Rachel D. Shaw
shawracheld [at] gmail [dot] com
 

❀ Education ❀

Ph.D. in the History of the United States (1999)
(at the University of California, San Diego)

Minor fields
Western American History
Communication/Culture Studies

M.A. in History of the United States (1996)
(at the University of California, San Diego)

B.A. in History (1992)
(at Reed College)

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❀ Academic Employment ❀


Adjunct Professor
Humanities and Social Sciences
Indiana University East
(2009 - 2011)

Adjunct Professor
American History
University of Mary Washington
(2007 - 2008)

Visiting Scholar
DePauw University
(2005 - 2007)

Visiting Assistant Professor
St. Olaf College
(2001-2003)

Visiting Assistant Professor
University of San Diego
(2000-2001)

Lecturer
University of California, San Diego
(1999-2000)

Teaching Assistant
University of California, San Diego
(1993-1995; 1998-1999)

Writing Instructor
Warren College Writing Program
University of California, San Diego
(1995-1998; 1999-2000)


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❀ Papers and Presentations ❀


“A Walk on the Wild(branch) Side.”
A roundtable presentation for the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment Ninth Biennial Conference “Species, Space, and the Imagination of the Global.” 21-26 June, 2011. Downloadable PDF of program.

“The Virtues of the Virtual: Using Blogs.”
A roundtable for the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment Eighth Biennial Conference, “Island Time.” 3-6 June, 2010. Downloadable PDF of program.

“Feathers, Fronds and Fantasy: Creating and Deploying the Tourist Ecoscape in Desert Palm Springs, California.”
A paper for the Arid Lands Studies division of the Western Social Science Association 45th Annual Conference, 9-12 April 2003.

“In the Garden for Good and Evil: An Environmental History of America.”
Talk given as invited speaker for Earth Week at St. Olaf College, 22-26 April, 2002.

“Trail Shrines and Survey Mounds: Ritual Stone Piling in Palm Valley, California.”
A paper for the Western Humanities Alliance conference “The Pious and the Profane: Religion and Public Culture,” at the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, 12-14 October, 2000.

“‘So might the Indian of yore have surveyed his domain’: Creating the Tourist Ecoscape in Palm Springs, California, 1880s-1930s.”
A paper for the American Heritage Center conference, “Packaging Places: Imagining, Remembering and Promoting Landscapes.” 28-29 September, 2000.

“A Matter of Scale: Rapid Transformation and Conflict in Palm Springs, 1920s-1930s.”
Southern California Environment and History Conference II, at California State University, Northridge, California. 18-20 September, 1997.

“Living in a Continuum: Landscape Formation and Failure in Palm Valley.”
Southern California Environment and History Conference, at California State University, Northridge, California. 20-22 September, 1996.

“Nature and Culture in the Desert: A Study of Landscape Formation and Failure in Palm Valley, California, 1887-1907.”
Western Association of Women Historians Conference XXVI, at Pacific Grove, California. The paper appeared on a panel entitled “California Places, California Dreams.” 2-3 June, 1995.


 
 

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❀ Fellowships and Grants ❀


HSSC/Haynes Research Stipend
Historical Society of Southern California,
in conjunction with the Haynes Foundation
2000

Ernestine Richter Avery Fellowship
The Huntington Library, San Marino, California
1997

Dissertation Fellowship
Department of History
University of California, San Diego
1997

 

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❀ Publications ❀

Essay: “Settling,” in Wildbranch: An Anthology of Nature, Environmental, and Place-Based Writing, Florence Caplow and Susan A. Cohen, eds. (The University of Utah Press, 2010.)

My essay is mentioned in reviews by Barbara J. King, “Reading Restless Nature: Wildbranch and Nature Stories” (http://www.bookslut.com/features/2011_02_017187.php) and Jennifer McStotts, “‘I want its poetry to overtake us’—On the Power of Place-Based Writing” (http://www.terrain.org/reviews/27/wildbranch_anthology.htm).

Essay: “Virtuality: The Splenda of Existence,” at Terrain.org. 31 March, 2010.

Book Review: Bruce M. Pavlik, The California Deserts: An Ecological Rediscovery. (University of California Press, 2008).
Ecological Restoration. 27:3 (September 2009): 362-64.
http://er.uwpress.org/content/27/3.toc
PDF available for download here (requires payment): http://er.uwpress.org/content/27/3/362.full.pdf+html

Book Review: Reading the Roots: American Nature Writing before Walden. Michael P. Branch, ed. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004.)
H-Environment, H-Net Reviews. October 2007.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13752

Book Review: Daniel Tyler, Silver Fox of the Rockies: Delphus E. Carpenter and Western Water Compacts. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003).
Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 107:3 (January 2004): 490-491.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/30240407

Book Review: Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz, Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California, 1535-1846. (Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 2001).
H-West, H-Net Reviews, October 2002.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=6841

Book Review: Mansel G. Blackford, Fragile Paradise: The Impact of Tourism on Maui, 1959-2000. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001).
Western Historical Quarterly.
33:2 (Summer 2002): 235-36.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4144824

Book Review: Lawrence Hogue, All the Wild and Lonely Places: Journeys in a Desert Landscape (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2000), and Diana Lindsay, Anza-Borrego A to Z: People, Places, and Things (El Cajon, CA: Sunbelt Publications, 2001).
The Journal of San Diego History. 48:3 (Summer, 2002): 273-76.

Book Review: Mary Hill. Gold: The California Story. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
Journal of the West. 40:3 (Summer 2001): 84.

Book Review: John D. Wirth . Smelter Smoke in North America: The Politics of Transborder Pollution. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.)
H-ASEH, H-Net Reviews, March 2000.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3937

Dissertation: Evolving Ecoscape: An Environmental and Cultural History of Palm Springs, California, and the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation, 1877-1939.
University of California, San Diego. 1999.
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/41942987

 

 

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❀ Professional and Volunteer Activities ❀


Served as head of the History Department Assessment Committee, St. Olaf College, 2001-2003.

Collaborated with Mark Hineline of the University of California, San Diego, in the organization and development of “Confluence: An Ante-Conference for Environmental History” held at Tucson Mountain Park, Tucson, Arizona, on 16-19 February, 2001.

Volunteered at George Washington Ferry Farm and Kenmore Plantation Foundation in Fredericksburg, Virginia, September 2007 - June 2008.

Volunteered at Fredericksburg Area Museum and Cultural Center, Fredericksburg, Virginia, September 2007 - January 2008.

Volunteer proofreader for Distributed Proofreaders project, December 2011 - present.


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❀ Professional Affiliations and Links ❀


American Society for Environmental History (ASEH)
American Society for Indexing (ASI)
Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE)
Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA)

H-Net, Humanities & Social Sciences OnLine

 

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