Christopher Heaney
Christopher Heaney is an editor of The Appendix, sweating the articles and contributors that make up each issue. Before helping co-found the journal, he wrote a book about the scientific discovery of Machu Picchu, and the subsequent fight over its artifacts and graves. You can learn a little more about it here. As a journalist, he has written about Einstein's brain and Peruvian writers in Mexican wrestling masks. StoryCorps was the hardest job he had to leave.
Chris is getting his Ph.D. in Latin American History at the University of Texas at Austin. He is writing his dissertation on the circulation and study of pre-Columbian skulls and mummies from Peru during the long nineteenth century. He makes it back to 1528 when he's explaining it, though.
Chris and his wife live in Lima, Peru.
Articles
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Interview with Jackie Sibblies Drury: The Reenactors (forthcoming)
To be published June 12, 2013 in Issue Vol. 1, No. 2
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Death of a Sailor: Chapter 2: The Hoaxers
Chapter Two of Appendix co-founder Christopher Heaney’s serialized narrative history, Death of a Sailor. An 1830s prostitute is murdered. A 161-year-old slave is dissected after death. And a radical journalist responsible for the greatest hoax in journalism’s history—man-bats on the moon—discovers a murdering sailor who may be more than he seems.
Published April 29, 2013 in Issue Vol. 1, No. 2
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Days of Future Present: Marvel Comics and “the Most Intricate Fictional Narrative in the History of the World”
Why and how would we write the history of superheroes? Appendix editor Christopher Heaney reviews Sean Howe's compelling Marvel Comics, a chronicle of the rise and perhaps fall of one of the world's most complicated fictional narratives.
Published February 27, 2013 in Issue Vol. 1, No. 1
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Interview with Adam Hochschild: The Imaginary Cemetery
Writer Adam Hochschild talks with The Appendix about why we read history, the politics of why he writes it, and how he reconstructs the past in award-winning books like King Leopold's Ghost, Bury the Chains, and To End All Wars.
Published February 6, 2013 in Issue Vol. 1, No. 1
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Death of a Sailor: A Novel History of Murder in 1830s New York, War and Forbidden Love in the Age of Napoleon, and Captivity and Freedom in the Last Days of the Atlantic Slave Trade; in many, many Parts.
Appendix editor Christopher Heaney begins his multi-part novel history of a sailor's murder in 1830s New York, a murder that revealed a life of captivity, war, love, and slavery in the early nineteenth century Atlantic World.
Published January 16, 2013 in Issue Vol. 1, No. 1
Blog Posts
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“Bring Up the Bodies”
Appendix editor Christopher Heaney continues his series on experimental narratives and history, meditating on William Cronon, storytelling, and James Joyce.
Published January 24, 2013
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A helpful reader adds to the mystery of Benjamin the Anti-Christ
An Appendix reader deciphers a pair of names from our first issue's Open Source and helps unravel the prophecy of Benjamin the Anti-Christ.
Published January 14, 2013
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Letters to the Editor
The Appendix's first call for Letters to the Editors.
Published December 7, 2012
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The 11th Century Muslim Guide to Historical Gatecrashing
A 11th century Muslim joke book, and the risk of starting new things.
Published November 29, 2012
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Our Not-So-Funny Pages
We introduce The Appendix's comic section and share a panel from our first issue, drawn by Andrew Cohen.
Published November 26, 2012
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The Studs Terkel Effect Pt. 2: When Experimental History Is Personal History
Part Two of a two-part post on how personal, narrative writing can yield insights for history as experimental, and perhaps more meaningful, as the tools of 'digital humanities.'
Published November 21, 2012
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The Studs Terkel Effect Pt. 1: When Narrative History <em>Is</em> Experimental History
Part One of a two-part post on how personal, narrative writing can yield insights for history as experimental, and perhaps more meaningful, as the tools of 'digital humanities.'
Published November 19, 2012
