Mariaelena DiBenigno

Mariaelena DiBenigno is a Ph.D. candidate in the American Studies Program. After several years as a middle school teacher, she completed her English M.A. at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington; her thesis concerned the relationship between folklore and tourism in the coastal Carolinas. Current research interests include intersections between spectrality, memory and public history; popular American narratives about war; and death commemoration in the United States. Mariaelena has presented her work at the annual conferences of the Southern American Studies Association, the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association, and the Association of Critical Heritage Studies.