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Meet Professor Anishanslin
I am assistant professor of history at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. I hold a PhD in the History of American Civilization from the University of Delaware, and held postdoctoral fellowships at Johns Hopkins University and the New-York Historical Society. But history is more than just a job to me.
Image: At the New-York Historical Society, 2015. Photo by Christine Moncrief.
Portrait of a Woman in Silk
“This dazzling book discovers within one small canvas a brilliant array of lives, trades, circuits, and empires. Written with verve and insight, Anishanslin’s Portrait of a Woman in Silk paints a global early America in vivid color. It will astonish.” - Jane Kamensky, author of A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley
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Image: © Yale University Press, 2016.
Outside the Classroom
I believe knowledge should not stay confined to the academy. In addition to taking my students to archives, museums, and public history sites, I'm active in communicating history to audiences through public talks, podcasts, and television appearances. Before I became a professor, I worked in the museum and historic preservation fields (and that's where I really began my love affair with material culture). Stay tuned for updates on future exhibition and public history projects I've got in the works.
Image: Thomas Jefferson insisted we take a selfie, Williamsburg, VA, 2015.
A Thing for Things
History isn't just written on paper. In my scholarship, I explore how people from all walks of life used objects, both extraordinary and mundane, to communicate who they were and what they did. I uncover the histories hidden in things, histories that reveal how the long dead people who made, bought, and owned these objects hoped, struggled, and lived. And everywhere we look, we can see the similar power objects still have today. This is just one of the things I blog and tweet about. Take a look.
Image: Interior of Anna Maria Garthwaite’s townhouse, Spitalfields, London. View of Christ Church from the second floor, © Zara Anishanslin.