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Amanda Driver
Politics of memory; museums, memorials, and communities; popular religion; Japan.
Amanda Sobel Driver graduated from the University of Arkansas in 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and anthropology with minors in Asian studies and religious studies. While at Brandeis University, she continued to pursue interests in Japanese culture, popular religion, memory politics, and museums. She also focused on education in informal learning environments and concentrated on using material culture and the arts as tools for educating and empowering communities in museum settings. In the summer 2008, Driver had an internship in the Education Department at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (MFA) as the Gallery Learning Intern creating interactive activities for children and families to use in the Museum’s galleries. While a student at Brandeis, she also interned with the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard University, volunteered as a docent at the Old State House Museum, and worked as a Program Assistant at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown.Driver’s final capstone portfolio Making Connections: Art and Culture Program at a Public Housing Community Center was project-based. She developed and led art enrichment activities that engaged elementary school children with global cultures through their arts, including music, dance, storytelling, games, visual art, and folktales. The final portfolio included a master’s paper incorporating and analyzing pedagogical theory as well as twelve weeks of lesson plans and reflections/assessments of each lesson. Driver currently works in the Education Department at the Old State House Museum in Little Rock , Arkansas as the Visitor Service Coordinator. She used to lead tours of the Old North Church in Boston.