Baltimore Revisited: Social History for the Twenty-First Century City is an edited collection currently underway that draws from a wide range of researchers inside and outside of the academy to tell the stories of how and why Baltimore looks and functions as it does today. The project is revisiting the popular and important 1991 book The Baltimore Book: New Views of Local History. In this session we will discuss what should be included in a new book on the city’s local and social history and why. What is essential? What might be forgotten or overlooked? How can the book function as a solid introduction to the stories of Baltimore? How can the book best serve scholars, students, and the general public?
—Nicole King
Dr. Nicole King is an associate professor and chair of the Department of American Studies and director of the Orser Center for the Study of Place, Community, and Culture at UMBC. She received her Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2008 and a M.A. in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from the Foreign Languages and Literatures Department at the University of New Mexico in 2001. Her research and teaching interests focus on issues of place, economic development, identity, and power. King’s scholarship analyzes changes to the social and built environment during the rise of consumer culture in the twentieth century—such as the development of vernacular landscapes of tourism in the U.S. South and the decline of industrial neighborhoods in Baltimore. She is currently working on a study of the history of arts districts and issues of development in Baltimore.
