CV
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Christopher Heaney
Professional Appointments and Affiliations
Assistant Professor, Modern Latin American History, Department of History, the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), August 2016 to present
Associate Editor, Hispanic American Historical Review, 2018-
Member, Editorial Committee, Histórica (Lima, Perú), 2021-
Affiliated Researcher, LAGLOBAL History and Anthropology Working Group, December 2016 to present
Barra Postdoctoral Fellow, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 2016-2018
Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, The Appendix, 2012-2014.
Education
2008-16 Doctoral Program, History, UT Austin. Dissertation: “The Pre-Columbian Exchange: the Circulation and Study of the Ancient Peruvian Dead in the Atlantic World and Americas, 1532-1948.” Committee: Jorge Cañizares Esguerra (Co-Chair), Seth Garfield (Co-Chair), Erika Bsumek, Charles Walker, Ann Fabian, and Alan Covey.
2003 B.A., Latin American Studies, Yale University.
Publications
Books
Empires of the Dead: Inca Mummies and the Peruvian Ancestors of American Anthropology (Oxford University Press, Forthcoming).
Las Tumbas de Machu Picchu: La historia de Hiram Bingham y la Busqueda de las últimas ciudades de los Incas (Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2012 [Translation and revision of Cradle of Gold, below]).
Cradle of Gold: The Story of Hiram Bingham, a Real-Life Indiana Jones, and the Search for Machu Picchu (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 [Paperback with new afterword, 2011]).
Journal Articles
“Skull Walls: The Peruvian Dead and the Remains of Entanglement,” American Historical Review, vol. 127, no. 3 (September, 2022), pp. 1071-1101.
“How to Make an Inca Mummy: Andean Embalming, Peruvian Science, and the Collection of Empire,” Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society, vol, 109, no. 1 (March, 2018), pp. 1-27.
“Fair Necropolis: the Peruvian Dead, the first American Ph.D. in Anthropology, and the World’s Columbian Exposition of Chicago, 1893,” History of Anthropology Review 41 (2017).
“A Peru of Their Own: English Grave-Opening and Indian Sovereignty in Early America,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., vol. 73, no. 4 (October, 2016), pp. 609-646.
Chapters in Edited Volumes
“Inca Mummy.” In New World Objects of Knowledge: A Cabinet of Curiosities, eds. Mark Thurner and Juan Pimentel, 127-134. London and Chicago: University of London Press and University of Chicago Press, 2021.
“Seeing Like an Inca: Julio C. Tello, Indigenous Archaeology, and Pre-Columbian Trepanation in Peru,” in Ned Blackhawk and Isaiah Wilner, eds., Indigenous Visions: Rediscovering the World of Franz Boas, 344-377. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018.
“Marrying Utopia: Richard Eden, Mary and Philip, Richard Eden, and the English Alchemy of Spanish Peru.” Entangled Empires: The Anglo-Iberian Atlantic, 1500-1830, ed. Jorge Cañizares Esguerra. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.
Encyclopedia Entries
“Conquests of Peru,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History (2016).
Fellowships, Grants, & Honors
External
2017 Winner, Maureen Ahern Doctoral Dissertation Award in Colonial Latin American Studies, Latin American Studies Association.
2017 First Runner-up, Richmond F. Brown Dissertation Prize, Latin American Section (LACS) of the Southern Historical Association
2016-8 Barra Postdoctoral Fellow, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
2012-3 Fulbright-Hays Graduate Fellow, Lima, Peru (co-administered by Fulbright Commission of Peru the Institute of International Education and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation)
2012 Edilia and François-Auguste de Montêquin Fellowship, Society of Architectural Historians.
2012 Dissertation Research Fellow, Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science (PACHS).
2011 Smithsonian Predoctoral Fellowship, S.I. Archives, National Anthropological Archives, Washington, D.C. Advisor: Pamela Henson.
2011 Mellon Summer Institute in Spanish Paleography, Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin. Directed by Consuelo Varela.
2010 Social Science Research Council, Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship. Advisors: Stuart W. Leslie, Carla Yanni.
