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.

Julie Williams Receives Inaugural ALS-Arms Dissertation Research Assistantship

Julie Williams, PhD candidate in American Literary Studies, has garnered the inaugural ALS Elizabeth and George Arms Fund for American Literature Research Assistantship for Dissertation Completion to assist and facilitate the research and writing of her dissertation, “Embodying the West: A Literary and Cultural History of Environment, Body, and Belief.”

Focusing on embodiment in women’s writing in the American West from the 1880s to the present, the dissertation argues that texts, authors, and cultural events depicting bodies that do not fit into the narrative identity created by discourses about the West—bodies that are all “marked” through an alternative mode of gender construction, sexual desire, illness, disability, or race—reveal the limits and possibilities of the mythic West and the discourses of rejuvenation which have shaped it. Dr. Jesse Alemán chairs the dissertation.

The assistantship pays $16,500.00 from the Arms Endowment Fund over one academic year to support dissertation research, and UNM’s Graduate Studies provide dissertation hour tuition remission and heath care coverage for the recipient.

The Elizabeth and George Arms Fund for American Literature is an endowed graduate award fund with the UNM Foundation in recognition of research in American Literature within the College of Arts and Sciences Department of English.

Christine Beagle awarded A&S Dissertation/Thesis Completion Award for Summer 2015

Christine is a Rhetoric & Writing PhD candidate completing her dissertation, "The Chicana Speaks: Dolores Huerta and the Chicana as Rhetor".

Daoine Bachran and Natalie Kubasek Garner Mellon Dissertation Fellowships

Two ALS PhD candidates in English, Daoine Bachran and Natalie Kubasek, have both garnered UNM-Mellon Dissertation Fellowships to facilitate the completion of their dissertations. 

Daoine Bachran’s dissertation, “From Recovery to Discovery: Ethnic Science Fiction and (Re)Creating the Future,” argues that science fiction by Native, Chicana/o, and black artists re-imagines scientific paradigms for understanding history, the present, and future possibility. 

Natalie Kubasek’s dissertation, entitled “Chicana Feminist Acts: Revising the Script of Chicana/o Theater from the Early Twentieth Century to the Present” proves that since the 1930’s, Chicanas have staged feminist acts in theater that challenge patriarchal and nationalist ideas of gender and sexuality by imagining and performing multiple Chicana identities. 

Dr. Jesse Alemán chairs both award-winning dissertations.

Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the highly competitive and nationally recognized Mellon award provides dissertation fellowships in the humanistic social sciences across ten UNM departments to senior doctoral students working on studies relevant to Latino/a or Native American communities. The year-and-a-half award is meant to assist in the completion of the dissertation by providing a $25,000.00 stipend at the beginning of each semester for three semesters; tuition remission; health care coverage; and up to $1,500.00 for professional development or research support during the tenure of the award. The Mellon also awards the fellow’s dissertation chair a $3,000.00 stipend.

Stephanie Spong Receives Bilinski Fellowship

Stephanie Spong was recently awarded the prestigious Russell J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski Fellowship. The Bilinski Educational Foundation recognizes excellent doctoral students in the humanities at UNM. Eight doctoral students have already completed their dissertations and degrees supported by Russell J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski Fellowships. The 2015 finalists for the Bilinski Fellowship stand out for their potential impact on both scholarship and community. Stephanie Spong (English) is reexamining Modernist poetry to reveal how poets from Gertrude Stein to Langston Hughes created new and influential ideas of love and eros. Read more here

Kelly Hunnings Receives Gallagher Scholarship

Kelly Hunnings was recently awarded the Joseph C. Gallagher Scholarship, which provides funding for year-long study in Ireland and Europe. She will be splitting time in between Ireland, Scotland and England; her research will trace the role of laboring-class women's writing from the shift to Georgian to Romantic models of writing.

Assistant Professor Wallace Receives Research Grant

The Research Allocation Committee has awarded Dr. Belinda Deneen Wallace a $10,000.00 grant to conduct archival research in the Anglophone Caribbean in order to complete her monograph, Mapping the Meta-Colonial: Caribbean Women Writers and the Queer Path to National Belonging. Her manuscript demonstrates how contemporary Caribbean women writers reimagine Caribbean rebellions, revolutions, and acts of resistance in order to inject queer women’s stories into both the national consciousness and the national narrative. The end result of this injection is the creation of a new nation where queer Caribbean women may fully exist/belong.  Over the next year, Belinda will conduct research in Grenada, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago.

