Faculty News: Anita Obermeier

Anita Obermeier published the entries on “J. M. Manly" and “F. N. Robinson,” the two most influential Chaucer editors of the 20th century, in the Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms, Methods, Trends (Ed. Albrecht Classen. 3 vols. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2010. 3: 2511-15 and 2594-99).

English Department Colloquium: Susan Romano

Please join us in the Department Lounge at 12:30 on Thursday, December 2nd for Professor Susan Romano's presentation, "Rhetorics of Purity and Corrosion: Girls, Indians, and Teachers in Colonial Mexico."

Job Opening: Tenure Line Assistant Professor

The English Department of the University of New Mexico seeks a tenure-line assistant professor who specializes in American, Chicano/a, and southwestern literary and cultural studies from the Progressive Era (1910s) to the present. Desirable secondary qualifications include expertise in interdisciplinary methodologies and critical regionalisms, though we prefer projects that are decidedly literary.

The teaching responsibilities associated with this position will include—but not be strictly limited to—our Chicano/a literature sequence (sophomore- to M.A.-level courses), as well as our lower-division American Literature surveys (both early and late) and upper-division historical survey of literary criticism and theory. Courses typically taught by members of UNM’s literature faculty range from sophomore level introductions to Ph.D. seminars. The teaching load is 2/2. The appointment will be in a probationary position leading to a tenure decision.

The search committee will begin to review applications on December 7, 2010 and continue the screening process until the position is filled. Preliminary interviews will take place by telephone. Please upload a letter of application, curriculum vitae, and scholarly writing sample (of not more than 25 pages) at https://unmjobs.unm.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=60322.  Please submit 3 letters of recommendation directly to Dr. Gary Scharnhorst, Search Committee Chair, at gscharn@unm.edu or to University of New Mexico, English Department, MSC03 2170, Albuquerque, NM 87131.

The appointment date is August 2011, and the successful candidate must have a Ph.D. in hand by that date.  Minimum qualifications for this position are a Ph.D. in Chicana/o Literature or related discipline.  Preferred qualifications include:  2 years of college or university teaching experience, scholarly publications or professional presentations, and knowledge of and ability to teach general courses in American Literature, Southwestern American Literature, interdisciplinary studies, and/or literary criticism and theory.

This position is contingent upon final budgetary approval.

UNM is a Carnegie Very High Research institution, a federally-designated Hispanic-serving institution, and an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. The University is especially interested in candidates who can contribute to diversity through their teaching, research, and service.

Jesse Aleman: Elected to the American Literature Section Advisory Council

Dr. Jesse Alemán has been elected to serve on the MLA's American Literature Section Advisory Council for a three-year term, beginning January 2012. The American Literature Section represents the largest of the constituent parts of the MLA. It sponsors two of the field's most important journals--American Literature and American Literary Scholarship, the latter edited by our very own distinguished professor, Gary Scharnhorst; it elects the editorial board of American Literature; coordinates the MLA's plenary sessions and American literature awards; and oversees all of the MLA's American Literature divisions. It is one of several posts that Alemán has held in the MLA, including serving on the Delegate Assembly and sitting on the executive committees of the Division on Chicana/o Literatures and the Division on Ethnic Approaches to Literature, which he recently chaired.

Gary Scharnhorst: Mark Twain Biography

Dr. Gary Scharnhorst's Biography of Mark Twain, Twain in His Own Time: A Bio­graph­i­cal Chron­i­cle of His Life, Drawn from Rec­ol­lec­tions, Inter­views, and Mem­oirs by Fam­ily, Friends, and Asso­ciates, was published by the Uni­ver­sity of Iowa Press, this month.

You can read much more about this book and other work by Dr. Scharnhorst in a recent article featured in UNM Today: Scharnhorst Reveals Mark Twain.

Dr. Scharnhorst's work is particularly timely as Mark Twain's own autobiography, unpublished for 100 years at his own request, has been released this year. 

