A website for continuing projects and passing curiosities: research, heritage, creative work, and commentary. Welcome.
Curriculum Vitae (James X. Morris, PhD)
Professional Statement
I work as a multidisciplinary ethnologist and researcher with a specialty in digital humanities and social geography, complemented by training and experience in political economy, political science, and government. My research and professional interests span East Asian society and culture, particularly Taiwan, including folk religion, history, cultural heritage, and cross-strait socio-political-economic dynamics, as well as New England society and culture, including American political sociology and particular experience in New England electoral politics, political campaigning, civic administration, media, and events.
My work has also extended beyond academia through journalism, publishing, editorial work, and legal support. I have written on politics and society for public audiences, including a cover feature for The Diplomat, published a book on the 2012 New Hampshire presidential primary, and worked as a freelance academic English editor. These experiences have resulted in a broad professional orientation toward research, writing, analysis, documentation, and communicating complex information in academic and public contexts.
Academic Orientation
My academic work is multidisciplinary, broadly concerned with cultural heritage, complemented by past research and work in political economy, political science, and government. This background has provided perspectives on institutions, economies, and social forces. Interests extend across cultural landscapes, religious and material culture, cemeteries and monuments, political economy, history, and the relationships between communities, environments, and knowledge systems.
Increasingly, I have been transforming raw fieldwork and dispersed information into structured, searchable, and interoperable digital assets and resources designed for reuse, expansion, and future-oriented applicability.
Current research draws on digital humanities and a range of digital and field-based methods, including cultural resource management (CRM), geographic information systems (GIS), 3D modeling, and photogrammetry. This work has developed into a multidisciplinary approach to the humanities and ethnology, combining field observation and documentation with the organization, visualization, and interpretation of large bodies of cultural, historical, spatial, and textual information.