ALS Elizabeth and George Arms Fund for American Literature Research Assistantship for Dissertation Completion

American Literary Studies (ALS) announces the 2015-16 Elizabeth and George Arms Fund for American Literature Research Assistantship to assist and facilitate research and writing toward the completion of a doctoral dissertation in American Literary Studies.

The assistantship pays $16,500.00, depending on budget, over one academic year to support the completion of the dissertation. UNM Graduate Studies will provide dissertation hour tuition remission and heath care coverage for the ALS-Arms RA. The research assistantship must be held in lieu of a teaching assistantship granted in English or other UNM departments.

Duties for the ALS-Arms RA include: conduct research related to the dissertation; write dissertation chapters; submit written chapters to dissertation director and committee for review; revise research and writing; and submit final dissertation for review by the end of the assistantship year.

Qualified applicants must be ALS doctoral students completing a dissertation in American Literary Studies. At least two dissertation chapters must be completed and vetted by the dissertation director. Send hardcopy or electronic letter of application, CV, proof of completed chapters, proposed research and writing schedule, and two letters of recommendation, one of which must be by the dissertation director, to Dr. Jesse Alemán (jman@unm.edu). Deadline to submit materials: April 1, 2015.

Letters of application should describe the dissertation project, its significance, and detail the plan for the project’s completion. The dissertation director’s letter must address the student’s ability to complete the dissertation by the end of the assistantship.

The Elizabeth and George Arms Fund for American Literature is an endowed graduate award fund with the UNM Foundation in recognition of research in American Literature within the College of Arts and Sciences Department of English.

Send inquires to Dr. Jesse Alemán.

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.

Professor Ruecker Receives Research Grant

Todd Ruecker has received a grant from the UNM Research Allocations Committee in the amount of $5,437 to fund his project titled "Linguistic Minority Students and Literacy Education in Rural and Small Town High Schools."  The grant will support Professor Ruecker's work this fall focused on literacy education in small town high schools and how it supports linguistically diverse students' transitions to college.

Center for Regional Studies Hector Torres Fellowship

The Center for Regional Studies and the English Department at the University of New Mexico announce the Center for Regional Studies Hector Torres Fellowship for Fall 2014-Spring 2015.

The Center for Regional Studies Hector Torres Fellowship supports graduate research and scholarship in the English Department directly related to the late Dr. Hector Torres’ fields, as well as the mission of the Center for Regional Studies. These 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).

The award amount ranges from $10,000 to $15,000 a year, depending on availability. Renewal is not automatic. The Fellowship is housed in the English Department but sponsored by the Center for Regional Studies. Fellowship funding pending final budgetary approval.

Qualified graduate student applicants must meet the above criteria; be graduate students in good standing (3.0 GPA or better); maintain full-time graduate student standing during the tenure of the award; and complete a CRS application, which includes a letter of intent; transcripts; resume; two letters of recommendation; and proof of enrollment. Preference will be given first to advanced doctoral students (post-exams); doctoral students in coursework; and advanced MA students. Highly qualified applicants to the English doctoral program in American Literary Studies will also be considered for the fellowship for recruitment purposes.

Submit all inquires and all application materials (in hardcopy) to Dr. Jesse Alemán (jman@unm.edu), Professor, Department of English.

Deadline: 5pm, April 4, 2014

Rivera Garners UNM-Mellon Fellowship

ALS PhD candidate in English, Díana Noreen Rivera, has been awarded a UNM-Mellon Doctoral Defense Preparation Fellowship to facilitate the completion of her dissertation, “Remapping the U.S. Southwest: Early Mexican American Literature and the Production of Transnational Counterspaces (1874-1958).” Her study argues that early Mexican American writers offer an alternative paradigm of transnationalism for understanding the literature, culture, and geography of the U.S. Southwest as it has been imagined in Anglo American cultural production about the region. Dr. Jesse Alemán, ALS coordinator, directs the dissertation.

Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the highly competitive UNM-Mellon awards dissertation fellowships in the humanistic social sciences across ten UNM departments to senior doctoral students working on studies relevant to Latino/a or Native American communities. This is the first year that the English Department’s ALS program has been included in the qualified field of humanistic social sciences at UNM designated by the Mellon Foundation. The six-month award is meant to assist in the completion of the dissertation by providing a $12,500.00 stipend; tuition remission and health care coverage; and a $500.00 professional development or research support fund.

