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.

Kathleen Washburn awarded a Smith College Travel-to-Collections Grant

Professor Kathleen Washburn was awarded a Travel-to-Collections grant from the Smith College Archives Research Support Program. The award funded archival research in the Sophia Smith Collection on writer and editor Elaine Goodale Eastman, who is best known for collaborating with husband Charles Eastman on a series of nonfiction texts on "Indian" life.

AISB Outstanding Student Award in English

New UNM student Bobbie Thomas (Navajo) was honored with the Outstanding Student Award in English for the 2014 American Indian Summer Bridge (AISB) Program. Through the intensive summer program sponsored by American Indian Student Services, recent high school graduates earn credit in Native American Studies, math, and English courses and prepare for college success. The writing workshop course this summer was taught by Dr. Kathleen Washburn and Ph.D. student Julie Williams.

N. Scott Momaday to teach at UNM in Fall 2014

The English Department is very pleased to announce that a premier writer of our time N. Scott Momaday will be a Visiting Professor in our Creative Writing and American Literary Studies Programs during the 2014-15 academic year. Specializing in poetry and the Native oral tradition, in fall 2014 he will teach 487/587 The Native American Oral Tradition.

He received the National Medal of Arts in November 2007 ‘for his writings and his work that celebrate and preserve Native American art and oral tradition.’  In addition to the National Medal of Arts, he has received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his first novel, House Made of Dawn, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award, the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement, the Premio Letterario Internazionale “Mondello”, Italy’s highest literary award, The Saint Louis Literary Award, the Premio Fronterizo, the highest award of the Border Book Festival, the 2008 Oklahoma Humanities Award, and the 2003 Autry Center for the American West Humanities Award.  UNESCO named him an Artist for Peace in 2003, the first American to be so honored since the United States rejoined UNESCO.  He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds 20 honorary degrees from colleges and universities including Yale University, the University of Massachusetts, the University of Oklahoma and the University of Tulsa in his home state of Oklahoma, Blaise Pascal University (France) and his alma mater, the University of New Mexico.

A member of the Kiowa Nation, Momaday has written the following books: The Complete Poems of Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (Oxford University Press), House Made of Dawn (Harper and Row), The Way to Rainy Mountain (University of New Mexico Press), Angle of Geese (David R. Godine), The Gourd Dancer (Harper and Row), The Names (Harper and Row), The Ancient Child (Doubleday), In the Presence of the Sun (St. Martin’s Press), The Man Made of Words (St. Martin’s Press), In the Bear’s House (St. Martin’s Press), Circle of Wonder:  A Native American Christmas Story (University of New Mexico Press), Les Enfants du Soleil (Le Seuil, Paris), and Four Arrows and Magpie (Hawk Publ. Group).

Jill Walker-Gonzalez Lands Job

Jill Walker-Gonzalez, an American Literary Studies doctoral candidate, has accepted a faculty

position at her alma mater, La Sierra University in Riverside, CA. A Seventh Day Adventist university, La Sierra’s English Department hired Jill to teach early American, Nineteenth-Century American, and Native American literatures starting Fall 2014. The position is a non-tenure track Assistant Professor line that will be converted to tenure-track status when Jill completes her dissertation, “Imagining Poland in Nineteenth-Century American Literature.” Under Dr. Jesse Alemán’s direction, Jill’s dissertation argues that minor references to Poland across nineteenth-century American literary history betray major gothic anxieties in the US about culture, imperialism, slavery and the Other. Congratulations to Jill on landing her dream job!

Faculty and Graduate Student Appearances in Fall 2013

September

Jonathan Davis-Secord. "Exploitation of Compound Frequency in Old English Style." Studies in the History of the English Language. Brigham Young University. Provo, UT: September 26-28, 2013.

October

Lisa Myers. "Music Theory and Performance in the Middle English Breton Lay Sir Orfeo." Southeastern Medieval Association. Appalachian State University. Boone, NC: October 3-5, 2013.

Association for the Arts of the Present (ASAP). Wayne State University. Detroit, MI: October 3-6, 2013.
W. Oliver Baker. "Meth, Rural Whiteness, and the Ozarks: Neoliberalism and the Great Recession in Winter’s Bone."
Ann D’Orazio. "Save Our City: Transmetropolitan and the Antihero Citizen."
Stephanie Spong. "'Affection Would Be Revolution Enough': Public Eroticism and the Re-Imagined Love Lyric in Bruce Andrews' Designated Heartbeat."

