Nate K
- Research Program Mentor
PhD at The University of Texas at Arlington (UT Arlington)
Expertise
Disability History, Transatlantic History, Quaker History, American Religious History, History of Mormonism, 19th-century American History, History of the Built Environment, Architectural History, History of Transatlantic Slavery, US History, European History, Cultural History, Pop Culture History
Bio
Nate has taught upper school history in independent schools for over eighteen years, offering courses ranging from AP European History, AP United States History, and AP US Government and Politics to specialized elective courses in Disability History and Transatlantic Slavery. He has also taught Disability History at the undergraduate level and published articles on a wide range of topics from how the LDS Church forged a revised image of their faith at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair to how the Quaker abolitionist, Benjamin Lay, harnessed 18th c. concepts of disability to shape his anti-slavery activism. Within the classroom Nate strives to help students develop the skills and habits of mind of historians. To these ends, he has designed, refined, and facilitated a wide range of interdisciplinary research projects with his students, helping them master the use of database resources, understand how to assess historiographical contributions, locate pertinent primary source material, and use digital research tools to manage the process from initial note-taking to drafting to finalized citations. Outside of teaching and researching, Nate enjoys outdoor recreation, especially mountain biking, hiking, and skiing, playing pickup basketball, and studying jazz guitar. He's found the process of learning new skills as an adult to be immensely helpful in empathizing with students as they develop and refine their intellectual skills and passions.Project ideas
Disability and the Dead
During their years performing, and even after Jerry Garcia's death and the band's subsequent iterations, The Grateful Dead forged a radically-inclusive community amongst their fans. Dead concerts became gathering places not only for members of the counter-culture that emerged in the Haight in the late-1960s San Francisco, but also a place where recovering alcoholics, tapers, dancers, and conservatives all found a sense of community and connection. One notable group that became a frequent subsection of Dead shows in the 1980s were deaf individuals who gained the moniker, "Deafheads." While this group — individuals without the ability to hear who would presumably not find audio-centric concerts of interest — seems an unlikely set of people to forge community around the Dead, their existence highlights the compelling intersection between the Grateful Dead, their fanbase, and people with disabilities. This project proposes to explore how the Dead (understood broadly to encompass the band *and* their fans) fostered a space for fans with disabilities. The project has a number of potential avenues: How did their embrace of psychedelics and other mind-altering drugs create openness to neuro-diversity? How did the emergence of the independent living and disability rights movement in San Francisco in the late 1960s intersect with and draw influence from (or influence) the counter-culture around the Grateful Dead? How did the spaces of Grateful Dead concerts create impromptu venues of accessibility and transformed notions of what defined one as "able"?