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| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
My dissertation project is "Pocho Humor: Contemporary Chicano Humor and the Critique of American Culture." Encompassing my interests in narrative and identity, humor has provided an interesting avenue into points of ambiguity and play in Chicano cultural production. Originally from El Paso, Texas, I received my BA in English from Rice University and MA in English from the University of Texas at Austin. I will be teaching courses in immigration discourse and the performance of culture at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. At UNM, I taught courses in Chicano humor and Southwest studies. My first love is literature, but my research has pushed me into a wide range of popular culture and performance theory. I hope to pursue further investigations of tricksters, rogues and other mischievous types.
Amanda’s educational opportunities involve a plethora of experiences both within and outside the academic learning sphere. She received her B.A. from Southern Oregon University in English Literature, with a minor in Women’s Studies, in the winter of 2006. She was an active member and/or officer of several campus organizations as an undergraduate, in addition to being a McNair scholar. She is an advocate of volunteering and/or being connected with community organizations, and her volunteering experiences in Oregon include being a SAVS (Sexual Assault Victim Services) Advocate and Dunn House Women’s Shelter Volunteer. Also, Amanda invested over a year of her time in a research project involving the death of a fellow SOU student in an interaction with the local police department (see www.nickhanson.org). Amanda moved to New Mexico in the summer of 2007. She has interned at a local non-profit called Young Women United Intern (www.youngwomenunited.org) as their Special Projects Coordinator and Anti-Violence against Women (AVAW) Campaign rep. She is currently preparing for her second year in the M.A. program (beginning fall 2008), aided by the strength of her cohort members. Amanda’s passion and current life goal is to be part of the Anti-Violence Movement, which involves a respectful relationship with communities that she has worked with and intends to work with in the future. She is fascinated with the concepts of violence and justice, and how these concepts are used under certain circumstances, and in certain philosophies, to promote social justice and domestic harmony. Further, she is interested in how these pro-violence messages of social justice and domestic harmony are institutionalized and incorporated into everyday lives. Finally, Amanda is available for email contact at mandellina.sing@gmail.com and of course in face-to-face encounters. Her idol is Toni Morrison, so you can always bring this scholar up if you want to initiate a conversation.
Caitlin Barry is a first-year MA student in American Studies. Her research focuses on the prison industrial complex, and the ways in which it both informs and is informed by race, class, and increasingly, gender and sexuality. She is concerned with the legalized racist foundations of the current privatized prison industry and the mounting percentage of incarcerated U.S. citizens of color. She is interested in the cyclical nature of crime in urban communities of color, and looks at the way crime influences (and systematically negates) citizenship. She continues to question how identity categories are created and naturalized through questions of citizenship and national deviance. Caitlin has worked closely with Professors D. Anthony Tyeeme Clark and Fiona Ngo at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and has worked for Professors Michael Trujillo and Rebecca Schreiber at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
Hi. I'm Tita Berger, a recovering smoker. I dedicate as much time as possible to hedonistic pursuits, including long afternoons of reading books that are not for school, tending flowers, hosting dance parties and enjoying pleasant conversation over coffee while my actual class reading sits unmolested. I received a BA and MA in Government, and narrowly avoided a PhD in Political Science after I was told to put away childish dreams of changing the world and get back to the task of manipulating data with logarithmic functions and other black magic in order to make it produce hard cold objective facts. I think the American Studies graduate program is an amazing intellectual and community force, the faculty unequaled, and the graduate students the best damn friends I have ever had. I teach statistics, research methods, philosophy, public policy and other classes at the College of Santa Fe, and Gender Studies for the department. We are poor but happy here, and do just about anything for work. I am in the Graduate Certificate program in Historic Preservation and Regionalism in the Architecture Department, and am interested in civic space, public art, community memory and the built environment. I plan to do my dissertation research in Southern New Mexico, focusing on the role of preservation and community restoration projects in the (re)creation of community civic space. Or something like that. Please feel free to call or email me: 415-595-9393/tberger@unm.edu if you have any questions or comments. gracias y amor.
