Professor Obermeier Publishes Book Review

Dr. Obermeier has published a book review of Joerg O. Fichte's From Camelot to Obamalot: Essays on Medieval and Modern Arthurian Literature (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2010) in the Journal for English and Germanic Philology 114.3 (2015): 453-56.

Relevant Links: 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jenglgermphil.114.3.0453#pdf_only_tab_contents

Faculty & Graduate Conference Appearances and Presentations October 2015

Assistant Professor of English Sarah L. Townsend organized the 2015 American Conference for Irish Studies Western Regional meeting (ACIS-West) October 16-17 in Rapid City, South Dakota. The conference theme, "Ireland: Memory and Monument," explored acts of memory and commemoration in Irish literature, history, politics, and culture. Keynote speakers included David C. Lloyd (Distinguished Professor of English at UC Riverside), Eamonn Wall (poet and essayist, Smurfit Professor of English at the University of Missouri, St. Louis), and Myles Dungan (RTE presenter and instructor at City Colleges Dublin). The conference concluded with a performance of the play Fionnuala by award-winning actor and playwright Donal O'Kelly (Director, Benbo Productions), as well as a discussion between Irish and Lakota artists, activists, and scholars about multinational oil production and the preservation of indigenous environments and communities. At the conclusion of the conference, Townsend was named Treasurer of the organization.

Sarah L. Townsend. "Waiting in Anatolia: Beckett, Ceylan, and the Procedural Body." American Conference for Irish Studies, Western Region. . Rapid City, SD: October 17.

Julie Williams. "Waist High in the West: A Study of a Wheelchair Perspective." Western Literature Association. University of Nevada, Reno. Reno, NV: October 14-18, 2015.

Megan Malcom-Morgan. "Modernism's 'Other:' D.H. Lawrence in Mexico.." Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association . . Santa Fe, NM: October 10, 2015.

Julie Williams. "Gender Expression in the American West: Femininity is in the Eye of the Beholder." Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association. . Santa Fe, NM: October 8-10, 2015.

Rudolfo & Patricia Anaya Lecture on Literature of the Southwest

Please Join us!
October 22, 7:00 p.m., George Pearl Hall, Room 101

Anne Hillerman

On Thursday, October 22, the UNM Department ofEnglish will host distinguished writer Anne Hillerman as the featured speaker for the sixth annual Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya Lecture on the Literature of the Southwest.

Hillerman will speak about “Why Stories Matter” at 7:00 p.m. in Room 101 of George Pearl Hall (the School of Architecture and Planning), with a reception to follow. The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information about the lecture and series, visit our website.

About the Author
Hillerman lives in Santa Fe, is a UNM alumna, and is the author of eight published non-fiction books, including one about her father, the late novelist Tony Hillerman. Her first novel, Spider Woman’s Daughter (2013), made the New York Times bestseller list and received the 2014 Spur Award for the Best First Mystery from Western Writers of America. She just published her second mystery novel, Rock With Wings (2015), and is working on a third.

About the Lecture Series
The English Department established the annual lecture series on the literature of the Southwest in 2010 through a gift from the renowned fiction writer Rudolfo Anaya and his late wife Patricia Anaya. In the past the department has hosted Simon Ortiz, Denise Chávez, John Nichols, N. Scott Momaday, and Ana Castillo. This year, Hillerman joins the distinguished list.

Thank you for supporting the Rudolfo Anaya Fellowship Fund!
The UNM English Department also has the Rudolfo Anaya Fellowship Fund, which is very close to endowment and would then be available for student fellowships. We would like to encourage you to make a contribution to this fund; gifts of $100 or more will receive a poster of this year’s Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya lecture signed by Rudolfo Anaya and Anne Hillerman.

Thanks to our UNM co-sponsors for the 2015 Anaya Lecture with Anne Hillerman: Center for Southwest Research, Department of History, Feminist Research Institute, University College and The Center for the Southwest.

Helen Damico's Book Discussion and Signing at the UNM Bookstore

Professor Emerita of English Medieval Language and Literature, Damico hosted a discussion and signing of her new book, Beowulf and the Grendel-Kin: Politics and Poetry in Eleventh-Century England (West Virginia University Press, 2015)  on Tuesday, October 13th, at the UNM Bookstore:

Daniel Worden published by Cambridge University Press

Worden's essay on "The Popular Western" will be published this month in Cambridge University Press's History of Western American Literature, edited by Susan Kollin.

