Lillia McEnaney

Student and Museum Anthropologist

Lillia McEnaney is a student, museum anthropologist, and writer. With an overarching focus on the American Southwest, her research centers on indigenous museum anthropology, the anthropology of art and religion, and visual and material culture. Lillia is currently a M.A. Candidate in Museum Studies at New York University, and a recent cum laude graduate of Hamilton College, with departmental honors in Archaeology and Religious Studies.

Lillia has worked with various museums and cultural institutions across the United States, as research, teaching, and gallery assistants, and on field projects in Greece and Macedonia. She has published with Religious Studies and Theology: Interdisciplinary Studies in Religion and Museum Anthropology, as well as online with SAPIENS, SAFE, and Center for Art Law. Lillia has also presented at the European Association for the Study of Religions in Helsinki, at the New York 6 Undergraduate Conference in Clinton, New York, and at Museum Anthropology Futures in Montreal. 

She is currently a Researcher for the Shadow Lines Project, an initiative that works to connect communities to collections by visually and digitally mapping the scope of the colonial project via museums and institutions. Lillia is also a Graduate Preventative Conservation Assistant in the Barbara Goldsmith Preservation & Conservation Department in the Division of Libraries at NYU and a Gallery Attendant at NYU's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. She has been the Museum Anthropology Blog Intern for the Council for Museum Anthropology, a branch of the American Anthropological Association, since 2014. 

Originally from Newtown, Connecticut, Lillia has lived and studied in upstate New York, London, and Edinburgh. She currently lives in Brooklyn.