Eric Tomás Hernández Castillo is a PhD student in American Studies with specializations in Chicana/o visual culture, critical race theory, and southwest studies; he is also completing a certificate in Women Studies at UNM. He received a BA in Communication Arts/Media Studies from the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Tejas and an MA in American Studies from the University of New Mexico. His current research focuses on landscape memory, Chicana/o vernacular traditions, and how public art transforms and decolonizes ideological landscapes of memory that racially silence counter-histories within the USA. His dissertation is on the work of artist Luis Jiménez. Eric teaches Introduction to Chicana/o studies and Southwest Studies. He is the Juan and Virginia Chacón fellow for the Center for Regional Studies and the Center for Southwest Research. Eric is the first in his family to receive a PhD and the second (only to his sister) to receive a Bachelor and Master degree. After completing this degree, Eric will return to his community to teach and implement a Chicana/o non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of students of color across the San Antonio barrio.
Wesley Chenault, archivist at the Kenan Research Center of the Atlanta History Center (AHC) since 2004, has worked in the profession for the past ten years in academic and non-profit institutions, as well as on grant-supported projects. Chenault holds a B.A. in Psychology from Auburn University, an M.A. in Women's Studies from Georgia State University, and is a doctoral candidate in American Studies at the University of New Mexico. A member of several professional organizations, including the American Historical Association, National Council on Public History, Society of American Archivists, and Society of Georgia Archivists, he has been most active at the local level, serving on multiple organization committees. He also serves on the board of directors of ART PAPERS, a non-profit organization dedicated to the examination, development, and definition of art and culture. In 2005 he was curator of The Unspoken Past: Atlanta Lesbian and Gay History, 1940-1970, an AHC exhibition developed from a grant-supported oral history project, for which Chenault was project director. He is co-author of Gay and Lesbian Atlanta, a twentieth century pictorial history of the Atlanta (forthcoming, Arcadia Publishing, 2008).
Katie Councilor is an MA student in American Studies. She earned her BA in English from the University of Virginia in 2003. Her primary areas of focus are gender and sexuality; race, class and ethnicity; and cultural studies. Her current research interests include the narratives of gender institutionalized within the law and the politics of cultural appropriations of the transgender Native in human rights discourses. She served as the William A. Keleher Newspaper fellow at the Center for Southwest Research in 2007-2008.
Clare Daniel received her BA in German Studies and English, with a minor in Women's and Gender Studies from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. After working as a job counselor for two years in Minnesota's welfare system, she relocated to Albuquerque to pursue a graduate education in American Studies. Clare is interested in neoliberal welfare policy reform and its role in the maintenance of normative sexual and economic citizenship. In addition to playing cello in the Albuquerque Symphony Orchestra and tutoring Lobo athletes in her spare time, Clare forwards her agenda of instigating dance parties all over Albuquerque.
William J. Dewan is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Studies. Education: MA in Anthropology (2002) East Carolina University; BS in Anthropology (2000) James Madison University. Dissertation Title: Occam's Beard: Belief, Disbelief, and Contested Meanings in American Ufology. Research Interests: Folklore, Popular Culture Theory, American Cold War History, Cognitive Anthropology, Conspiracy Culture, UFO-lore, New Religious Movements, Occultism, Scientistic Ideology, Technology Studies. Courses Taught: Introduction to Popular Culture, Urban Legends UFOs in America. Awards/Honors: 2007 Gunter Starkey Teaching Award Nominee 2002 Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. Publications: "Anomalous Light Experiences in North Carolina: A Survey." The Journal of Popular Culture Vol. 9 (2006), No. 1 (29-43). "A Saucerful of Secrets: An Integrated Approach to Understanding UFO Experiences." The Journal of American Folklore Vol. 119 (2006), Issue 472 (184-202). Associations: Popular Culture Association, American Folklore Society, American Studies Association.
I am a doctoral candidate in American Studies, working on my dissertation, "False Closure: Narratives of Trauma, Healing, and American Nationhood." I received a B.A. in English and Native American Studies from Colgate University in 2001, and an M.A. in American Civilization from Brown University in 2003. At UNM, I have taught introductory and upper level American Studies courses in race, class and ethnicity, gender studies, southwest studies, and urban legends. Since 2005, I have served as the Editorial Assistant of American Indian Quarterly.