Rivera was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas and received her BA and MA at the University of Texas-Pan American. She credits her passion for Mexican American literary study to her parents and grandmothers, who shared family stories of life in the U.S.-Mexican borderlands and beyond. Her publications include “Third Space Resistance in Américo Paredes’s With His Pistol in His Hand: A Defense of Nuevo Santander” (forthcoming) in Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Volume IX; “Reconsidering Jovita González’s Life, Letters and Pre-1935 Folkloric Production: A Proto-Chicana’s Conscious Revolt Against Anglo Academic Patriarchy” (2011) in Chicana/Latina Studies Journal; and “Dime con quién andas”: Toward the Construction of a Dicho Paradigm and Its Significance in Chicano/a Literature” (2008) in the Journal of the American Studies Association of Texas. She’s the recipient of the American Association of University Women Santa Fe scholarship, the Office of Graduate Studies Earickson Trust award, the New Mexico Folklore Scholarship, and she was the English Department’s inaugural Center for Regional Studies Hector Torres fellow.

Justin Brock and Annarose Fitzgerald Garner FRI Awards

Justin Brock (recent MA in Medieval Studies) received the 2013 Best Student Paper Prize from the Feminist Research Institute for his essay, "The Critical Voices from Joyous Gard: The Homosocial and the Feminine in the Stanzaic Morte Arthur."
Annarose Fitzgerald, PhD candidate in Literature, competed successfully for an FRI Graduate Student Research Grant for her dissertation research on Modernist poet Mina Loy at Yale University's Beinecke Library.

Murrah-Mandril Named the 2013-2014 CRS Hector Torres Fellow

Erin Murrah-Mandril, a Ph.D. candidate in the English Department, with a concentration in American Literary Studies, has been awarded the Center for Regional Studies Hector Torres Fellowship.

Murrah-Mandril took her BA in History and her MA in English at the University of New Mexico, and now, she is on the verge of completing her PhD in English. Her work focuses on late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Mexican American literary production, and she has published articles in Western American Literature, Arizona Quarterly, and the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage series.

As a CRS Hector Torres Fellow, Murrah-Mandril will complete research and writing for her dissertation, “Time Out of Joint: Learning to Live with Specters through Mexican American Historical Narrative.” The project argues that Mexican American authors trouble modernist conceptions of empty, homogenous, linear and progressive time in order to survive and contest US colonization.  Her dissertation contextualizes the temporality of Mexican American literature within both the time of production and the time of literary recovery and maintains that early Mexican American writers, such as Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Miguel Otero, Adina de Zavala, and Jovita Gonzalez, challenge notions of progressive time to reveal temporality itself as a colonial instrument.  The material for her dissertation is located in archives throughout New Mexico and South Texas.

The 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, Dr. Hector Torres.

The Center for Regional Studies Hector Torres Fellowship supports graduate research and scholarship in the English Department directly related to the late Dr. Hector 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.

Murrah-Mandril is particularly grateful to be a CRS Hector Torres Fellow as the late Dr. Torres was one of her mentors, and his commitment to intellectual work strongly influences her theoretical approach.  Her dissertation would not be possible without the guidance he provided.

2013 Bilinski Foundation Fellowship Recipients

Three PhD students in the English department have received Bilinski Fellowships.

Dan Cryer

Dan Cryer is a PhD student in Rhetoric and Writing in the Department of English. His dissertation follows the social activism of the early twentieth century conservationist Aldo Leopold, arguing that Leopold attempted to extend the rights of citizenship to the natural world and to act as its voice in the Democratic process. Dan served for two years as Assistant Director of UNM’s Core Writing program, was the grad student administrator for the College of Arts & Sciences’ Writing Intensive Learning Communities pilot project, and has worked extensively with UNM’s Writing Across Communities initiative. He was an online course designer at the office of New Media and Extended Learning, and has taught courses in composition and technical and professional writing.

