Michelle Kells published in Leaders of the Mexican American Generation

Kells' chapter “Vicente Ximenes and LBJ's Great Society: The Rhetorical Imagination of the American GI Forum.” has been published in Leaders of the Mexican American Generation. Edited by Anthony Quiroz. U of Colorado Press. 2015. 

R&W graduates accept Tenure Track positions

Please join us in congratulating two R&W graduates on their Tenure Track positions:

Dan Cryer, Roosevelt University, Chicago.

Mellisa Huffman, San Angelo State University, Texas.

Anita Obermeier's "Witches and the Myth of the Medieval ‘Burning Times’” cited on one of the 500 most visited websites on the internet

Anita Obermeier's research, "Witches and the Myth of the Medieval ‘Burning Times’” received a citation by the folks at io9.com, the Gawker fantasy/sci-fi blog, one of the 500 most visited websites on the internet:  http://io9.com/10-worst-misconceptions-about-medieval-life-youd-get-fr-1686799982  (See section 5)

10 Worst Misconceptions About Medieval Life You'd Get From Fantasy Books

Some tropes are so ingrained in Medieval-inspired fantasy stories that it's tempting to think that they represent real aspects of Medieval life. But often these stories are just reinforcing myths and misconceptions about life in the Middle Ages.

Read more...

Daniel Worden to participate in NEH Summer Institute, “City of Print: New York and the Periodical Press"

Daniel Worden (Associate Professor, American Literary Studies) has been selected to participate in an NEH Summer Institute, “City of Print: New York and the Periodical Press.” Hosted by the New York City College of Technology (CUNY), the Institute will feature cultural historians, archivists, and experts in the fields of American literature, art and urban history, and periodical studies; hands-on sessions in the periodicals collection of the New York Historical Society; sites important to the rise of New York’s periodical press, such as Newspaper Row, Gramercy Park, the Condé Nast archives, and the Algonquin Hotel; and Digital Humanities workshops. More information is here: http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/City_of_Print/index.aspx

While at the NEH Institute, Dr. Worden will be also be working on his book-in-progress, Cool Realism: The New Journalism and Neoliberal America.

Kathryn Wichelns' article "Collaborative Differences: Marguerite Duras, Eve Sedgwick, and “The Beast in the Jungle” appears in Comparative Literature 67.1 (Spring 2015)

Marguerite Duras's 1962 theatrical adaptation of Henry James's short story offers a feminist alternative to Eve Sedgwick's famous interpretation. The precise elements that for Duras reveal James's interest in “feminine” forms of expression also are significant for queer theoretical readers, after Sedgwick, who emphasize James's style rather than his biography. However, in none of those recent discussions do notions of temporal or stylistic queerness in James's work resonate with the ideas about gendered time and language that are central to Duras's approach, and to twentieth-century French feminism more generally. Duras's adaptation, grounded in heteronormative assumptions, suffers from a parallel blind spot; James Lord, her collaborator in the project, suggests that she undermined the queer elements in both James's story and his own first draft. This article uses the unexamined resonances between Duras's and Sedgwick's readings to offer a possible counter-narrative to ongoing scholarly divisions among contemporary feminisms and queer theories.

Kathryn Wichelns' article "From The Scarlet Letter to Stonewall: Reading the Thomas(ine) Hall Case, 1978-2009," appeared in Early American Studies 12.3 (Fall 2014), a special issue titled "Beyond the Binaries in Early America"

The 1629 Thomas(ine) Hall case offers an invaluable account of seventeenth-century gender fluidity, ambiguous body presentation, and non-normative sexual behavior; since 1978 it has inspired quite a range of different readings. The point of consistency across 35 years of scholarship on the case is the fact that Hall and the other parties present before the General Court in Jamestown on March 25th, 1629, have been interpreted in ways that trace shifting models for theorizing gender and sexual identity during the late twentieth- and early twenty-first-centuries. Much of the work on Hall and her/his community is excellent; however, taken as a whole this body of scholarship implies the historical possibility of an originary feminist or queer (or both) early American community, effectively eliding important distinctions among different groups as well as downplaying their significance in our own period. The author argues that while we can and should apply the tools of gender theory and sexuality studies to early American subjects, the diversity in interpretations of the Hall case suggests that we need to be even more rigorous in avoiding descriptions that risk implying that our own notions of identity can be superimposed onto the past.

Erin Murrah Mandril Accepts Tenure-Track Position

American Literary Studies graduate Erin Murrah-Mandril has accepted a tenure-track position as assistant professor of English at the University of Texas at Arlington, where she will also be a Faculty Associate for the Center for Mexican American Studies. She will be teaching American and Mexican American literatures. Located in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area, UT-Arlington is the second largest university in the UT system and is classified as a Hispanic Serving Institution and as a “high research activity” institution by the Carnegie Foundation. Dr. Murrah-Mandril would like to thank Dr. Jesse Alemán for his professional guidance over the years, particularly his advice concerning her three peer-reviewed articles and her dissertation, “Out of Time: Temporal Colonization and the Writing of Mexican American Subjectivity.” She would also like to thank Dr. Jonathan Davis-Secord, who led the UNM English Job Seeker’s Workshop in Fall 2014, and the many other faculty members who participated in these workshops. Erin looks forward to working within close proximity to many excellent Texas archives, though she will miss her home state of New Mexico tremendously. Please feel free to send green chili to her new UTA address!