Annah MacKenzie

2012 Field Fellow

Annah MacKenzie, a doctoral candidate in the Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan, is the National Building Museum's 2012 Field Fellow. Her research interests include material culture, media studies, and social space, and her dissertation is entitled The Architecture of Longing: Objects, Fantasy, and the Poetics of Home in Twentieth-Century Literature and Culture. This project looks closely at representations of home and domestic objects in art, literature, and popular culture from the mid-nineteenth century to today.

As the 2012 Field Fellow, Annah will work closely with the National Building Museum’s House & Home exhibition. Considering the complex symbolic role of both the physical house and the idea of home throughout American expressive culture, Annah will use her time at the Museum to further explore the idea that home—whether signifying an architectural structure, domestic space, national allegiance, or a consumer ideal—is a complex category that is always inflected with particular ideas about gender, race, class, and citizenship.

Both inside and outside of academia, Annah is continuously fascinated by the different ways in which individuals and communities define and express themselves in relation to the physical objects and spaces that surround them. While working on her PhD, Annah taught courses in creative writing to high school and college students. She also volunteered at 826 Michigan, a non-profit organization that fosters effective written communication for all-income students, ages 6-18. In addition, Annah was a studio assistant at Gallery Project, an independent and volunteer-based contemporary art space based in Ann Arbor.

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