2 (2015): 43-60.

Courses Taught

  • HIST 8152 Managing History
  • HIST 8151 Studies in American Material Culture
  • HIST 5187 Public History Practicum
  • HIST 4296 US Capstone
  • HIST 3225 Women in U.S. History
  • HIST 2818 American Icons
  • HIST 2214 History of the National Park Service
  • HIST 2151 Introduction to Public History 
  • HIST 1102 U.S., 1877-Present 
  • HIST 1011 Modern U.S. History through Film