About
Katie graduated from the University of Chicago in 2019 with a B.A. in History and Russian & Eastern European Studies. Her History thesis, "'What Have the Capitalists Done for Us?': The Knights of Labor Challenge the Political Machine in Industrial Chicago, 1877-1898," won her honors for its tracing of a once powerful labor union's fall from grace back to its confrontation with the political machine of industrial Chicago.
Now, Katie researches contemporary post-Yugoslav cinema focused on the Wars of the 1990s, with a particular focus on how fictional films and documentaries work towards peace in the region by circulating new memories of the Wars into the cultural discourse. Her dissertation lies at the intersection between film, memory, and cultural studies. While the Wars of the 90s may have ended, a war of memories persists between victims seeking recognition for their suffering, while perpetrators, local officials, and governments engage in virulent denialism. It is here that her research intervenes. She is interested in how, in the face of the failure of international law to bring about a lasting peace, filmmakers, documentarists, and memory activists have charged themselves with that responsibility. While “dealing with the past” fully is an impossible project, she believes that works exploring the experiences, depths, and multiple realities of violence and its impact on the present are crucial to the process of reconciliation.
Outside of the Slavic Department, Katie is pursuing a certificate in the Museum Studies Program, where she worked with the Bixby Trust on plans for a future museum. She also worked as a Rackham Doctoral Internship Fellow for the Detroit River Story Lab and currently works as a Research Assistant for them, planning a traveling exhibit, as well as memory infrastructure along the Detroit River.
When not thinking about cultural memory, she can be found basking in the cinematic experience, baking a cake for any possible occasion, snuggling her cat, or, if you’re lucky, extolling the virtues of watching Survivor.
Professional Memberships
- Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES)
- ASEEES Affiliate New Yugoslav Studies Association (NYSA)
- Memory Studies Association (MSA)
- International Network of Genocide Scholars (INoGS)
- Michigan Museums Association (MMA)
- Perpetrator Studies Network (PSN)
