Adult Lecture Series

Petra has captivated adventurers, scholars, and moviegoers since the 1800s. Dr. Allison Lee shares insights into its rich history and her fieldwork at this UNESCO World Heritage site.

Dr. Lee holds a Ph.D. from Durham University in the United Kingdom and teaches anthropology at Brigham Young University. She co-directed the BYU Archaeology in Petra Field School in 2024 and served as assistant director for the Ad-Deir Monument and Plateau Project. Her archaeological fieldwork includes sites in the United Kingdom, Jordan, Syria, Utah, and Nevada, where she assisted the US Forest Service. Her research interests include Near Eastern archaeology, archaeological theory and methods, site formation processes, GIS applications, predictive modeling, and heritage management.

Jane Austen lived in a material world, and her characters were material girls—navigating love, money, and social ambition through objects that speak volumes. This lecture unpacks how the things they owned—and the things they desired—expose the deeper currents in Jane Austen’s fiction.

Dr. Zan Cammack is the co-host of The Thing About Austen, a podcast that explores the hidden meanings behind the objects in Jane Austen’s novels, unpacking the cultural weight of everything from brooches to banknotes. She teaches in the English and Literature Department at Utah Valley University, where her work centers on British and Irish literature, particularly the ways objects help tell stories about identity, class, and social change. With wit, insight, and a deep love for Austen’s sharp social commentary, Cammack will invite you to look beyond the romance and discover how Austen’s material world shape emotional and social lives.