Double major in Geography and Political Science for my BA (UNM), and then received my MA in Geography (UNM) with an emphasis on human-environment interactions. After spending several years in my own a little world as the Associate Director of Research at the UNM Institute for Public Policy I entered into the American Studies Ph.D. program and am now slogging through my dissertation. This is despite being crazy enough to accept a position as Director of the University of Oklahoma Public Opinion Learning Laboratory at the same time--it is a public opinion research organization that pesters various 'publics' about their opinions on a plethora of policy issues. However, my real interest is how the public feels engaged in and by the public policy process. My dissertation examines this issue from the perspective of understanding Western Shoshone engagement in and by the Yucca Mountain High-level Nuclear Waste Repository policy debate. I have also served as co-PI on a recent study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at UNM that examined public attitudes about Governor Richardson's health care reform initiative; I will be co-authoring a paper on this topic and presenting the results of the study at the American Association for Public Opinion Research conference in New Orleans in May. This is another area in which it is fruitful to consider the context of public involvement in decision-making or, more specifically, the 'publicness' of health care policy.
B.A in Performance Art from St. Olaf College; M.A. in Social and Cultural Anthropology from California Institute of Integral Studies; M.S.W. from New Mexico Highlands University, School of Social Work. Jordon is a doctoral student focused on transgender interactions with healthcare systems in New Mexico. His research looks at how medical and behavioral health systems engage with a transgender community. His research interests explore processes of normalization and naturalization within public policy and medical frameworks. Both these processes have historical interactions with medical and legal systems. Jordon’s work integrates his performance art, social and cultural anthropology, and social work knowledge. Recently, he has presented at the White Privilege Conference, National Association of Social Work Conference, and the Trans-Health Conference. He provides workshops and presentations locally and nationally about working with a transgender community. To read more about Jordon's work: www.transconsultant.com.
Andrew Marcum is a PhD. Student and Graduate Teaching Associate, University of New Mexico Research Service Learning Program. Education: M.A. in American Studies from the University of Alabama, 2005. Honors and Awards: Winner, the Lisa McNary Award for Outstanding work in the American Studies Professional Seminar, 2006. Finalist, for the 2005 Critoph Prize for outstanding graduate student paper at the Southern American Studies Association Conference, 2005. Conference paper presentations: 2006 Rocky Mountain American Studies Association meeting "AIDS Identities" examing the rhetorical formation of the early AIDS crisis in the U.S, media. 2005 Southern American Studies conference, "Brand name Beat Generation," examing the cultural reception and commodification of the Beat Generation and its impact on historical memory. "The Revolution Will not Be Televised: Thoughts on using Qualitative Research Methods in Community-Based Collaborative Service-Learning Classes." Presented at the Crossroads II Conference on Community-Based Collaborative Research, Harford, CT, June 2007. "Imperial Eye for the Queer Guy: Advertising and the Visual Politics of Gay Male Identity in the National Marketplace" a discussion of fashion spreads and ads directed at a Gay male audience that explores the problematic aspects of the incorporation of gay men into the U.S. "national body" including the ways in which these ads serve to legitimate a larger U.S. national agenda of global imperialism by positioning gay male "Americans" in morally superior opposition to "othered" and foreign bodies while presenting those bodies as available for Euro-American colonization and sexual consumption.
Andrea L. Mays is a doctoral candidate in the Department of American Studies. Her areas of focus include, African Diaspora Studies, Visual Culture and Gender Studies. She has a M.A. in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from UNM and a B.A. in Communications from George Mason University. Her dissertation focuses on African-American Visual Culture and Politics in the early twentieth century. Prior to graduate studies, Andrea was a Public Programs Producer at The Freedom Forum First Amendment Foundation in Washington, DC. She has taught courses on race, gender & sexuality, and literature in the English, American Studies, Sociology, and Women's Studies Departments at UNM. Andrea has won several teaching awards including the Susan Deese-Roberts Outstanding Teaching Assistant of the Year Award and The Gunter Starkey Award for Teaching Excellence. Andrea's work has been presented at several regional and national conferences including the Regional Popular Culture Conference (2003), National Women Studies Association Annual Conference (2003 & 2006), The Rocky Mountain American Studies Association Conference (2006), The Annual American Studies Association Conference (2006), and MALCS (2007). In 2007 Andrea was nominated for "Who's Who?" in American Colleges and Universities. Andrea is also a creative writer and has performed original spoken-word pieces in performances spaces in Washington DC and Albuquerque, NM. Her essays and articles have been published in USA Today , The Burning Bush Feminist Collective , The Women's Resource Center Newsletter and The Guest Columnist Space for UNM's The Daily Lobo . Andrea currently serves as a member of the Steering Committee for The Project for New Mexico Graduates of Color. In her free-time (yeah right!), she enjoys watching independent films and working on her collection of creative non-fiction.
