Susan Kalter
Department of English
Illinois State University
Normal, IL 61790-4240
(309) 438-8660
susankalter@ilstu.edu
Education:
1994-1999
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California. Doctor of Philosophy in American and Comparative Literature. Degree conferred, December 1999. Defense accomplished with Distinction.
1994-1997
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California. Master of Arts in the Comparative Literature of North America. Degree conferred, June 1997. Qualifying and Master’s Comprehensive Exam passed with Distinction.
1987-1991
Stanford University, Stanford, California. Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in English – Interdisciplinary Emphasis. Degree conferred, June 1991. Interdisciplinary emphasis in African, Caribbean, and African-American thought and literature, and British colonialism. Honors thesis: “Rocks That Talk Like Gods: Narrative Structure and the Voices of Women in Bessie Head’s Maru and Myriam Warner-Vieyra’s Juletane.”
Academic Experience:
August 2000 to the present
Professor (Tenured and promoted to Associate Professor, August 2006; promoted to Full Professor, August 2013). Major areas of specialization in American Literature/Studies and Native American Literature/Studies.
Undergraduate courses taught in Introduction to English Studies, Introduction to Native American Studies, Introduction to Ethnic Studies, Literary Narrative, Literary Studies, Representation: Knowledge & Power, Survey of American Literature, American Gothic, Introduction to Literary Genres (Asian American Literature through the genres), Early and Ancient American Literature, American Literature from 1830 to 1870, American Literature from 1870 to 1920, History of Literature by Women, Native American Literature and Culture, Poetry, Prose, and Senior Seminar.
Combined graduate/undergraduate courses taught in Selected Figures in American Literature (Beyond the Native American Literary Renaissance: Representations of the Sioux in D/N/Lakota and U.S. Discourses; and Transatlantic Turncoats and a Tempest in a Tea Party, or the voluminous Mr. Franklin) and The American Novel.
Graduate courses taught in Introduction to Graduate Study, Studies in American Literature from 1830 to 1870 (Social Justice Movements of the Nineteenth Century), Studies in American Literature from 1870 to 1920 (Literary Regionalism at the Turn of the Century; and Gilded Eras: Gold rushes, the rise of consumerism, and critiques of the commodification of love), the Pedagogy of Multiculturalism (within required doctoral seminar), Women Writing Empire, Women Writing America (within required doctoral seminar), Ethics of Teaching the Texts and Topics of One’s Non-Specialty using Native American literatures and theory as a case study (within required doctoral seminar), and Native American Discourses (Discourses of the First Nations of Eastern North America).
January 2000 through May 2000
Lecturer, English 21, Literature and Composition, Department of English, University of San Diego.
September 1999 through March 2000
Lecturer, Literatures in English 152: Early and Ancient American Literature; Literatures of the World 144: Introduction to the Literatures of the First Nations, Department of Literature, University of California, San Diego.
August 1999 through May 2000
Lecturer, English 220: Introduction to Literature, Department of English and Comparative Literature, San Diego State University.
September 1998 through June 1999
Teaching Assistant, Literatures in English 24: Introduction to the Literature of the United States, Department of Literature, University of California, San Diego.
September 1994 through June 1998
Teaching Assistant, Dimensions of Culture Program, Thurgood Marshall College, University of California, San Diego.
August 1995, August 1996
Workshop Teacher, Dickens Universe, The Dickens Project, University of California, Santa Cruz.
January 1992 through June 1994
Volunteer Instructor, Wilderness Skills Course (Geology 7), Outdoor Education Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
Major Works-in-Progress:
Bourassa, Napoleon. Jacques et Marie: Souvenir d’un peuple dispersé, English translation by Susan Kalter.
Lhérisson, Justin. La Famille des Pitite-Caille, English translation from the French by Susan Kalter.
Publications:
Books
Lhérisson, Justin. Zoune at her Nannenn’s House / Zoune Chez Sa Ninnaine (1906), translation from the French and afterword by Susan Kalter with old-style Haitian Creole translated into English by Susan Kalter, Micki Berthelot Morency, Gary Daniel, and Yvon Lamour. Undiscovered Americas Series, an imprint of Downstate Legacies and the Publications Unit of Illinois State University, forthcoming 2024.