Colleen Dunn

Colleen Dunn is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in English at the University of New Mexico. Her dissertation, which focuses on the lives of saints produced in Anglo-Saxon England, is driven by a central concern: the choice made by Old English hagiographers writing about female virgin martyrs to forgo (and thereby silence) native Anglo-Saxon women martyred during the Viking attacks, in favor of foreign subjects. Focusing particularly on the adapted lives of St. Juliana of Nicomedia and St. Margaret of Antioch, her research will explore what these cultural productions reveal about early medieval understandings of female sanctity, and further, the far-reaching implications these understandings had for an Anglo-Saxon audience.

Douglas Ryan VanBenthuysen

Douglas Ryan VanBenthuysen is a PhD candidate in the University of New Mexico Department of English Language and Literature, with a focus on Medieval Studies. His dissertation focuses on the concept of authority in the Old English Genesis poem(s), particularly Genesis A, an Anglo-Saxon poem based on the biblical book of Genesis. The dissertation examines both the poet's use of language and connections to Anglo-Saxon culture. Doug's other scholarly interests include Old English Language and Old Norse Language and Literature. In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Doug enjoys spending time with his ten year old son, Mauricio.

Please see the below page for details:
http://www.unm.edu/~artsci/for-students/fellowships/recipients/2013.html

Dan Cryer and Lindsey Ives Garner OGS Awards

Dan Cryer is a recipient for the OGS Future Faculty Award. The Future Faculty Grant awards up to $2,000.00 for summer coursework, research, or professional development opportunities directly related to preparing the nominee for a career in higher education. The award supports educational, research, or professional development opportunities not normally available as part of the student’s degree program. Dan received this award to participate in the 2013 Rhetoric Society of America Summer Institute as well as to do research in the archive of the Foundation of Aldo Leopold for his dissertation, "Inventing the Citizen: Narratives of the Vita Activa in Aldo Leopold's Conservation Rhetorics."

Lindsey Ives is a recipient of the OGS Graduate Research Supplement. The Graduate Research Supplement awards up to $2,000.00 to facilitate completion of the MFA or PhD dissertation. These awards support direct expenses incurred for archival or field research. This summer Lindsey will conduct research in Mississippi and Tennessee for her dissertation "Case Not Closed: Whiteness and the Rhetorical Genres of Freedom Summer."

Genesea Carter awarded UNM GPSA's Outstanding Committee Chair of the Year

Genesea Carter was awarded the University of New Mexico Graduate and Professional Student Association's Outstanding Committee Chair (Grants) of the Year.

Center for Regional Studies Hector Torres Fellowship

The Center for Regional Studies and the English Department at the University of New Mexico announce the Center for Regional Studies Hector Torres Fellowship

The Center for Regional Studies Hector Torres Fellowship supports graduate research and scholarship in the English Department directly related to the late Dr. Hector Torres’ fields, as well as the mission of the Center for Regional Studies. These 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 USMexico borderlands, and the greater southwest).

The award amount ranges from $10,000 to $15,000 a year, depending on availability. Renewal is not automatic. The Fellowship is housed in the English Department but sponsored by the Center for Regional Studies.

Qualified graduate student applicants must meet the above criteria; be graduate students in good standing (3.0 GPA or better); maintain full-time graduate student standing during the tenure of the award; and complete a CRS application, which includes a letter of intent; transcripts; resume; two letters of recommendation; and proof of enrollment. Preference will be given first to advanced doctoral students (post-exams); doctoral students in coursework; and advanced MA students. Highly qualified applicants to the English doctoral program in American Literary Studies will also be considered for the fellowship for recruitment purposes. Submit all inquires and all application materials (in hardcopy) to Dr. Jesse Alemán, Professor, Department of English.

Deadline: March 18

Natalie Becenti, English Graduate, Receives American Indian College Fund Scholarship

Natalie Becenti, who graduated from UNM with her BA in English in May 2011, has received a scholarship from the American Indian College Fund to continue her higher education. A member of Acoma Pueblo and a former Miss Indian UNM, Ms. Becenti will continue her education by pursuing a second BA in Family Studies. The AICF scholarship will fund Ms. Becenti for the remaining semesters she has to complete her second degree.

Ms. Becenti is the first member in her family to attend college. She plans to complete her BA in Family Studies and then apply to the MA program in Counseling and Language, Literacy, & Sociocultural studies, with the future goal of working as a family counselor for native youth. She would like to focus on incarcerated youth and encourage higher educational goals for each of them.

