DINOSTALGIA
A MONUMENTAL RECKONING
WITH MODERN AMERICAN MONSTERS
Hello! I’m Alison.
I write, mainly, about museums and the more than human world.
I’ve spent the last decade hunting dinosaurs and other extinct animals in the archives. These days, I’m at work on a book I’m calling DINOSTALGIA. It’s a cultural history that traces how dinosaurs were made into cultural artifacts, consumer goods, and spokes-creatures for consumption.
I’m a historian by training and, according to Curbed Chicago, a "die-hard fan" of SUE the T. rex. As an instructor at Stanford (previously) and UC Santa Cruz (presently), I’ve taught a wide range of subjects, from storytelling to citizenship. I’ve also designed courses on animal history and extinction studies. For more on my background, see my CV.
ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
Coyotes, Cougars, Californians
At the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, displays featuring local wildlife—coyotes and cougars—make it clear that while taxidermied animals are static, animal relations are ever changing. By focusing on changing ways of exhibiting species that are native to the region, this study traces how habitat dioramas define and revise boundaries of belonging.
Pleistocene Park, and Other Designs on Deep Time in the Interwar United States
This article develops the concept of designs on deep time to explain how public displays of the planetary past circulate anything-but-neutral ideas about past and present to awed audiences. A comparative analysis of three different Depression-Era displays demonstrates that, despite disparate approaches, designers of deep time displays used the planetary past to legitimate present regimes and foster faith in human progress
Of Dinosaurs and Intergenerational Culture Wars
Though long extinct, dinosaurs are significant figures in the ongoing U.S. culture wars, used by certain young earth creationists as “missionary lizards” to promote a biblically literal interpretation of the planetary past. This article analyzes how mainstream science and creation science museums alike leverage dinomania and nostalgia to draw crowds and create potent emotional experiences.
A Discourse with Deep Time
The geological section of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, educated the Victorian public about the deep past while celebrating the scale and might of modernity, intimating that deep time had been domesticated, corralled and commoditized by the empire’s naturalists. Initially, the claim that extinct animals were aligned with British national heritage was a construction that matched the agenda of the Crystal Palace Company. Over time, the extinct animal models themselves (rather than the animals they represented) became historical artifacts recognized as heritage assets.
Out of Time at the La Brea Tar Pits
La Brea exclusively exhibits extinct animal models in the park, leading some visitors to see extinction events as existing at a safe distance. Yet the asphalt continues to entrap contemporary creatures. Uncomfortably close encounters with the bubbling tar cue visitors to situate themselves within an ecological continuum and convey the urgency of environmental issues at present.
Archival Absence and Taxonomic Happenstance
This essay reflects on archival encounters with Kan Chuen Pao and Liu Shih Ku, field assistants for the Central Asiatic Expeditions. In the 1920s, at the height of Chinese exclusionary legislation, these men travelled to the United States to train as fossil preparators at the American Museum of Natural History. It is my contribution to Thinking with Moss, a digital humanities project led by Elaine Ayers, Ahmed Ansari, Tega Brain, and Laura Briscoe.
OTHER PROJECTS
Nature Writing in a Rush
Academic publication tends to move at a glacial pace. So lately, I’ve been experimenting with shorter forms and new media to get words into the world more quickly. In February 2024, I contributed lyrics to a song-a-day project, largely inspired by the landscapes and life forms of Central California.
Finding Dinoland
In the 1960s, Sinclair Oil Company created a sensational exhibit of fiberglass dinosaurs called Dinoland, which debuted at the New York World's Fair in Queens and toured the United States as a traveling exhibit for years. The Finding Dinoland project is an attempt to make sense of a cultural phenomenon through surveys and interviews.