2005-6 Fulbright Student Fellowship, Cusco, Lima, Peru, administered by Fulbright Commission of Peru and the Institute of International Education
2004 Latin America Collection Visiting Research Fellow, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University.
Internal
2022 Humanities Institute Faculty Invites Grant, Penn State, Collecting the Andes: Museums of Andean Art and Science in the Americas and Atlantic World, Fall 2022 (Co-Principal Investigator with Amara Solari).
2021 Humanities Institute Faculty Residency Fellowship, Penn State, Spring.
2017 Winner, Barnes F. Lathrop Prize for Best Dissertation, History Department of the University of Texas at Austin.
2013 Lewis J. Gould Prize for best graduate seminar paper in U.S. history, “Crania Peruviana: Samuel George Morton and the Challenge of Pre-Columbian Skulls,” UT Austin History Department.
2008-15 Donald D. Harrington Graduate Fellowship, UT Austin.
2003 Best Senior Essay, Latin American Studies, Yale University. “Hiram Bingham and the “Lost Treasures” of Machu Picchu: Popular Archaeology, Imagined Imperialism and National Press in the Yale Peruvian Expeditions.”
Teaching
Penn State (2018-2022)
HIST 11: World History Since 1500
HIST 179: Latin America since 1820
HIST 179 World Campus: Latin America since 1820 (personally developed)
HIST 302W: Undergraduate Writing Seminar, Zombies to Ashes: Histories of Death in the Americas
HIST 302W: Undergraduate Writing Seminar, History of the Incas
HIST 425: History of the Incas (personally developed)
HIST/LTNST 467: Latin America and the United States
HISTT 497: Exhibiting Incas (Special topics, taught Fall 2022)
HIST 569: Graduate Seminar in Colonial Latin American History
HIST 570: Graduate Seminar in Latin American History, 1800-Present
External
HIST 233-403: Death in the Americas: Mortuary Encounter and Transformation, 1491-1893, University of Pennsylvania. Fall, 2017.
HIST 072: Introduction to Latin American and Latino Studies, University of Pennsylvania. Fall, 2016.
HIS 346K: Latin American Civilization: The Colonial Experience, UT Austin. Fall, 2015.
Digital Humanities
2015-2017 Co-Founder and Co-Editor, Backlist, a web publication for historian-curated lists of recommended introductions to particular historical topics.
2012-2016 Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief (2012-2014), Editor-At-Large (2014-present), The Appendix: A New Journal of Narrative and Experimental History [theappendix.net], an online quarterly of innovative historical writing, digital humanities, and historical debate.
Press
2021 Sarah Pruitt “How Inca Mummies Ruled Over the Living,” History.com, 18 October. https://www.history.com/news/inca-mummies-afterlife
2021 “Un amparo para Chinchero,” El Comercio (Lima, Peru), 11 April.
2020 Marc Ouahnon, “Hiram Bingham, l'explorateur qui révéla au monde le Machu Picchu,” GEO Histoire, Paris, France. September.
2020 “Una mirada global a la construcción de las momias peruanas,” interview by Juan Lan Ninamango for Onda Histórica Radio Program, FLACSO Radio, Quito, Ecuador, 16 July.
2019 Dave Roos, “Machu Picchu: The Secrets of This Fabled Mountaintop City,” HowStuffWorks, 22 Oct.
2018 Sarah E. Bond, “Pseudoarchaeology and the Racism Behind Ancient Aliens,” Hyperallergic, 13 Nov. 2018.
2018 Daniel A. Gross, “The Casual Colonialism of Lara Croft and Indiana Jones,” Hyperallergic, 6 April 2018
2018 Sarah Zhang, “The Controversial Study of a Girl Who Ufologists Called ‘Alien’,” The Atlantic, 29 March 2018
2013 “The Appendix: Experimental Journal Showcases History of the Arcane,” Life & Letters, 24 May 2013.
2011 Interviewed by Ramona Koval on Cradle of Gold for The Book Show, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 21 July 2011.
2010 Interviewed by Diane Orson, “Yale Returns Machu Picchu Artifacts to Peru,” All Things Considered, National Public Radio, 15 December 2010.
2008 Guest for hour-long conversation on Hiram Bingham and Machu Picchu, On Point with Tom Ashbrook, National Public Radio, 9 May 2008.
2006- Quoted source for articles on Yale-Machu Picchu dispute in The Christian Science Monitor, USA TODAY and the Yale Daily News.