Kara McCormack is a second-year PhD student focusing on the mythic West in the popular imagination. She is currently interested in exploring the ways the American West has functioned both in the United States and around the world, specifically during the Cold War. She received her MA in American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and her BA in journalism from New York University. She hails from Boston, Massachusetts, and is an avid Red Sox fan. (She invites anyone to join her to watch the weekend games throughout the summer. Yankees fans welcome.) In addition to her graduate studies and working at the New Mexico Historical Review, Kara loves sci fi, traveling the great state of New Mexico, exploring downtown Albuquerque, karaoke, and dance parties.
Lena McQuade is a PhD candidate in American Studies at UNM and a Dissertation Fellow (2007-2008) in the Women’s Studies Department at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her dissertation “Troubling Reproduction: Sexuality, Race, and Colonialism in New Mexico, 1919-1950” is interdisciplinary analysis of reproduction and sexuality in the U.S./ Mexico border state of New Mexico. More specifically, this project details how reproductive health policies and education are inextricably linked, not only to ideologies of race, gender and national belonging, but also to their material effects evidenced in institutionalized racism, colonized health practices and racially and economically stratified reproductive health. Lena’s dissertation research has also been supported by fellowships from the Office of the New Mexico State Historian (2006-2007) and from the Regents of the University of New Mexico (2006-2007). She has taught a number of classes in American Studies and Women Studies and was honored to be awarded the Susan Deese-Roberts Outstanding TA of the Year Award (2005-2006). Next academic year, Lena is trilled to be joining the faculty at Sonoma State University as a tenure track professor in the Women’s Studies Department.
Jen Richter is an ABD student working on her dissertation proposal. Her focus is on the intersections of environment, science and technology(EST), with a specific interest on how nuclear technologies reshape social and cultural systems in the Southwest. Jen received her Master’s in American Studies from UNM and a B.A. in English and American Studies from the University of Maryland at College Park. She has also been a T.A. in the department for three years, teaching several intro classes on EST, as well as the Sports in American Culture class. She also teaches intro courses in the University Studies program. When not working doggedly on her dissertation, Jen can be found at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, running different programs focusing on introducing teens to the public side of science and nature studies.
Current Degree Program: Ph.D.; Prior Schools and Degrees: University of South Florida, M.Ed; University of Alabama MA American Studies; University of Memphis BA English and History. Jeremy is interested in the construction of American religious identity through popular culture. Producers of popular culture have often portrayed newer “homegrown” American religions as “other” to a normative Protestantism through novels, film, TV, and other media. These historically recent “homegrown” religions such as Mormonism, Seventh Day Adventism, Christian Science, and Scientology have shaped their own identities, but the machinations of popular culture have also constructed representations of these religions, sometimes in direct opposition to the way adherents to those faiths see themselves. Jeremy examines representations of American religions in popular culture, particularly in autobiography, literature, and film, to answer important questions about how identity is affected by belief and by representation, and to try and understand how various faiths attempt to create and solidify religious communities and identities.
Karen Roybal-Montoya is working toward a Ph.D. in the department, and is specifically interested in how Southwest, Culture, and Race, Class, and Ethnicity Studies apply to the autobiographies/life narratives and oral histories of Nuevo Mexicanas (New Mexican women). By employing anthropological methods, historical analysis, and culture studies, Karen hopes to construct contemporary community oral histories within Northern New Mexican communities. She will examine how cultural production has shifted and how changes in culture and society have occurred within rural communities, especially focusing on if and how women's roles within these communities have changed. Another area of Karen's studies include examining what happens as Nuevo Mexicanas transition from rural to urban societies, and more specifically, what happens when these women transition back into their rural communities? A native New Mexican, Karen received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New Mexico in Journalism and Mass Communication, and her Master of Arts degree in Communication Studies from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is currently a Graduate Research Assistant for Dr. A. Gabriel Meléndez, and has taught Communications courses at UNLV, plus a Business Research and Writing Course for the University of Phoenix.
