Lighthouse Keepers Topic Of Phoenixville Library Event

PHOENIXVILLE, PA — A Villanova associate professor will bring stories of women who were lighthouse keepers to a virtual audience through Phoenixville Public Library. Dr. Shauna M. MacDonald will present "To Catch and to Keep: Telling Stories of Women Who Kept the Lights," on Monday, July 27 at 7 p.m. The artist, scholar, performer and educator will share her research about lighthouses, memory, and women who kept lighthouses in the United States.

Phoenixville Public Library will host the free online event. The virtual presentation by MacDonald is based on her 2015 solo performance, "To Catch and To Keep," and on MacDonald's research and experiences.

In its original form, "To Catch and To Keep" was a performed collection about keeping: lighthouse keeping, keeping lighthouses protected in the modern world, and the process of keeping memories and histories for future generations to encounter. In this less theatrical and updated version, MacDonald will share parts of the performance while also digging into the research surrounding it.

Through a combination of storytelling, traditional presentation, and imagery, she will illuminate the connections between lighthouses, cultural preservation, and the political underpinnings of who gets remembered and who gets to do the remembering. And she’ll share some family stories along the way, too.

MacDonald is Associate Professor at Villanova University where she teaches courses in performance studies, gender, and communication. She is originally from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, which is how she first became interested in lighthouses.

A student of culture, she is fascinated by communication and ritual in extraordinary places and by extraordinary beings, including coal mines and cyborgs. For the last few years, she has been studying lighthouses as sites of cultural memory, with a focus on the gendered elements of those memories and how we share them.

This event is free and open to the public and will be held online/by phone via Zoom. Registration is required on the Adult Events Calendar at www.phoenixvillelibrary.org or by calling 610-933-3013 x132, in order to receive an invitation to the event.