Kalter, Susan, ed. The Short Stories of John Joseph Mathews – an Osage Writer. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2022.
Mourning Dove (Hum-Ishu-Ma, Christine Quintasket), CO=GE=WE=A: The Half-Blood. A Depiction of the Great Montana Cattle Range. Edited by Susan Kalter. Electronic Texts in American Studies, DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Libraries at University of Nebraska – Lincoln, July 2022.
Mathews, John Joseph. Twenty Thousand Mornings: An Autobiography. Edited, annotated and introduced by Susan Kalter. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Revised paperback edition 2020.
Innocent, Antoine. Mimola: or, The Story of a Casket (1906), translation and afterword by Susan Kalter. Volume one in the Undiscovered Americas Series, an imprint of Downstate Legacies and the Publications Unit of Illinois State University, 2018.
Corneille, Pierre. Médée: Pierre Corneille’s Medea (1635) in English translation. Bloomington, Illinois: Susan Kalter, publisher, 2016.
Mathews, John Joseph. Old Three Toes and Other Tales of Survival and Extinction. Edited, annotated and with an afterword by Susan Kalter. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015.
Mathews, John Joseph. Twenty Thousand Mornings: An Autobiography. Edited, annotated and introduced by Susan Kalter. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012.
Hsu, Hsuan and Susan Kalter, eds. Two Texts by Edward Everett Hale: “The Man without a Country” and Philip Nolan’s Friends. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2009.
Kalter, Susan, ed. Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania, and the First Nations: The Treaties of 1736-62. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2006.
Brown, Barry, Christopher Conway, Rhett Gambol, Susan Kalter, Laura Ruberto, Tomas Taraborrelli, and Donald Wesling, eds. Bakhtin and the Nation issue. Bucknell Review 43.2 (1999).
Articles
Kalter, Susan. “Untitled, a Contribution to Approaches to Teaching Dickinson’s Poetry” in Approaches to Teaching Dickinson’s Poetry, edited by Martha Nell Smith, forthcoming.
Kalter, Susan. “‘Chickamauga’ as an Indian-Wars Narrative: The Relevance of Ambrose Bierce for a First-Nations-Centered Study of the Nineteenth Century.” Arizona Quarterly 56.4. (Winter 2001): 57-82. Reprinted in Short Story Criticism: Criticism of the Works of Short Fiction Writers, Volume 244. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Gale Literary Criticism Series. Farmington Hills, Michigan, et al.: Gale Cengage in association with Layman Poupard Publishing, 2017: 159-171.
Kalter, Susan. “A Savagist Abroad: Anti-Colonial Theory and the Quiet Violence in Twain’s Western Oeuvre.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 53.1 (Spring 2011): 26-113.
Kalter, Susan. “John Joseph Mathews’ Reverse Ethnography: The Literary Dimensions of Wah’Kon-Tah.” Reprint in Native American Writing: Critical Assessments. Volume II. Edited by A. Robert Lee. London: Routledge, 2011.
Kalter, Susan. “Clothing The Prairie in Furs: The International Trade Contexts of Cooper’s Western Novel.” Western American Literature 43.2 (Summer 2008): 148-178.
Kalter, Susan. “A Student of Savage Thought: The Ecological Ethic in Moby-Dick and Its Grounding in Native American Ideologies.” ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 48.1-2 (1st and 2nd Quarters 2002): 1-40. Issued in 2004.
Kalter, Susan. “Finding a Place for David Cusick in Native American Literary History.” MELUS: The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 27.3 (Fall 2002): 9-42.
Kalter, Susan. “John Joseph Mathews’ Reverse Ethnography: The Literary Dimensions of Wah’Kon-Tah.” SAIL 14.1 (Spring 2002): 26-50.
Kalter, Susan. “ ‘America’s Histories’ Revisited: The Case of Tell Them They Lie.” American Indian Quarterly 25.3 (Summer 2001): 329-351.
