Emily recently received her PhD in Folklore and Ethnomusicology from Indiana University. Her dissertation, Monastic Memories at Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, is an ethnography of storytelling of the Shaker community in New Gloucester, Maine. It explores how the pithy anecdotes documented in archival records and told by Brother Arnold Hadd act as a vernacular history of Maine Shakerism, a mechanism for conversion to the Shaker faith, and a philosophy of human nature and community. Emily’s research interests include oral narrative and performance studies; vernacular history, social memory, and commemoration; the intersection of material culture and oral narrative; community-constructed museums and sites of display; and American intentional communities, separatist communities, and religious movements. She teaches Introduction to Folklore, Introduction to Popular Culture, and Global Folklore.