Nicole Maurantonio is Associate Professor of Rhetoric & Communication Studies and American Studies at the University of Richmond. Prior to joining the faculty at UR, she was a Postdoctoral Teaching Associate in the Communication Studies Department at Northeastern University. Dr. Maurantonio's research explores narrative and material traces of memory. Her book, Confederate Exceptionalism: Civil War Myth and Memory in the Twenty-First Century, explores how the Confederacy is remembered today, using museum exhibits and souvenirs, monuments, literature, and graffiti as sites of study. This work combines textual analysis and studies of material culture with ethnography and one-on-one interviews.