Kalter, Susan. “ ‘Chickamauga’ as an Indian-Wars Narrative: The Relevance of Ambrose Bierce for a First-Nations-Centered Study of the Nineteenth Century.” Arizona Quarterly 56.4. (Winter 2001): 57-82.
Kalter, Susan, Laura Ruberto, Tomas Taraborrelli, and Donald Wesling. Introduction. Bakhtin and the Nation issue. Bucknell Review 43.2 (1999).
Kalter, Susan. “The Last of the Mohicans as Contemporary Theory: James Fenimore Cooper’s Philosophy of Language.” James Fenimore Cooper Society Miscellaneous Papers 11. (August 1999): 1-14.
Kalter, Susan. “The Path to Endless: Gary Snyder in the mid-1990s.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 41.1 (Spring 1999): 16-46.
Interviews
“An Interview with Susan Kalter.” Oral History Interview with Susan Kalter. Topic: The career and archive of John Joseph Mathews. Interview conducted by Karen Neurohr. Chicago. 30 June 2013. Spotlighting Oklahoma Oral History Project. Oklahoma Oral History Research Program, Edmon Low Library, Oklahoma State University, 2015.
Invited Talks:
“Working with Indigenous Languages and early-orthography Haitian Creole, and their Translation.” Invited panelist. Panel on Tools and Techniques for Translating “Low-Resourced” Languages. Forty-first American Literary Translators Association Conference: Performance, Props, and Platforms. Bloomington, Indiana. 1 November 2018.
“Condolence in Eighteenth-Century Treaty Making and Beyond: Franklin and the Language of International Diplomacy in Eastern North America.” Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Center. New York City, New York. 10 March 2012.
“The role of staff in helping to improve retention of students of color.” Fall semester training and orientation. Illinois State University Dining Services. Normal, Illinois. 6 August 2008.
“Key Topics around Edward Everett Hale’s Philip Nolan’s Friends” Hale House Museum Planning Conference. Sponsored by the Pettaquamscutt Historical Society. Matunuck, Rhode Island. 19 July 2007.
“Post-colonial theory and theory for the study of ethnic and international discourses, with a focus on Native American Studies theory.” Theory Night, English Studies Association, Illinois State University. 21 March 2007.
Invited Workshops & Other Invited Activities:
Editorial advisor to the Benjamin Franklin sections of the Broadview Anthology of American Literature, by invitation, 2019 (published June 2022).
Presentation to the Illinois Board of Higher Education – Faculty Affairs Committee regarding shared governance at Illinois State University. Normal, Illinois. 20 September 2019.
“Never the Twain shall meet: Language and the exchange of ideas in North America.” ISU Physics Department Seminar Series. 7 December 2018. Invited by Rainer Grobe, Distinguished Professor of Physics.
Digital Native American and Indigenous Studies (dNAIS) workshop, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Indianapolis, Indiana, 16-18 May 2017. Invited following competitive application process.
Presentations:
Kalter, Susan. Bilingual reading from my translation of Justin Lhérisson’s literary work. Panel on bilingual readings in politics and political satire. Forty-first American Literary Translators Association Conference: Performance, Props, and Platforms. Bloomington, Indiana. 1 November 2018.
Kalter, Susan. “Translating Innocent: A New Translator’s Efforts to Bring Mimola to a Wider Audience.” Panelist comments toward the panel discussion on “Translating Haitian Literatures: Practice, Publication, and Circulation.” Fortieth Anniversary Conference of the American Literary Translators Association. Minneapolis, Minnesota. 6 October 2017.
“The Promises and Perils of English-Language Translation in Haitian Literary Studies.” Haiti Beyond Commemorations and Boundaries, Joint Graduate Student & Faculty Conference. University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. 13 May 2016.
“Against the American Renaissance: Edward Everett Hale’s Uses of the National Literary Traditions of Spain and England in his Novel of the U.S.-Mexico Border.” North American Review Bicentennial Creative Writing and Literature Conference. University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa. 13 June 2015.
“Haunted Huckleberry: Mark Twain’s Deployment of the Gothic in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” American Literature Association Symposium: Fear and Form: Aspects of the Gothic in American Culture. Savannah, Georgia. 23 February 2013.