Western Literature Association. Berkeley, CA: October 9-12, 2013.
Erin Murrah-Mandril. "Preserving the Ghosts of the Alamo: Adina de Zavala's History and Legends."
Melina Vizcaino-Alemán. "Critical Regionalism and The West: Intersections of Architecture and Literature in the Southwest."
Julie Williams. "Western Writing and Wheelchairs: Embodiment and Ability in Women's Writing about Place."

Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association. Vancouver, WA. October 9-13, 2013.
Doaa Omran. "(Re) Defining Islamic Terrorism: A Middle Eastern Perspective."
Erin Woltkamp. "Performing the Discourse of Power: Breaking Away From the Madwoman in the Attic Through Discursive Tactics in Villette."

Natasha Jones. "Social Justice as Technical Communication Pedagogy." Council for Programs on Technical and Scientific Communication (CPTSC). Cincinnati, OH: October 2013.

November

Daoine Bachran. "Being (post)Human: Mechanization, Militarization, and Human Rights in Chicana/o Science Fiction." American Studies Association Annual Meeting. Washington D.C.: November 21, 2013.

Kathleen Washburn. "Modern American Indian Literature: Early Twentieth-Century Texts and Contexts." The Newberry Library Colloquium. Chicago, IL: November 13, 2013.

"'I Am Not a Beast': The Remarkable Life of William Apess (Pequot), Nineteenth-Century Native American Activist"

The American Literary Realism Lecture in American Literary Studies presents:

"'I Am Not a Beast': The Remarkable Life of William Apess (Pequot), Nineteenth-Century Native American Activist"

A lecture delivered by Dr. Philip F. Gura, William S. Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Monday, January 27th, 3-4:30, in the SUB Mirage-Thunderbird room.

The lecture is based upon Dr. Gura's forthcoming biography of William Apess, a nineteenth-century Pequot Indian activist, writer, Methodist minister, and the author of what is believed to be the first Native American autobiography, A Son of the Forest (1829). Dr. Gura will discuss Apess’ place in American literary history to consider how “color” mattered in different ways among Native, African, and Anglo Americans before the Civil War. His talk will also discuss the difficulties of writing biographies of nineteenth-century native peoples, whose lives and cultural practices could be a challenge for any biographer to “get right” so far after the fact.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

ALS at the MLA

It was another strong showing of American Literary Studies faculty and graduate students at the 2014 MLA in Chicago.

New doctoral student, Amy Gore, presented “Indigenizing the Gothic Novel: Harold Johnson’s Backtrack and Its Uncanny Conventions” at the Native Voices in Genre Fiction panel, and she also presided over a session on the American Indian Gothic. The Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures arranged both panels.

Oliver Baker, a second year doctoral student, presented “Dispossession and Instability: The Free Labor Market and Southern Anxieties in John Rollin Ridge’s The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta” at the Native South panel organized by the Society for the Study of Southern Literature. Katie Walkiewicz, who earned her MA in English and UNM and is now completing her PhD at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, was also on the panel.

Dr. Kathleen Washburn presented “After 1893: Writing Indigenous Chicago in the Early Twentieth Century” at the Native Literary Chicago panel arranged by the Division on American Indian Literatures.

Dr. Jesse Alemán served as a panelist on a round-table session titled “Rethinking Postbellum Literary History.” He also completed his three-year term on the Advisory Council of the American Literature Section and started his elected seat on the MLA’s Delegate Assembly.

Matt Hofer's Series: Recencies: Research and Recovery in Twentieth-Century American Poetics

The first two books of Matt Hofer's UNM Press series Recencies: Research and Recovery in Twentieth-Century American Poetics. Professor Hofer edited The Shoshoneans, which also boasts a fine new introduction by Simon Ortiz.

UNM Department of English hosts N. Scott Momaday for fourth annual Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya Lecture on the Literature of the Southwest

On Thursday, September 26, the UNM Department of English will host the distinguished writer N. Scott Momaday as the featured speaker for the fourth annual Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya Lecture on the Literature of the Southwest. Momaday will speak at 7:00 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom of the UNM Student Union Building (SUB). The lecture is free and open to the public, with a reception to follow.

