Shannon Lee Dawdy’s fieldwork combines archival, ethnographic, and archaeological methods to explore how landscapes and material objects mediate human relationships through time. She has worked in the U.S. South, Cuba, Mexico, and the Arctic. In addition to death studies, her research has focused on histories of capitalism and colonialism, disaster, sensuality, temporality, and urban landscapes — projects often inspired by the city of New Orleans. Her other books include Building the Devil’s Empire: French Colonial New Orleans, Patina: A Profane Archaeology, and (as co-editor with Tamara Kneese) The New Death: Mortality and Death Care in the Twenty-first Century. She currently teaches at the University of Chicago.