“Silence Dogood?: Teaching the Contexts for Alliance and Alliance-breaking in the Native American Discourses of Franklin’s Autobiography.” Panel on Early American Pedagogies: Animating the Archive. American Literature Association. San Francisco. 25 May 2012.
“Recommendations emerging from ISU’s participation in the College Board’s First Native American Student Advocacy Institute (NASAI).” President’s Recruitment and Retention Committee. Normal, Illinois. 27 February 2009.
With Angela Davenport, Beth Hatt, Greg Michie, Beverly Nance, Amelia Noel-Elkins, and Donald Reed. “Retention and graduation of students of color at ISU: Introductory and Concluding Remarks.” Breakfast hour talk for the Board of Trustees, Illinois State University. Normal, Illinois. 9 May 2008.
“Philip Nolan’s Friends and the Dual Duel: Edward Everett Hale’s uses of the Spanish and English national literary traditions in his novel of the U.S.-Mexico border.” American Studies Association Annual Meeting. Philadelphia. 12 October 2007. Panel organizer: “Anglo-Spanish rivalries and the U.S.-Mexican border.”
“Clothing The Prairie in Furs: The International Trade Contexts of Cooper’s Western Novel.” James Fenimore Cooper Society Panel. The Seventeenth Annual American Literature Association Conference. San Francisco. 25 May 2006.
“Chasing Horses in Comanchería: How Hale naturalizes U.S. conquest in Philip Nolan’s Friends.” The Thirty-Ninth Annual Western Literature Association Conference. Big Sky, Montana. 1 October 2004.
“Yukon storytellers and the teaching of Jack London within a comparative literary history of the Arctic.” Jack London Society Symposium. Lihue, Hawaii. 11 October 2002.
“Mutiny, Whiteness, and the Neutral Word: Rethinking Ambiguity in Moby-Dick through Voloshinov’s Philosophy of Language.” The International Melville Conference: Moby-Dick 2001, An Interdisciplinary Celebration. Hempstead, New York. 18 October 2001.
“Reading Helen Hunt Jackson: The Achievement of A Century of Dishonor and its importance for interpreting Ramona.” The Western Literature Association Panel. The Tenth Annual Conference of the American Literature Association. Cambridge. 24 May 2001.
“A Strategy of Import: The Verbal Ventriloquism of London’s Yukon Fiction.” London Society Symposium. Santa Rosa, California. 14 October 2000.
“Ecology and Anti-Savagism at Mid-Century: Melville’s uses of Native American thought in Moby-Dick.” The Melville Society panel. The One Hundred Fifteenth Convention of the Modern Language Association of America. Newberry Library, Chicago. 28 December 1999.
“‘Chickamauga’ as an Indian-Wars Narrative: The Relevance of Ambrose Bierce for a First-Nations-Centered Study of the Nineteenth Century.” The Thirty-Fourth Annual Western Literature Association Conference. Sacramento, California. 14 October 1999. Nominated for the J. Golden Taylor Award for best graduate student paper.
“Dancing with a ghost, guarding the burial-ground: The Bakhtinian Critique of Linguistics and the Voices Beyond the American Grave.” The Ninth International Conference on Mikhail Bakhtin. Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany. 26 July 1999. Delivered in absentia.
“The Last of the Mohicans as Contemporary Theory: James Fenimore Cooper’s Philosophy of Language.” James Fenimore Cooper Society panel. The Eighth Annual Conference of the American Literature Association. Baltimore. 28 May 1999.
“On the Brink of Extinction: The anti-savagist discourse of Moby-Dick.” The 1999 meeting of the California American Studies Association: On Edge. University of California, Santa Cruz. 30 April 1999.
“‘Parlez-vous Indien, Monsieur Edwards?’: Language and Literature from the Atlantic to the Meschasebé before and after the Errand.” Association for the Study of American Indian Literature panel. The Seventh Annual Conference of the American Literature Association. San Diego. 30 May 1998.
