Speak

Keynote Addresses

• “The Theme Park Is Dead, Long Live the Theme Park,” Here You Leave Today: Time and Temporality in Theme Parks conference, University of Mainz (Germany), 2014.
• “Research in Consumer Spaces: Emergent Issues,” University of Mainz (Germany), 2013. 
• “History Magic: From Coney Island to the Theme Park,” University of Mainz (Germany), 2013. 
• “Theme Parks: From Cultural Remaking to Social Justice, or Towards a Theme Park of Discomfort
• and the Uncanny,” University of Mainz (Germany), 2013.
• “Cultural Change and Social Environment.” Western Aerosol Information Bureau, conference (Lake Tahoe), 2012.
• “Poverty: A Cultural Problem.” Soroptimist International of South Lake Tahoe, 2013.
• Keynote Address, Poverty to Prosperity Forum, South Lake Tahoe, 2010.
• “Synthesis: Storytelling, Architecture, Technology, and Experience.” Storytelling, Architecture, Technology, and Entertainment conference sponsored by the Themed Entertainment Industry, Orlando, Florida, September 2008.
• “The Themed Space: Culture, History, Social Identity, and the Self.” Staging the Past: Themed Environments in Transcultural Perspectives, University of Freiburg, 2009.
• “Insight/Out.” Walt Disney Imagineering, Burbank, CA, 2010.

Academic Papers/Presentations

• “Theme Park Imaginaries,” Invited lecture, University of Oxford, October 10, 2018.
• “Creating Exciting Attractions by Making Spaces Immersive, Experiential, and Sensory,” with Joel Beckerman and Gordon Grice, IAAPA Conference, Orlando, FL, November 2017.
• “The Politics of November: Comedy, Entropy, the Id,” Lake Tahoe Community College, June 7, 2016.
• “Power, Bias, Context: Four Forms of Strategic Questioning,” Lake Tahoe Community College, February 5, 2016.
• “The Ballot or the Bullet - Malcolm X,” Lake Tahoe Community College, May 19, 2015.
• “Theme Parks and Immersion,” IAAPA Conference, Orlando, FL, November 2015.
• “The World Expo and the Future of Culture: Reflections from World Expo 2015 Milan,” Lake Tahoe Community College, November 2015.
• “An Illicit Space: Imagining Theme Parks and Their Experimental Ethnography,” Cultural Studies
• Association, Riverside, CA, May 2015.
• “Heritage, Remaking, and Postmodernism: The Future of Themed and Immersive Spaces,” 2nd
• Singapore Heritage Conference, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, January 2015.
• “Time and Temporality in Theme Parks,” roundtable academic-industry discussion, American Studies Association Annual Meeting, November, 2014.
• “Imagineering: The Question of Culture and the Question of Critique.” Southwestern Anthropological Association meeting, April 2014.
• “Consultancy and Intervention: Remaking and the Avant-Gardes,” paper for Workshop on Intervention as Method, Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University, Denmark, October 2012. 
• “Theme Parks and Authenticity.” Marin Philosophical Society, August 2012.
• Panelist for “Teaching Anthropology.” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 2010, New Orleans, LA, two workshops.
• Discussant for “Strategies in Teaching Anthropology.” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 2010, New Orleans, LA.
• “Horror Video Game Remakes and the Question of Media.” Paper presented at the SCMS Conference. Los Angeles, CA, 2010. 
• “Anthropology and Critical Pedagogy.” Paper presented at the 2008 meetings of the American Anthropological Association.
• “Lifespace.” Paper presented at the 2008 meetings of the American Anthropological Association.
• “Reflexivity in the Classroom.” Workshop leader for the 2008 NISOD International Conference on Teaching and Leadership Excellence, Austin, Texas.
• “Strategies in Teaching Anthropology.” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 2007, Washington D.C.
• “Ideas in Teaching Anthropology.” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 2007, Washington D.C., two workshops.
• Chair and Discussant for The Themed Space: Reflections on Culture and Materiality, panel, American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 2007, Washington D.C.
• “Teaching Anthropology.” Invited presidential panel, American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 2006. San Francisco, CA.
• “The Gender Ads Project.” Invited workshop for conference participants. National Women’s Studies Association Conference, Orlando, Florida, 2005. 
• “Anthropology: Statewide Initiatives.” Anthropology Teaching Conference, San Luis Obispo, 2004.
• “Empowering Classrooms and Community: The Internet as Public Pedagogy.” Paper and Internet demonstration offered at the 2004 NISOD International Conference on Teaching and Leadership Excellence, Austin, Texas.
• “Cultural Transgression: Ethnography, Critical Methods and the Classroom.” Paper presented at the 2001 California American Studies Association and Rocky Mountain American Studies Association Meetings. Reno, Nevada, May 6, 2001.
• “Performing Theme Park Edgework: Complicity, Cultural Endings, Paranoia and Critical Ethnography.”  Paper presented at the 1999 California American Studies Association Annual Conference, University of California Santa Cruz, April 31, 1999.
• “Writing the Anthropology of America: Between Ethnology and Fiction.” Paper presented at the 1998 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, December 2, 1998.
• “Ethnographic Activity at the End of the Millennium.” Presented at the 1996 Assault: Radicalism in Aesthetics and Politics Conference, Duke University.
• “Industrial Ethnography. ” Presented at the 1996 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, November 24, 1996.
• “Ethnography at the End of the Millennium.” Presented at the Valparaiso University Faculty Brown Bag Series, October 10, 1996.
• “Rhetoric in Flux: Ethnographic Inquiry In and Around Fluxus Performance Art and Theme Park Training Programs.”  Presented at the 1995 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., November 18, 1995.
• “Fin de siècle Anthropology as a State of Possession: The Possibilities of Performativity in Post-Analytic Ethnography. ” Presented at the First Annual Performance Studies Conference: The Future of the Field, Tisch School of the Arts, New York, New York, March 25, 1995.
• “Performing in the AFTER—The Persistent Hold of Avant-Garde Modernism.” Presented at the 1994 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, November 30, 1994.
• “Dada as Diaphora: The Uncovering of Cultural Critique.” Presented at the 1994 European Studies Conference, Omaha, Nebraska, Oct. 6, 1994. 
• “Music Composition as Postmodern Discourse, Local Knowledge: A Consideration of the Current State of Music, Composition, and Western Culture.” Paper presented at the 1993 Region VI Society of Composers, Inc., the University of Central Oklahoma, February 5, 1993.

Literary Readings

• “Writers around the Lake,” South Lake Tahoe, 2012.
• Tahoe Blues reading, South Lake Tahoe, June 2012.
• “Writers around the Lake,” South Lake Tahoe, August 26, 2010.
• Kokanee reading, South Lake Tahoe, 2010.