N. Scott Momaday is one of the most distinguished writers of our time. His first novel House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1969, an event that brought new visibility to American Indian literature and literature of the Southwest, a landscape that has inflected his fiction, poetry, and paintings for decades. Born in Oklahoma of Kiowa ancestry, he lived throughout the Southwest as a child as his parents taught at Indian schools on Navajo, Apache, and Pueblo lands. He earned a B.A. from the University of New Mexico in 1958 and then taught for a year at the Jicarilla Apache Reservation before moving to Stanford University, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1963.

Momaday’s writing celebrates the power of language and the richness of oral tradition in works that invoke historical memory and often exceed the boundaries of genre. As Momaday explains: “Language fascinates me. Words are endlessly mysterious to me. And I think by and large that’s good. A writer should have that sense of wonder in the presence of words.” He has published more than 15 volumes of fiction, poetry, and drama, including The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969), The Names (1976), The Ancient Child (1989), In the Presence of the Sun (1992), The Man Made of Words (1997), and Again the Far Morning: New and Selected Poems (2011). An accomplished painter in watercolor, he often illustrates his own texts.

N. Scott Momaday has taught at the University of Arizona, Stanford University, the University of California-Berkeley, and the University of California-Santa Barbara, and has been an invited speaker at dozens of universities and colleges across the globe, including the University of Moscow. In 1992 he received the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas, and in 2007 he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. His honors also include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Academy of American Poets prize, and the Premio Letterario Internationale “Mondello,” Italy’s highest literary award. He was a founding Trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian, served as Poet Laureate of the Oklahoma Centennial in 2007, and is a member of the Kiowa Gourd Dance Society.

The UNM 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. “The English Department cherishes the fact that Emeritus Professor Rudy Anaya was on our faculty for so many years. A founder of our distinguished Creative Writing Program, he still inspires us with his joyous approach to life, sense of humor, and eloquent articulation of Hispanic culture and the beauties of the Southwest. He has long been an internationally known man of letters, but we take pride in the fact that he began his career in our department,” says Professor Gail Houston. “We feel privileged to have received his generous donation. There is no better venue for celebrating Southwest literature than the University of New Mexico English Department. We look forward to sharing this free event with everyone at UNM and in the community.” 

The annual Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya Lecture on the Literature of the Southwest features foundational figures such as Acoma Pueblo poet Simon Ortiz (2010), Las Cruces writer and playwright Denise Chávez (2011), and Taos writer John Nichols (2012). UNM Co-sponsors for the event include the Center for Southwest Research, the Center for the Southwest, the Department of English Language and Literature, the Department of History, the Honors College, and the Institute for American Indian Research (IFAIR). For further information, contact the Anaya Lecture Committee at anayalecture@unm.edu or the UNM English Department at (505) 277-6347.

Luci Tapahonso Featured on New Mexico PBS Series ¡COLORES!

Navajo Poet Lau­re­ate and Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Eng­lish Pro­fes­sor Luci Tapa­honso shares how her poetry hon­ors words on last week’s episode of ¡COLORES! New Mex­ico PBS’ weekly arts and cul­ture series. “Things that a per­son says, that a per­son lit­er­ally utters, is a sacred thing,” Tapa­honso said. This episode of ¡COLORES! was broadcast on Fri­day, June 14 at 9 p.m.

Tony Hillerman Portal Preview Event in Zimmerman Library

On Friday, June 14th at 5:30 pm University Libraries will host a preview event for the Tony Hillerman Portal ­– ehillerman.unm.edu – in the Willard Room in Zimmerman Library. The demonstration of the portal will be followed by a reception. The event is free and open to all.

 

In 2005, Tony Hillerman donated his manuscripts, papers and notes to Zimmerman Library. It was immediately clear that they represented a treasure trove of unique historical anecdotes and an insightful roadmap into his creative process. Given Tony's stature as an icon of New Mexican culture, combined with the exhaustive nature of his collection of papers, it is clear that there existed an amazing opportunity to make them available for research, education and public enjoyment.