“Speech Genres and Their Role in Dialogues with and about Native Americans.” The Eighth International Conference on Mikhail Bakhtin. The University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta. 22 June 1997.
“The Making of Realism through Difference: The Turn-of-the-Century Haitian Novel in National and International Perspective.” Annual Conference of the American Comparative Literature Association. Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. 11 April 1997. Nominated for the Horst Frenz Prize for best graduate student paper.
“Paring down theory for undergraduates” as part of the Ford Foundation workshop called “Teaching Diversity at the University” on adapting the Dimensions of Culture program for area colleges. University of California, San Diego. 8 June 1996.
“Identifying speech genres in contemporary fiction” as part of “Working with Bakhtin” in the Department of Literature Colloquium. University of California, San Diego. 24 October 1995.
Editorial Work
Pre-submission editor for Micki Berthelot Morency’s The Island Sisters, Livonia, Michigan: BHC Press, 2023.
Pre-submission editor for Donald Wesling’s Animal Perception and Literary Language. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
Doctoral Dissertations and Advisement:
Pena, Michelle. Teaching internship supervisor. Fall 2023.
Plevka-Jones, Helen. “Resonance: A Methodology and Pedagogy for Socially Just Storytelling.” Second reader. 2023.
Allred, Darcy. Doctoral Independent Study, Native American Literature, Culture, and Theory. Spring 2022; English Studies Comprehensive Examination, second reader, Spring 2023.
Maciel, Carla. “Bantu Oral Narratives in the Training of EFL Teachers in Mozambique.” 2006. Co-director.
Kima, Raogo. “Feminist Intersections: Reading Louise Erdrich and Buchi Emecheta Within/Across Cultural Boundaries.” 2006. Second reader.
Master’s Theses and Advisement:
Traut, Jordan. “Doing the Good Work: First Americans Decolonizing the Mind with Performance Arts.” Millersville University, Millersville, Pennsylvania. July 2022. Second reader.
Del Mastro, Andrew. “‘Destined to Make an Era’: Elizabeth Palmer Peabody’s Transcendentalist Collaborations”. May 2018. Second reader.
Reiman, Amy. Comprehensive Examination. Race, Literature, and Education. October 2012-November 2013.
Koehler, Rob. “The Development of Advanced Reading Textbooks in the Colonies and Early United States, 1750-1800.” 2012. Director.
Research Interests:
Early borderlands studies in North America; the relationship between official histories and narrative; the recovery of texts by Native Americans and/or relevant to Native American studies; the United States’ literary relationship to the First Nations, their citizens, and their intellectual sovereignty; historical intercourse and antagonisms between agents of western writing and orality/nonwestern writing; pedagogy and critical multiculturalisms in higher education and secondary schools; the recovery and translation of texts from Haitian literary history and the French-speaking Americas; individualism and collectivism in the American imagination; egalitarianism; Herman Melville; the study of North American languages and its influence on literary activity and aesthetic theory; Native American writers and artists; Bakhtin studies.
Teaching Interests:
Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century American Literature; Early American Literature; U. S.-First Nations Relations in Literary and Cultural Works; Americas Cultural Studies; Critical Multi-culturalisms; Ancient Americas; Gothic Prose; Power Relations and Sociological & Cultural Materialist Dialogism; the Role of Literary and Cultural Studies in Land Claims Politics; Literature of Ecology and the Wilderness; Regionalism; Socialisms and Literature; Women and War; Native American Writers; Haudenosaunee Orature and Literature; Caribbean Literature in English and Translation; Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Francophone Literature in North America; Twentieth Century African Writers; Irish Cultural Heritage and Anti-Imperialism; Resistances by Native Americans, Africans, Asians, European Pagans, Polytheists, Jews, and others against Coercive or non-Dialogic Christian Conversion; Religious and Cultural Syncretism; Francophone Literature in translation.