As a doctoral student and museum professional, the main questions that captivate me have to do with the interconnections between class and creativity for women. I explore how contemporary folklore scholarship sheds light on women's traditional - and more innovative -- forms of expression, looking at the tensions between continuity and change created by consumption, technology, and the information age. My current research interests include feminist debates and the craftivism movement, especially as they're expressed in contemporary knitting and scrapbooking. This is my third American Studies degree, the first two include a BA from Vassar College and an MA from UNM.
I obtained my Master's Degree in Art History, with an emphasis on Native American art from the University of Washington. Before returning to graduate school, I worked as a museum professional. First, as the Curator of Education at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, and later as Master Teacher for Native Arts at the Denver Art Museum. From 2006-2007, I was the Clinton B. Anderson Fellow in the Center for Southwest Research, where I co-taught classes on accessing archives. I also developed programming for the Navajo Studies Conference. As a Ph.D. Candidate, I am writing my dissertation, tentatively titled "No Admission Required: Tribal Casinos, Tribal Museums." As part of my research, I will interview contemporary Native artists and visit tribal casinos, both in New Mexico and Arizona. I just presented a paper at the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Conference on alternate ways to teach Native arts in the classroom. Currently, I am working in the Center for Southwest Research with the architectural drawings of John Gaw Meem. As part of my duties, I co-curated an exhibition on the history of tubercular patients and sanatoriums in New Mexico.
My name is Kelly Sloane and I am currently a first year MA student in American Studies. My course of study is centered on the race, class and ethnicity and cultural study tracks. I am a native of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania but, as Philadelphia was my adult playground, I consider Philly home. I earned my BA in American Studies from Penn State University in 2006 and came to Southwest to gain a different perspective on America. New Mexico is unique in many ways from the expansive sky and awe inspiring landscape while manifestations of the region's colonial history lurk around every corner. Studying in New Mexico has forced me to confront my Northeastern perspective and prejudice which in turn has benefited my intellectual queries in surprising ways. I hold an assistantship in the American Studies department and enjoyed working for Rebecca Schreiber (Fall 07) and currently serve as a TA for Alex Lubin's (Spring 08) Intro to Race, Class and Ethnicity. At present, I am refining my research interests and contemplating theory and method addressing identity politics, questions of authenticity and cultural propriety, and the self-policing of socially constructed 'communities.' I welcome any questions about the program from prospective students at ksloane@unm.edu.
I am a PhD candidate hoping to be ABD by Fall of 08. I completed an MA in Cultural Studies here at UNM. My primary interest is in "foreign" cinema in the US: what that elusive category has to tell us about nationalism, postcolonialism, empire and globalization, and how particular films have been received in different venues and contexts. Of particular interest to me are recent films from Taiwan, China, and Iran, and their particular socio-political contexts. I presented a paper on Iranian film at a recent SW/TX PCA conference, and my review of Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" was featured in the Summer 2007 edition of American Indian Quarterly. Melina Vizcaíno-Alemán is a PhD candidate in the areas of Southwest Studies, Culture Studies, and Race, Class and Ethnicity. Her publications include an article on Fray Angélico Chávez's fiction in Recovering the U.S.-Hispanic Literary Heritage, Volume VI (ed. Antonia I. Casta?eda and A. Gabriel Meléndez); an article on Ann Petry's fiction in Revising the Blueprint: Ann Petry and the Literary Left (ed. Alex Lubin); two entries, "La Conquistadora" and "Fray Angélico Chávez," for the Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States, Volume 1; and two entries, "Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert" and "Réies López Tijerina," for Hispanic American Biographies. Currently, she's working on her dissertation, "Triptych Cultural Critique: Fray Angélico Chávez and the Emergence of Critical Regionalism, 1939-2004," and she will present a portion of it at the 2008 ASA Conference in Albuquerque. In addition to her research and scholarship, Melina teaches classes in Southwest Studies, Chicano/a Studies, and Race, Class, and Ethnicity. She was born and raised in Albuquerque and is the first of her family to graduate from college. |
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