Relevant Links:

• http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/literature/american-literature/history-western-american-literature

Karra Shimabukuro publishes "I Framed Freddy: Functional Aesthetics in the A Nightmare on Elm Street Series"

While existing work on modern horror tends to focus on a small range of exceptional examples of the genre, and generally finds value in the films through the application of sociopolitical, psychoanalytic, or other theoretical frameworks, the broader trend of the for-profit Hollywood studio produced and/or distributed texts and the elements of their construction have been largely ignored. Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film aims to fill this existing gap in scholarship on horror. This book collects essays from a range of academics to consider the place of some of these films within the history of the slasher, how their construction provides a more complex experience than initially conceived, what this can tell us about the genre, and how a study of form can support and aid theoretical analyses.

Relevant Links:

• http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/style-and-form-in-the-hollywood-slasher-film-wickham-clayton/?isb=9781137496461

Kelly Hunnings published in Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, Fall 2015

Review of Gender Hurts: a Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism by Sheila Jeffreys [New York: Routledge].  Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, Fall 2015 (69.2)

Daniel Mueller published by The Writing Disorder, Summer 2015

"The Embers" is a short story set in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Themes of religion, marital fidelity, teenage pregnancy, incest, and abortion rights.

Relevant Links:

• http://writingdisorder.com/daniel-mueller/

Julianne Newmark published by Modern Language Studies, Summer 2015

"Claims to Political Place through the National Council of American Indians: Locating Gertrude and Raymond Bonnin in the Nation’s Capital."

During the first three decades of the twentieth century, many Native leaders emerged on the national political stage, figuring prominently as lobbyists, contributors of Congressional testimony, leaders of national pan-Indian organizations, and vitally important members of specific tribal communities.  Among the most prominent of these indigenous activists were Gertrude and Raymond Bonnin. The Bonnins dedicated themselves to, as they called it, the Indian cause in a variety of ways in this period. Some of their efforts have been well studied by current scholars, particularly Gertrude's autobiographical writings under her self-given name Zitkala-Sa and her early activist scholarship as a prominent member of the Society of American Indians, as Secretary and as Editor of the publication The American Indian Magazine. This essay considers a sampling of the less frequently studied, later efforts of Gertrude Bonnin's, particularly epistolary and pamphlet-writing activities of 1926, 1927, and 1928. 

Julianne Newmark published by IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication First Quarter 2015

Learning Beyond the Classroom and Textbook: Workplace Enculturation via Technical Communication Client Projects and Internships with Elisabeth Kramer-Simpson and Julie Dyke Ford.

From the online description on the journal's website: the article "explores how approaches such as client projects in technical communication courses for majors prepare students for internships and their transition to the work world."

Relevant Links:

• http://pcs.ieee.org/first-quarter-2015-issue-of-the-transactions-now-available/

Kelly Hunnings published in Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, Spring 2015

Review of Wordsworth and Welsh Romanticism by James Prothero [Cambridge Scholars Publishing].  Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, Spring 2015 (69.1): 114-116.

Julianne Newmark published The Pluralist Imagination from East to West in American Literature in January 2015

The first three decades of the twentieth century saw the largest period of immigration in U.S. history. This immigration, however, was accompanied by legal segregation, racial exclusionism, and questions of residents national loyalty and commitment to a shared set of American beliefs and identity. The faulty premise that homogeneity as the symbol of the melting pot was the mark of a strong nation underlined nativist beliefs while undercutting the rich diversity of cultures and lifeways of the population. Though many authors of the time have been viewed through this nativist lens, several texts do indeed contain an array of pluralist themes of society and culture that contradict nativist orientations. In The Pluralist Imagination from East to West in American Literature, Julianne Newmark brings urban northeastern, western, southwestern, and Native American literature into debates about pluralism and national belonging and thereby uncovers new concepts of American identity based on sociohistorical environments. Newmark explores themes of plurality and place as a reaction to nativism in the writings of Louis Adamic, Konrad Bercovici, Abraham Cahan, Willa Cather, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charles Alexander Eastman, James Weldon Johnson, D. H. Lawrence, Mabel Dodge Luhan, and Zitkala-Sa, among others. This exploration of the connection between concepts of place and pluralist communities reveals how mutual experiences of place can offer more constructive forms of community than just discussions of nationalism, belonging, and borders.

Published by University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE, 2015


Relevant Links:

• https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Pluralist-Imagination-from-East-to-West-in-America,675995.aspx
• http://www.amazon.com/Pluralist-Imagination-East-American-Literature/dp/0803254792

Faculty & Graduate Conference Appearances and Presentations since Spring 2014

Anita Obermeier. "Birth and Birth Control in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales." Biennial London Chaucer Conference: Science, Magic, and Technology. University of London. London, UK: July 10-11, 2015.

Anita Obermeier. "Merlin, the Clown, and the Queer in Rowley’s The Birth of Merlin." 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies,. Western Michigan University. Kalamazoo, MI: May 14-17, 2015.

Anita Obermeier. "Teaching Provençal Lyrics and the Cathars." 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies. Western Michigan University. Kalamazoo, MI: May 14-17, 2015.

