Lori Kenschaft’s
Homepage
Welcome! The purpose of this website is
to share
ideas and information about gardening, history, and other topics that I
find interesting and hope other people will too.
A brief autobiographical note: I am an
intellectual omnivore living in Arlington,
Massachusetts.
I am trained as an American historian, with a Masters of Theological
Studies
and a Ph.D. in American Studies, and I have published two books and
taught twelve different courses at Boston University
and Harvard
University. I have also, however, been dealing with
something
the doctors call chronic fatigue syndrome since 1988, which made it
impossible to achieve the publication rate required to get a tenure
track position
nowadays. I loved teaching, but most semesters ended with a relapse. In
January
2006, after years of physical pain and emotional frustration, I gave up
on
having a professional career – a decision I have never regretted.
I now devote much of my time to
earth-friendly
gardening (both doing and teaching) and the First Parish Unitarian
Universalist
Church of Arlington, where I am the chair of the property committee and
occasionally preach, lead adult religious education courses, start
butterfly
gardens, etc. My first intellectual love (starting at age four) was
biology,
and when I was an undergraduate at Swarthmore
College
I did a double major in biology and religion with a concentration in
women’s
studies. In 1988 I entered the Harvard Divinity School
with the
intention of becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister, but when I got
sick I
had to give up that dream. So both gardening and participating in a
religious
community feel like going back to my deep roots.
For more information, read my
vita.
For much more information, read my
intellectual
autobiography (written in July 1998, so much out of date but
hopefully
still of interest).
Gardening ///
Sermons
///
My
Books
///
Other People’s
Books ///
Papers and
Talks
on the History of Gender and Sexuality ///
Celebration
of Partnership
///
Living with CFS ///
Other
Writings
Gardening
Philosophy & Resources
Sermons
My Books
- Reinventing
Marriage: The Love and Work of
Alice Freeman Palmer and
George
Herbert Palmer (2005)
- Lydia
Maria Child: The Quest for Racial
Justice (2002) (a young
adults’ biography)
- Selections from an unfinished and unpublished history of Americans’ attittudes towards taxes (in
relation to religion, citizenship, community, etc.)
Other People's Books
(These are annotated bibliographies, sometimes with additional
commentary. I
’ve tried to
provide enough content that, if you are interested in these topics, you
will get something of value just from reading the post, whether or not
you go on to the recommended books.)
Papers on the
History of Gender and Sexuality
Talks on the
History of Gender and Sexuality
- How Can I Help Make the World a Better Place?:
The Changing Answers of Lydia
Maria Child (The Wayland Historical Society at the Wayland
Middle
School,
2003)
- The
Making of Modern American Marriage (Women’s Studies Program, Boston
University, 1998)
- Marriage and the Pursuit of a “Clear
and Serious Profession”: Alice
Freeman Palmer and George Herbert Palmer, 1887-1902 (History
Department,
Syracuse University, 1998)
- Gay
Immigrants: A Study in Cultural Crossings (Northeastern American
Studies
Association, Boston, 1992, and American Studies Association, Boston,
1993)
- Abortion in the Life and Times of
“The Most Evil Woman in New York,” Madame
Restell (Celebration of Our Work,
Rutgers University
Institute for Research on Women, 1990)
- Fundamentalist
Women’s Constructions of Gender: Where Religion and Politics Meet
(Utopian and Dystopian Visions, Indiana University-Purdue University at
Indianapolis, 1988)
Celebration of
Partnership
(June
24, 2000)
Living
with CFS
- “The
Spoon
Theory,”
by Christine Miserandino. A must-read essay
for anyone with
chronic illness or anyone who cares about someone with chronic illness.
- These essays might be of use to
people who know
me in person:
Other Writings
Email address: ljk
at the location of tigana dot org