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.

Colloquium: Greg Martin Presentation now on YouTube

Greg Martin's Colloquium presentation, Memoir and Transgression, is now available as a seven part series on Youtube:

Part One

Part One


Part Two


Part Three


Part Four


Part Five


Part Six


Part Seven

Lecture: David Bevington on "Religion and Shakespeare"

To mark the retirement of our colleague Barry Gaines after thirty years of teaching at UNM, the noted  Shakespeare scholar David Bevington will speak on Tuesday, November 9 at 4 p.m.  His talk is entitled  "Religion and Shakespeare."

David Bevington has taught at the University of Chicago since 1967 and is currently the Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Humanities; Professor in English Language and Literature and Comparative Literature; Chair of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities; and Chair of Theater and Performance Studies.  He is among the most respected Shakespeare scholars in the world and has written or edited more than thirty volumes on Shakespeare and his contemporaries.  In 1979 he was honored with the  Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, a coveted  award based on student nominations.  Twenty-eight years later he received the Norman Maclean Faculty Award given by the University of Chicago Alumni Association.  Last May, he received the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Centennial Medal from Harvard University, where he received his AB and PhD degrees.

Poetry Reading: Gary Jackson, Lauren Camp & Richard Vargas

Poetry Reading - Triptych
3:00 pm Saturday 10/30/2010
The Kosmos
1715-5th Street NW
$5 suggested donation
Books available for sale.
Coffee, too!!!

Gary Jackson’s poetry manuscript Missing You, Metropolis—which revolves around comic book characters—was selected by Yusef Komunyakaa as the winner of the Cave Canem Prize and published by Graywolf Press, 2010. Gary is a recent graduate of the MFA program and has been living in South Korea for the last year. This will be his first event back in the country and the official release of Missing You, Metropolis.

Lauren Camp juggles a visual art career, teaching creative writing workshops, tutoring English, and producing the music/poetry program "Audio Saucepan" for KSFR-FM. Last year, one of her poems was selected Editors' Choice by Rhino, and other poems have appeared recently in Thema, J Journal and Sin Fronteras. She is the author of This Business of Wisdom (West End Press, 2010).

Richard Vargas has two books published: McLife and American Jesus. He was born and raised in L.A./O.C., and graduated from Cal State Univ, Long Beach. He is currently enrolled in the Creative Writing MFA program, and has launched a new poetry magazine titled The Mas Tequila Review.

Reminder - Celebration of Student Writing and the Inaugural Anaya Lecture

Don't forget that there are two major and exciting events taking place today.

Head over to the SUB Ballrooms A, B & C for the Celebration of Student Writing between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Nearly 700 of our core course students will be displaying visual representations of their writing projects.

This evening don't miss the inaugural Rudolpho and Patricia Anaya Lecture given by Simon Ortiz, renowned author and expert on Native American literature. The lecture will be held inGeorge Pearl Hall, Room 101 starting at 5:30 p.m.

Anita Obermeier: Publication News

Anita Obermeier and Georgiana Donavin published Romance and Rhetoric: InHonour of Dhira B. Mahoney [title italics]. Disputatio 19. Turnhout: Brepols, 2010. Obermeier also has an essay on the medieval Grail in the
volume.

Learn more here.