Above the Oxbow: Stories Entangled with a Mountain

West Virginia University Press, 2026

A journey through the tangle of rich narratives surrounding Mount Holyoke, a locally cherished mountain in Western Massachusetts. Through an accessible blend of storytelling and scholarly analysis, this ethnography of place examines the significance of the natural landscape, historic sites, and material culture, revealing how cultural perspectives, community activism, and personal experiences shape our understanding of a place.

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Reviews

Raad brings new ideas to play in this inquiry, such as a different sense of place created by a mostly natural rather than constructed setting . . . a good addition to a bookshelf containing histories of places and their cultural significances and meanings.
— Dan Allosso, author of "Peppermint Kings: A Rural American History"

About the Author

Danielle Raad is a public historian, anthropologist, archaeologist, and curator with a focus on how people in the present make meaning from the material culture—art, artifacts, and historic sites—of the past.

She is currently an Assistant Professor of History and Museum Studies at the University of Georgia. Danielle is based in the Department of History and primarily teaches courses in the Interdisciplinary Program in Museum Studies.

Prior to joining the faculty at UGA, Danielle held positions as the Curator and Assistant Director of the Stanford University Archaeology Collections and as the Cullman-Payson Postdoctoral Fellow in Academic Affairs and Outreach at the Yale University Art Gallery. She has also previously worked as an academic advisor, a study abroad coordinator, a community college chemistry instructor, and a high school physics teacher.

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The book is available for $26.99 as a paperback, ePub, or PDF through West Virginia University Press.

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