I am a historian, writer, and filmmaker with a particular interest in the lives of women—the rites of passage, the public and private performances—especially in primary oral cultures and enclosed communities. Currently a fourth-year PhD student in U.S. and Public History, I approach the construction of individual and cultural identities from an interdisciplinary perspective.

In 2017, I completed a collaborative documentary film, Chosen (Custody of the Eyes). My book, Dedicated to God: An Oral History of Cloistered Nuns, was published by Oxford University Press in 2014. I am grateful for project support from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Kosciuszko Foundation, the Illinois Humanities Council, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.

I am a dual citizen of the United States and Luxembourg, and I live in Chicago.

Heritage

My maternal grandfather, Robert Cooper, was an actor, director, producer, and playwright. He studied at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and after moving to New York City, he directed and co-produced the Tony-nominated Broadway musical, Bubbling Brown Sugar, which was also nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical. My maternal grandmother, Lois Wahl, attended DePaul University and performed at the Goodman Theatre. My paternal grandfather, Sol Rachkowsky/Reese, was a first-generation American whose mosaics were commissioned and installed in Chicago buildings; he studied drawing at the Art Institute of Chicago. Also a first-generation American, my paternal grandmother, Eve Daniels, worked as a clerk at I. Magnin in downtown Chicago.

Highlights

PhD student at Loyola University Chicago, 2021-present

Research areas: history of women, gender, and sexuality; the body; policing, surveillance, and the law
American History comprehensive exam committee: Michelle Nickerson, Elliott Gorn, Alice Weinreb
Presented on the New Directions in Digital History Panel at the American Society for Legal History conference, 2024
Public History comprehensive exam committee: Theodore Karamanski and Elizabeth Fraterrigo
Rockefeller Foundation Summer Stipend, 2023

Master of Fine Arts degree in creative nonfiction writing from the University of California, Riverside, 2019-2021

Studied with Reza Aslan, Katie Ford, Laila Lalami, and Jane Smiley

Fellow at the University of Chicago Center in Paris, 2017

Engaged with the Edgar Morin Centre (a unit of the CNRS and EHESS)

ThinkSwiss Research Scholarship and three-month residence at the University of Bern Institute of Social Anthropology, 2013

Mentored by visual anthropology professor Luc Schaedler

Master of Fine Arts degree in visual arts from the University of Chicago, 2011-2013

Research assistant to English professors W.J.T. Mitchell and Hillary Chute
Artist’s Salon assistant to cartoonist and visiting professor Alison Bechdel at the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality

Fellow at Columbia University’s Oral History Research Office Summer Institute, “Oral History, Advocacy, and the Law,” 2008

Admitted to the University of Iowa’s MFA in creative nonfiction writing program, but decided not to enroll and instead began independent research, 2005

Lived for one year on a hospital ship in Freetown, Sierra Leone and worked in the communications department, 2003-2004

Served as a media handler for BBC reporter Robert Pigott and a cameraman; drove them by Land Rover to Kono, the diamond district bordering Liberia, for their television and radio productions on vesico-vaginal fistula
Violence Warning: Interviewed dozens of people impacted by the 11-year civil war. One young woman—Salamatu—was already a mother when she was captured by rebel forces. Soldiers wrote three body parts on pieces of paper, then made Salamutu choose two, without knowing what she was selecting. The soldiers used a machete to cut off her feet and buttocks; her hands were spared. I met Salamatu as she prepared for plastic and orthopedic surgeries, and I interviewed her and her family for several months

Worked at daily and weekly newspapers in the Midwest, 1999-2003

Received awards for investigative reporting (news exclusive under deadline pressure), education reporting, features writing, and photography
Interned as Damon Chappie’s assistant at Roll Call covering Capitol Hill

recent Publications

In the Playhouse (Collection)
Los Angeles Review of Books – February 20, 2021
https://lareviewofbooks.org/short-takes/in-the-playhouse/

In a Place of Santuary, I Found Myself: A Conversation with Shin Yu Pai
Air/Light Magazine – Summer 2021
https://airlightmagazine.org/airlight/issue-3/shin-yu-pai-interview/

Who Does the United States Belong to?: A Conversation with Laila Lalami
Los Angeles Review of Books – February 17, 2021
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/who-does-the-united-states-belong-to-a-conversation-with-laila-lalami/

Ghosts in the Borderlands: A Conversation with Stephanie Elizondo Griest
Los Angeles Review of Books – February 16, 2021
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/ghosts-in-the-borderlands-a-conversation-with-stephanie-elizondo-griest/

Writing Is a Ritual: A Conversation with Karen Tei Yamashita
Los Angeles Review of Books – February 15, 2021
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/writing-is-a-ritual-a-conversation-with-karen-tei-yamashita/