Associate Professor Director, Museum Studies Certificate Program Akela Reason is a scholar of American visual and material culture. She is also director of the Interdisciplinary Certificate in Museum Studies. She teaches courses in material culture, urban history, and museum studies. Her first book, Thomas Eakins and the Uses of History (U. Penn Press, 2010), won the 2011 Southeastern College Art Conference Award for Excellence in Scholarly Research and Publication. She is currently finishing a book-length manuscript, titled Politics and Memory: Civil War Monuments in Gilded Age New York (forthcoming from Yale University Press in May 2025). She has also published articles and essays on American art and visual culture. In addition to teaching, she has worked at several museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the High Museum of Art. She also runs the Maymester Museum Studies Program in Atlanta. She has three children, three cats, and one very disobedient, but endearingly loyal, dog. She enjoys reading escapist science fiction, running, and comedy. She believes that Muppet Theory is the most meaningful way of understanding other humans. Research Research Areas: Cultural & Intellectual U.S. 19th & 20th Century Public History Selected Publications Selected Publications: Reason, Akela. Thomas Eakins And The Uses Of History. Univ. Penn. Press, 2010. Print. Education Education: PhD, University of Maryland, American Visual Culture 2005