A poetry reading by Benjamin Friedlander

Ortega Hall
third floor reading room,
Wednesday, 17 November, @ 5:00

Dr. Friedlander is author of five volumes of poetry, Citizen Cane (forthcoming, Salt), The Missing Occasion of Saying Yes (Subpress), A Knot Is Not a Tangle (Kruspkaya), Algebraic Melody (Zasterle), and Time Rations (O Books), two volumes of criticism, What Words Share: Essays on Poetry and Experience (forthcoming, Chax) and Simulcast: Four Experiments in Criticism (Alabama), and several chapbooks. He has edited the work of Robert Creeley, Larry Eigner, Charles Olson, and is currently editing that of David Melnick, and Ezra Pound. He has published critical essays in PMLA, The Emily Dickinson Journal, Poetics Today, Qui Parle, Postmodern Culture, Arizona Quarterly, and many other venues. He is Associate Professor of English at the University of Maine, Orono.

Carolyn Woodward: Presentation on Sarah Fielding

Carolyn Woodward has just returned from Chawton Library in England, where she as one of thirteen participants in a 300-year celebration of the writing of Sarah Fielding,
presented "The Cry (1754): Sarah Fielding's Adventures in Metafiction."

Reminder - Department Colloquium Featuring David Dunaway

Please join us in the Department lounge today, November 11 from 12:30-1:45 for the semester's third colloquium, "Public Humanities," presented by Professor David Dunaway.

Professor Dunaway describes his presentation as follows:

Public History, Public Folklore, and Public Sociology--but Public English? The former are recognized sub-disciplines, emphases which highlight the opportunities and responsibilities scholars have to return findings from their fields to the public which funds their work. What, then, would a career whose compass points toward the public look like? What opportunities and challenges face those who take this as a mission? This discussion will examine the presenter's career as a commercial author, a radio producer, public history consultant, among other roles--and what issues and prejudices such a career path takes.

Upcoming Lectures

Dr. Mary S. Hartman, Rutgers University, Emerita
“The State of Women’s Leadership: Storm Clouds and Silver Linings”
Friday, November 5th
2:00-3:00 pm
SUB, Cherry/Silver

Krista Comer, Rice University
“West & Postwest: Surfing Subcultures, Gender, Critical Regionalism”
Friday, November 12th
1:30 pm
Ortega 335

Celebration of Student Writing Videos

Explore the Celebration of Student Writing:



And for those who missed the Lady Gaga Cover that everyone has been talking about, check out the video:

West and Postwest: Surfing Subcultures, Gender, and Critical Regionalism

Dr. Krista Comer, Rice University
Friday, November 12, 2010—1:30pm
Ortega 335—Refreshments to follow in the lounge

This talk will present materials from Dr. Comer’s new book, Surfer Girls in the New World Order (Duke UP), followed by a discussion about how the topic of surfing subcultures and girlhood raise questions about critical regionalism and studies of the contemporary west. The book locates female surf culture in the crossroads between a multi-billion dollar consumer surf industry and surfing’s local and global culture. Through ethnography and analysis of cinematic and literary representations of surfing, Comer argues that women and girl surfers bring critical perspectives to the norms of femininity and women’s relations to material places. Her research suggests the connections between western studies with gender, borderlands, and Latin American studies, as well as methods of engaged research and public humanities.

Krista Comer is Associate Professor of English at Rice University. She received her PhD from Brown University in 1996 in American Studies. Her interests as a scholar concern issues of geography, power, and identity in the literature and culture of the American West. She is the author of Landscapes of the New West: Gender and Geography in Contemporary Women’s Writing (1999) and Surfer Girls in the New World Order (2010), a study of gender, globalization, and the subculture of surfing. Her lecture will focus on critical regionalism as a developing rhetoric for a range of critical practices in literary studies/critical theory; western and postwestern scholarship; and gender studies.

Sponsored by the English Department; American Literary Realism; the Center for the Southwest; the History Department; the American Studies Department; the Feminist Research Institute; and support from the Spanish and Portuguese Department and the English Graduate Student Association.

Adam Nunez and Bonnie Arning Altamirano: Poetry contest winners

Congratulations to Adam Nunez and Bonnie Arning Altamirano who won 2nd and 1st place in the “Champion Poet of the Dead” Contest of New Mexico in conjunction with the 2nd Annual Smithsonian Institution Latino Virtual Museum Dia de los Muertos Avatar Event. Adam won $50 for 2nd place and Bonnie won $100. They read two of their poems at the event.