Kelly J. Hunnings. "Patronage, Poetic Identity, and Domestic Tensions: Jane Wiseman and Mary Leapor, 1717-1746." Feminist Research Institute (FRI) Lecture Series . Univ. of New Mexico. Albuquerque, NM: April 2015.

Anita Obermeier. “Medieval Empress Cunegund’s Sterility as Disability and Magic in 21st-Century German Historical Fiction." Annual Meeting of the Medieval Association of the Pacific. University of Nevada-Reno. Reno, NV: April 10-11, 2015.

Kelly J. Hunnings. "Mary Robinson, Collaborative Writing, and Genres of Women's Autobiography." America Society of Eighteenth Century Studies (ASECS). . Los Angeles, CA: March 2015.

Presented with Leslie Morrison, PhD

Julie Williams. "One Voice is Not Enough to Tell a Story: Writing as Community Creation in Native American Women's Fiction." Native American Literature Symposium. . Isleta, NM: March 12-14, 2015.

Julie Williams. "Access to Nature for Students with Disabilities." Center for Teaching Excellence Success in the Classroom Conference. University of New Mexico. Albuquerque, NM: February 19, 2015.

Julie Williams. "Trans-Atlantic Artistry in Blue Ravens, Hungry Generations, and The Heartsong of Charging Elk." American Indian Studies Association. . Albuquerque, NM: February 5-6, 2015.

Julie Williams. "Preparing for Take-Off: Learning to Fly in Graduate School." Modern Language Association. Canada. Vancouver, BC: January 8-11, 2015.

Kelly J. Hunnings. "Solitude and Isolation: John Clare's Struggle for Childhood Familiarity." Pacific Ancient Modern Language Association (PAMLA). . San Diego, CA: May 2014.

Anita Obermeier. “’Torn between Two Lovers’: Formalism, Feminism, and Other Isms in Teaching the Pan-European Medieval Lyrics." 49th International Congress on Medieval Studies. Western Michigan University. Kalamazoo, MI: May 8-11, 2014.

Helen Damico Book Discussion & Signing - Tuesday, October 13th

Tanaya Winder Poetry Reading and Book Release: Words Like Love

UNM MFA alumna Tanaya Winder will host a poetry reading and book release at Bookworks (4022 Rio Grande Blvd NW) on Tuesday, September 29th, at 7:00pm.

In her debut collection, Words Like Love, poet Tanaya Winder sings the joys, glories, and laments of love. Love is defined by familial, cultural, platonic, and romantic bonds in these passionate and thoughtfully rendered poems. Winder’s voice resonates through the dark—and the light— on a quest to learn more about the most complex of subjects.

Words Like Love is her first full length poetry collection (West End Press, 2015).

Read more writing and find events @tanayawinder.wordpress.com and find her on Twitter @a_girl_on_fire.

Announcing the Inaugural ALS Seminar Symposium

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

4:00pm-7:30pm

Humanities 108

The ALS faculty invites all English Department graduate students and faculty to participate in the inaugural ALS seminar symposium and reception. The event brings together Dr. Vizcaíno-Alemán's English 610: Critical Regionalism and Dr. Coleman's English 660: Race and the African American Novel to discuss selected seminar readings with all attendees.

This year's symposium facilitates an understanding of critical regionalism through selections from Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk; Gilroy's The Black Atlantic; Stecopoulos' Reconstructing the World; an article on bell hooks and another on the global west.

Dr. Krista Comer, associate professor at Rice University, former Western Literature Association president, and leading scholar of critical regionalism, will cap the event with a lecture titled:

"Thinking Otherwise across Global Wests:

Issues of Mobility and Feminist Critical Regionalism”

All attendees are expected to read the material and are invited to participate in discussion. The following readings can be found on e-reserve: 

http://ereserves.unm.edu/eres/courseindex.aspx?&page=search

Course: ENGL610; password: lobo610

• Du Bois, "Of the Black Belt" and "Of the Coming of John" from The Souls of Black Folk;
• Gilroy, The Black Atlantic (selection)
• Stecopoulos, Reconstructing the World (selection)
• Comer, "The Problem of the Critical in Global Wests”

An additional reading can be found online:

• Christina Van Houten, "bell hooks, Critical Regionalism, and the Politics of Ecological Returns”http://politicsandculture.org/2014/03/09/bell-hooks-critical-regionalism-and-the-politics-of-ecological-returns-by-christina-van-houten/

Schedule:

• 4:00-5:45pm--Welcome and facilitated discussion
• 5:45-6:00pm--Break and refreshments
• 6:00-7:30pm--Lecture, Q&A, and light reception

Food and refreshments will be available at the event.

