Spring 2019 office hours: Mondays and Wednesdays 11:45-12:45,  and by appointment

A native of Louisiana, Marc David has taught at St. Olaf since 2014. For the past twenty-five years, he has conducted research on social class, race, and the cultural politics of heritage and historical representation in the U.S. His current work focuses on the emergence of Cajun (or Acadian) historic sites in contemporary Louisiana, in light of previous state efforts to reform and detach them from their past. Approaching two Acadian sites as cultural interventions tangled up in the exercise of power, it explores how and why local visitors connect their own memories to the narratives and objects they find there, as well as the policy shifts that led historians, civil authorities, and others to promote ethnic and racial histories as tools for governing society in post-segregation America. In addition to his teaching in Anthropology, David leads first-year writing seminars in the Department of English.

Courses taught
128 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
262 Global Interdependence
264 Race and Class in American Culture
399 Senior Seminar
WRI 111 Memorializing the Past