Akela Reason

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. Her most recent book, Politics and Memory: Civil War Monuments in Gilded Age New York (Yale University Press), examines the complex politics that shaped New York’s Civil War soldiers’ monuments. Dr. Reason 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.