Alison听Laurence Ph.D.
Alison Laurence is a Lecturer at Stanford University in Thinking Matters, a program听within听Stanford Introductory Studies. She received her Ph.D. from MIT鈥檚 interdisciplinary program in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology, and Society (HASTS) in 2019. A cultural and environmental historian, she specializes in the study of nature on display. Her dissertation, 鈥淎fterlives of Extinction: The Politics of Display in the Modern United States,鈥 traced how popular exhibitions transformed dinosaurs and other creatures of deep time from scientific specimens to consumer objects, artifacts of everyday American life, and usable pasts that serve the present. Alison鈥檚 work has appeared in the听Science Museum Group Journal, the听History of Anthropology Newsletter, and the听Anthropocene Curriculum. She holds a BA in Classics from Brown University and an MA in History and Public History from the University of New Orleans.
Academic Talk Title:听鈥淪inclair Oil Company and the Making of a Modern Stone-Age Family鈥
Public Talk Title:听鈥淪inclair鈥檚 Dinoland: How Artists and Oilmen Made Midcentury America Mesozoic鈥
Dates of Visit:听December 7-9, 2019