Academic Service:
Departmental
Graduate Committee, Department of English (2009-10, 2023-25)
Service to Native American Studies and Ethnic Studies Programs and Hiring (Spring 2023)
Undergraduate Committee, Department of English (2000-02; Spring 2003; 2015-17; 2019-22; Chairperson, 2021-22)
Department Faculty Status Committee, Department of English (elected, 2017-19)
Faculty Library Liaison (2012-2019)
Chair, Search Committee for a tenure-track faculty position in English Education, Department of English (2017-18): candidate hired, Danielle Lillge
English Education Committee (2014-15)
Search Committee for a tenure-track faculty position in African Literatures and Cultures, Department of English (2013-14): candidate hired, Paul Ugor
Ethnic Studies and Native American Studies Program Review (2011-12; 2020-21)
Diversity Committee, Department of English (2007-09, 2012-13)
Search Committee for a tenure-track faculty position in Global Literatures, Department of English (2007-08): candidate hired, Krishna Manavalli
Global Literature Committee, Department of English (2006-07)
Professional Growth Committee, Department of English (2005-06)
Department Council, Department of English (elected, 2003-2005)
Julia Visor Award (formerly the C.L.R. James/Malcolm X Award) Subcommittee, Department of English (2000-03)
Search Committee for a tenure-track faculty position in Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Department of English (2001-02): candidate hired, Kristen Dykstra
Writing Committee, Department of English (Fall 2002)
College
• Research Proposal Review Committee, College of Arts and Sciences (2017-19)
• Search Committee for the Chair of the Department of English, College of Arts and Sciences (elected, 2007-08)
• Global Literature Committee, College of Arts and Sciences (2006-07)
• College Curriculum Committee, College of Arts and Sciences (2002-03; 2005-06)
• Nominating Committee for Minority-Scholar-in-Residence Charlene Teters (2002)
• Faculty Advisory Committee, Laboratory for Integrated Learning and Technology (2001-03)
University
• Canvas LMS pilot (late Fall 2022-Spring 2023)
• Panel of Ten (elected, 2021-22)
• University Curriculum Committee (elected, 2021-22)
Vice Chair and liaison to the Academic Affairs Committee of the Academic Senate (elected, 2021-22)
• Academic Senate (elected, 2006-21)
Chair of the Senate (elected annually, 2014-21)
Secretary of the Senate (elected annually, 2007-14)
Member, Executive Committee (2007-21)
Faculty Affairs Committee (Chair (elected) 2011-12; Member 2016-17, 2020-21)
Member, Rules Committee (2019-20)
Member, Planning and Finance Committee (2007-08, 2014-16, 2017-19)
Member, Academic Affairs Committee (2013-14)
Chair, Administrative Affairs and Budget Committee (elected, 2006-07, 2008-11, 2012-13)
Chair, ASPT Equity ad hoc committee (2017-18)
Chair, Academic Impact Fund ad hoc committee (2017-2019)
Chair, AFEGC Procedures working group (Summer 2017)
Communications liaison to the Humanities faculty (2007-08, 2013-14)
• Academic Planning Committee (member and liaison to the Academic Affairs Committee, 2013-14; ex-officio member, 2014-21; double member 2020-21)
• AMALI Curriculum Committee, 2019-present
• University Facilities Use Task Force, Fall 2018-Fall 2019
• Educating Illinois/University Strategic Plan Taskforce, January 2017-May 2018
• Provost’s Advisory Council (ex-officio, 2014-21)
• Capital Planning and Budget Team (ex-officio member, 2014-21)
• Data Stewardship and Information Technology Services Council (ex-officio member, 2015-21)
• Chair, Council of Illinois University Senates (elected, 2014-21)
• Director & advisor, Interdisciplinary Program in Native American Studies (2007-present)
• Co-Director & advisor, Interdisciplinary Program in Ethnic Studies (2018-present); Director & advisor from 2007-2018
• Provost’s ad hoc committee toward proposal for IDEAS (U.S. Diversity) Graduation Requirement (invited, 2017-18)
• Leadership Initiative Admissions and Advisory Committee (March 2016-May 2017)
• Compliance Working Group (2015-21)
• Unmanned Aircraft Systems policy drafting team (2015-17)
• ISU Homepage Working Group (2016-18)
• Enterprise Portal Steering Committee (2016-17)
• Institutional Review Board Internal Procedures Revision Task Force (Spring 2016)
• Higher Learning Commission Accreditation Steering Committee (ex-officio member, 2014-15)
• Advisor, Graduate Student Association, a Registered Student Organization (2013-2018)
• Committee on Campus Communications to the Board of Trustees (2007-09, 2014-21; Chair, 2015-16, 2018-19)
• Faculty Advisory Board for Diversity Advocacy (formerly Intercultural Programs and Services)/Native American student issues sub-committee (2004-11, co-founder)
• Faculty Mentor, University Scholars Program (2008-09)
• Advisor, Flatlanders Climbing Club, a Registered Student Organization (2006-08)
• Member, Selection Committee, Student Involvement Awards (2007)
External
• Reviewer of scholarly and creative productivity for a candidate for second promotion at a public 4-year institution, May-August 2023
• Manuscript Reviewer for the University of Nebraska Press, 2022.