Recent advances in interactive technology offer exciting ways that we can make Tony's papers available electronically. Using hyperlinked text, digital images, audio and video, making his work come alive in ways never before thought possible. Users of this resource will be able to:

• Read Tony's manuscripts online, and view them in his own handwriting
• Learn about Tony's life and career
• View interviews with Tony, and experience New Mexico and the Southwest through his eyes
• See Tony's notes and idea books, and learn how he worked and developed his literary ideas
• Learn about New Mexico life, history and culture

His entire collection will be available to Hillerman enthusiasts, students and scholars world-wide through a unique website. The project goals are to: 

• Digitize Tony's manuscripts, papers, and idea notebooks (digitization alone will ensure the long term preservation of Tony's work)
• Collect and digitize photos, videos and documents about Tony's life and career
• Create electronic links in the digital manuscripts to references Tony made to New Mexico people, events and places.
• Design and build a web portal where internet users can go to view Tony's manuscripts and historical information about his life.

This is the first phase of the three-year project.This project will help further education in the Humanities, provide researchers an extensive new resource with which to investigate Tony Hillerman’s life and works, and help secure his legacy for future generations.

Oliver Baker Chosen for Newberry Library Summer Seminar

Oliver Baker been chosen to attend the "Competing Narratives: Native American and Indigenous Studies Across Disciplines NCAIS" Summer Institute from July 8 through Aug 2.

This four week summer institute will compare competing narratives as they relate to indigenous studies.The seminar will address the theoretical models produced by various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences in order to engage in comparative analyses. Students from across academic disciplines will engage works of autobiography, literature, history, anthropology, and visual studies among others. Our work will also allow participants to become familiar with the extraordinary resources of the Newberry Library.

The seminar will be led by Prof. Erin Debenport, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico and Dr. Scott Stevens, Director, D’Arcy McNickle Center.

Luci Tapahonso honored as Navajo Nation Poet Laureate

After having put on the wonderful "My Favorite Poem" celebration in honor of Poetry Month, sponsored by IAIA and the UNM English Department, Luci Tapahonso has been named the first Poet Laureate of the Navajo Nation. Congratulations on another kudo in your long list of awards and recognitions!

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/04/30/luci-tapahonso-named-navajo-nations-first-poet-laureate-149114#.UYExxhj5o3Q.email

Kathleen Washburn will be at the Newberry Library as the 2013 NCAIS Long-Term Faculty Fellow

Kathleen Washburn will be in residence at the Newberry Library in Chicago from July - January as the 2013 Newberry Consortium on American Indian Studies (NCAIS) Long-Term Faculty Fellow for her project “We Moderns: Native Literary Crossings, 1890-1935.”

The Newberry Consortium on American Indian Studies, founded in 2008, offers an annual workshop, summer institute, and conference as well as research fellowships for graduate students and faculty at member institutions.

Luci Tapahonso's "Everyday Sacredness" and Rudy Anaya's film of Bless Me, Ultima

Check out the Fall 2012 Mirage magazine: our own Luci Tapahonso is on the cover! The story is titled "Everyday Sacredness." http://www.unmalumni.com/mirage-magazine.html

Rudy Anaya's film of Bless Me, Ultima will be premiering on October 17 at the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival! http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/blog/morning-edition/2012/08/bless-me-ultima-to-open-santa-fe.html

Don't we have fabulous faculty and emeriti! gail

Indigenous Book Festival

The UNM Institute for American Indian Research (IFAIR) and the Alfonso Ortiz Center present:

The 2012 Indigenous Book Festival
Thursday, April 12 - Friday, April 13
UNM Student Union Building

Please join us in celebrating the work of indigenous writers and scholars across fields. Other than the keynote luncheon on Friday, April 13 with Dr. Luana Ross, President of Salish Kootenai College, all book festival events are free and open to the public. In addition to presentations, panels, and creative writing workshops, the book festival features Diné poet and UNM English Professor Luci Tapahonso for a reading on
Friday, April 13 from 3:30-4:30 p.m.
in SUB Ballroom B.
Additional program details can be found at the IFAIR website:
http://www.unm.edu/~ifair/2012bookfest.html

Reading: Suzan Shown Harjo

Monday, 4/26
1:00 - 2:00
Humanities 108

Suzan Shown Harjo is a poet, writer, lecturer, curator and policy advocate, who has helped Native communities recover more than 1,000,000 acres of land and numerous sacred places. Harjo (Cheyenne and Holdugee Muscogee) is President of the Native rights organization The Morning Star Institute, a Founding Trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian, a recipient of the Dobkin Native
American Artist Fellowship from the School of American Research, and the first Vine Deloria, Jr. Distinguished Indigenous Scholar at the University of Arizona. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and several anthologies, including Reinventing the Enemy's Language, The Remembered Earth, and Third World Women.