Sponsored by the English Department, the Center for Regional Studies, and the English Graduate Student Association

Contact: Dr. Jesse Alemán 

jman@unm.edu

Alemán publishes chapter on teaching nineteenth-century US Latino/a literatures

Jesse Alemán’s chapter, “Recovered and Recovery Texts of the Nineteenth Century,” leads off Latino/a Literature in the Classroom: Twenty-First-Century Approaches to Teaching, edited by Frederick Luis Aldama and recently published by Routledge. The essay is a scholarly piece on teaching nineteenth-century US Latino/a literatures, surveying major texts to be included in the classroom, presenting approaches to themes, genres, and authors that structure the Latino nineteenth century, and most importantly, arguing for a different model of teaching American literary history to be inclusive of early US Latino/a print cultures.

Anita Obermeier publishes article on Merlin's Devil Conception in Arthuriana's special volume dedicated to "Arthur on the Stage."

In her most recent article, “Merlin’s Conception by Devil in William Rowley’s Play The Birth of Merlin” (Arthuriana 24.4 (2014): 48-79), Anita Obermeier argues that Rowley’s early modern play amalgamates both the medieval Galfridian-based and Francophone narratives of Merlin’s conception by daemon, incubus, and devil in order to engage contemporary early seventeenth-century debates on the devil’s influence in the world, to ventriloquize social commentary via the figure of the Clown, and to have Merlin hail Prince Charles as the future Arthur.

Baker Named the 2015-16 Center for Regional Studies Hector Torres Fellow

W. Oliver Baker, an American Literary Studies Ph.D. candidate in the University of New Mexico English Department, has been awarded the 2015-2016 Center for Regional Studies Hector Torres Fellowship.

Baker earned both his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. In his master's program, Baker studied American literature, rhetoric and composition, while also serving as a graduate instructor, teaching and assisting with writing, literature, and film courses. Baker joined the UNM English Department in the fall of 2012. Baker’s areas of study include nineteenth and twentieth century American literature, Critical Theory, Marxist Cultural Theory, and Pedagogy. He also works as a UNM Graduate instructor in Core writing, a Freshman Learning Communities instructor, and teaches courses on American and World literature.

Baker will use the CRS Torres Fellowship to research and draft his dissertation, tentatively titled, “Literatures of Dispossession: Representing U.S. Settler Colonialism in the Late Nineteenth Century,” which examines how American literature from mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century offers a cultural history of a key period in the development and expansion of U.S. settler colonialism. The dissertation highlights the role of settler colonialism as a structure of dispossession and its relationship to the processes of U.S. industrialization and monopoly capitalism. In particular, Baker focuses on the works of Indigenous, African American, and Mexican American writers of this period, demonstrating how the form and style of their writings register the uneven development and structural violence of settler colonialism and capitalist expansion in North America. Dr. Jesse Alemán directs the dissertation.

The CRS Hector Torres Fellowship, a $10,000-$15,000 stipend, was inaugurated in 2010 by the University of New Mexico’s Center for Regional Studies in memory of the English Department’s slain colleague. The fellowship supports graduate research and scholarship in the English Department directly related to the late Dr. Torres’ fields, as well as the mission of the Center for Regional Studies. Areas include Chicano/a literary and cultural studies; theory (i.e. Marxism; post-structuralism; deconstruction; psychoanalysis; and globalization); film studies; and scholarship related to the mission of the CRS, including history; archival research; literature; and other interdisciplinary fields related to New Mexico, the US-Mexico borderlands, and the greater southwest.

Daniel Worden’s edited volume The Comics of Joe Sacco: Journalism in a Visual World published by the University Press of Mississippi

Daniel Worden’s latest book, an edited collection of essays titled The Comics of Joe Sacco: Journalism in a Visual World, has just been published by the University Press of Mississippi. The book also features an essay by UNM English PhD Candidate Ann D’Orazio.

The Comics of Joe Sacco addresses the range of his award-winning work, from his early comics stories as well as his ground-breaking journalism Palestine (1993) and Safe Area to Gorade (2000), to Footnotes in Gaza (2009) and his most recent book The Great War (2013), a graphic history of World War I.

First in the new series Critical Approaches to Comics Artists, this edited volume explores Sacco's comics journalism, and features established and emerging scholars from comics studies, cultural studies, geography, literary studies, political science, and communication studies. Sacco's work has already found a place in some of the foundational scholarship in comics studies, and this book solidifies his role as one of the most important comics artists today.

Sections focus on how Sacco's comics journalism critiques and employs the "standard of objectivity" in mainstream reporting, what aesthetic principles and approaches to lived experience can be found in his comics, how Sacco employs the space of the comics page to map history and war, and the ways that his comics function in the classroom and as human rights activism. The Comics of Joe Sacco offers definitive, exciting approaches to some of the most important--and necessary--comics today, by one of the most acclaimed journalist-artists of our time.  

The book is available through booksellers everywhere, and here:  http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1764