• Manuscript Reviewer for Quaker History, 2019, 2022
• Editorial Board for MELUS: The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States, University of Connecticut (2010-present); Subject Area Reviewer (Native American Literature) (Spring 2004-present)
• Subject Area Reviewer, SAIL: Studies in American Indian Literatures, October 2018-present
• Subject Area Reviewer, Western American Literature (Late Eighteenth-Century through Early Twentieth-Century Literature; Native American Literature), October 2012-present
• Manuscript Reviewer for the Oxford University Press, 2013
• Manuscript Reviewer for the University of Oklahoma Press, 2012
• Invited Advisory Scholar, Edward Everett Hale House Museum, Pettaquamscutt Historical Society, Matunuck, Rhode Island (May 2007-09)
Graduate
• Graduate Council of the Academic Senate (UCSD, 1995-98)
• Advisory Committee to the Chancellor on the Americans with Disabilities Act (UCSD, 1995-96)
• Graduate Student Association (UCSD, 1995-96)
• Graduate Studies Committee, Department of Literature (UCSD, 1995-96)
Pre-graduate
• Senior Program Assistant, Middle Grades Curriculum Development Project, Program in Human Biology, Stanford University, 1993-1994
• Secretary, Planning Office and Office of the University Architect, Stanford University, 1991-1993
Fellowships and Honors:
National
Summer 2002: Summer Stipend, National Endowment for the Humanities, $5,000
Illinois State University
2022-23: Faculty Research Award, $7,000
2019: Outstanding College Service Award
2018: Outstanding Department Service Award
2013-14: University Leadership Initiative
2010-11: Faculty Research Award, $3,000
2009-10: Summer Faculty Fellowship, $5,000
2008: Teaching Development Travel Grant from the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology for travel to the College Board’s first Native American Student Advocacy Institute, $300
2008: Travel grants from the College of Arts and Sciences and from Enrollment Management and Academic Services for travel to the College Board’s first Native American Student Advocacy Institute, $600
2004-05: Nominee for the Research Initiative Award, Department of English
2003-04: Nominee for the Research Initiative Award, College of Arts and Sciences
2003-04: Nominee for the Research Initiative Award, Department of English
2002-03: Pre-Tenure Faculty Initiative Grant, $2,500
2001-02: New Faculty Initiative Grant, $2,500
University of California, San Diego
Winter 1999: Dissertation Fellowship, Department of Literature
1998-99 Senior Teaching Assistant, Department of Literature. To orient and mentor new teaching assistants.