Later on, she plans to attend law school to study Family law and practice within Acoma Pueblo and its surrounding communities.

She specifically thanks Dr. Jesse Alemán and James Burbank of the English Department for their teaching and mentorship. “Professors like them, who believe in students’ potential, have made my time here at UNM wonderful,” she said.

Established in 1989, The American Indian College Fund provides roughly 6,000 scholarships a year to American Indian students to promote student education and Native culture.

A&S Scholarships for Spring 2012

The Fred M & Rose Ellen Calkins Scholarship

Description: The Calkins award is for outstanding New Mexico resident scholars enrolled full time within the College of Arts & Sciences.  To remain eligible for the Scholarship, you will need to maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or above, and continue making outstanding academic progress toward a degree.

Selection Criteria:

  a.. Declared major in any discipline within the College of Arts & Sciences
  b.. Demonstrated financial need.
  c.. NM resident
  d.. Provide a statement of philosophy and purpose.
  e.. Maintain a GPA of 3.0 or above.


Ralph W. Douglass Memorial Scholarship

Qualifications: Student in the Humanities or Social Sciences

Selection Criteria:

  a.. Declared major in one of the above areas of study
  b.. Demonstrated academic excellence and/or financial need
  c.. Maintain a 2.0 or better GPA


Bruce R. Erdal Endowed Scholarship

Qualifications: The Scholarship is for Undergraduate Students in Science and the Arts, with emphasis in Music.

The recipients of this scholarship must:

A.  Be enrolled as a full-time undergraduate in the UNM College of Arts & Sciences.
B.  Demonstrate financial need for scholarship assistance.  Need shall be defines according to the   guidelines established by the UNM Scholarship Office.
C.  Provide a statement of philosophy and purpose.
D.  Have combined interests and actively pursue education in both the sciences (specifically Chemistry, Environmental Science, or Earth Sciences) AND the Arts (specifically as a band member, a music minor, or similar involvement in the creative or performing arts).


George A. Kaseman Memorial Scholarship

Qualifications: Enrollment in any discipline within the College of Arts & Sciences

Selection Criteria:

  a.. Declared major in any discipline within the College of Arts & Sciences
  b.. Preferably a New Mexico resident
  c.. Graduate in the top 1/5 of his/her high school or have above average academic record if already a student at UNM
  d.. Demonstrate economic need

The Nathaniel Pitman Weber Scholarship

Description: Need-based Scholarship.  Recipients should be willing to meet the donors of the scholarship as they will be introduced to them at time of award.

  a.. Must be enrolled full-time in the UNM College of Arts & Sciences.
  b.. Demonstrate financial need for scholarship assistance.
  c.. Must be a New Mexico resident and ineligible for the NM Lottery Scholarship.
  d.. Undergraduate above sophomore level.
  e.. Provide a statement of philosophy and purpose.
  f.. GPA of 2.5 or above and making academic progress.
  g.. May also be awarded to a former student athlete who is no longer receiving an athletic scholarship because he/she has:
  1. Exhausted eligibility but has not yet completed an undergraduate degree.
  2. Family/personal reasons that preclude the ability to remain a student athlete.
Dr. Harry Vanderpool Endowed Scholarship
Qualifications: Study in Government, Social Studies, History, Economics, Sociology, Law, or Religion


Marjorie Yepsen and Carleen F. Farnam Endowed Scholarship

Qualifications: Full time undergraduate enrollment in the Humanities, English or Science.

Selection Criteria:

  a.. Declared major in one of the above areas of study
  b.. Demonstrated academic achievement by maintaining a 3.4 or better GPA


To apply for a College Scholarship:

  1.. Submit a completed application form by December 2.
  2.. Submit a one-page statement explaining why you are a good candidate for an A & S scholarship.
  3.. Submit one letter of recommendation from a faculty member who is familiar with your work. The faculty member should send the letter directly to Brisha Cruz, Scholarship Coordinator, College of Arts and Sciences, MSC03 2120.
  4.. If applying for a need-based scholarship, make sure you establish your financial need at www.fafsa.ed.gov.
  5.. If you are applying for a scholarship that requires further documentation, please submit it directly to the address below.


Mail your application materials to:



Brisha Cruz

Scholarship Coordinator

College of Arts and Sciences, MSC03 2120

1 University of New Mexico

Albuquerque, NM  87131-0001.