Professional Affiliations:
American Literary Translators Association
American Literature Association
Association for the Study of American Indian Literature
Modern Language Association
Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States
Western Literature Association
Skills:
Languages
French—Fluent
Spanish—Read, translate, and interpret with competence
Cherokee and Mohawk—Beginning
Haitian Creole as recorded in pre-Kreyòl orthography—Rudimentary
Intellectual Genealogy
GRADUATE COURSEWORK:
Literature and Culture of the Americas
• Manifest Domesticity (audited sessions), Nicole Tonkovich
• The 1950s: Culture of Containment, Michael Davidson
• American Studies and the Politics of Location, Shelley Streeby
• Unreal Cities: Urbanism and Modernity (audited), Michael Davidson
• Nineteenth Century American Studies: Natives and Aliens, Shelley Streeby
• Methodology Studies: Reading Practice (audited), Donald Wesling
• Genre Studies: Landscape Poetry East and West, Wai-Lim Yip
• Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, Michael Davidson
• La littérature antillaise de langue française, Winifred Woodhull
• Le Roman Québécois, Catherine Ploye
• Themes in French Intellectual and Literary History (audited), Louis Morhange
• Contemporary Issues in the Literature of Columbia and Chile, Jaime Concha
• Latin America from 1945 to 1995, Jaime Concha
• La Literatura del Caribe (audited), Maria Zeilina
Literary Theory
• History of European Criticism and Aesthetics:
Renaissance to Enlightenment, Oumelbanine Zhiri
• History of European Criticism and Aesthetics:
Kant to the Twentieth Century, Steven Cassedy
• Text/Culture/Critical Practice, Todd Kontje
• Introduction to Sexuality and Gender Studies, Judith Halberstam
• Cultural Perspectives and Criticism, Lisa Lowe
• Theories of Literary Criticism: Working with Bakhtin, Donald Wesling
Relevant Undergraduate Coursework
• Western Civilization
• Poetry and poetics, Adrienne Rich
• Shakespeare
• The Role of the Military in Politics, Condoleeza Rice
• International Politics, Stephen Krasner
• History of the English Language
• The Modern Middle East, Joel Beinin
• Dostoevsky and French Literature, Joseph Frank
• Virginia Woolf, Lucio Ruotolo
• Southern Africa, David Abernethy
• African and African American Women Writers, Biodun Jeyifo (Cornell University)
• Irish Literature (Cornell University)
• Toni Morrison, Michelle Cliff
• The Caribbean-Americas, Sylvia Wynter
• Playwriting, Adrienne Kennedy
• Kiowa Photography Project, Linda Poolaw
• Contemporary British Drama (St. Catherine’s College, Stanford-in-Oxford)
• British Foreign Policy and International Relations (Stanford-in-Oxford)
• Kenyan and Nigerian Literature, Anthony Kirk-Greene (St. Antony’s College, Stanford-in-Oxford)
• Theory of the (Post)Modern Novel (Merton College, Stanford-in-Oxford)
• Romantic Poetry, Jonathan Wordsworth (St. Catherine’s College, Stanford-in-Oxford)
• History of the British Empire (Stanford-in-Oxford)
• Chinese Poetry, Steven Van Zoeren
• English Literature to the Renaissance, Seth Lerer
• Eighteenth-Century English Literature, Terry Castle
• Contemporary Francophone Literature from Africa and the Caribbean, J.-M. Apostolides
• American Fiction from Romance to Realism, David Halliburton
• American Drama from 1920-1970, Harry Elam
• Reading and Writing Poetry
• Honors Thesis, Diane Middlebrook and Priscilla Wald
Dissertation Abstract:
“Keep these words until the stones melt: Language, ecology, war, and the written land in nineteenth century U.S.-Indian relations.” This study examines how U.S. writers, Western linguistic theorists, and members of Indian nations rely on or borrow from intellectual centers of thought that preceded and survived European presence on the North American continent. These uses of Native American thought, by writers such as Cooper, Melville, Bierce, Jewett, Hunt Jackson, and London, emerged in arenas dominated by the discourse of savagism. Savagism had developed in European settler communities in reaction to cultural difference and to rationalize encroachment on Indian lands. The belief that Native Americans would either become civilized or become extinct pervaded these communities. Comparing these authors’ works to indigenous verbal artistry recorded from within six Indian nations or groups of nations—the Iroquois, Lenni Lenape, Cherokee, Plains and Basin groups, and Dene—I argue that savagism did not constitute an impervious master narrative. My research reveals narratives that ran counter to this dominant narrative—what I call anti-savagism and ante-savagism—and examines how all these narratives based themselves in the Indian word.
Committee: Michael Davidson and Donald Wesling (chairs), Jaime Concha, Ross Frank, Shelley Streeby, Winifred Woodhull
Last updated August 2024