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Amanda Singh Bans
Amanda moved to New Mexico in the summer of 2007 by way of Oregon (and before that, California). She is currently enrolled in her second
year in the M.A. program (beginning fall 2008), aided by the strength
of her cohort members, having recently passed her ACS exam.
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 accepted into the UNM American Studies Department in fall of 2007. 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 included being a SAVS (Sexual Assault Victim Services) Advocate
and Dunn House Women’s Shelter Volunteer. Also, Amanda invested
over a year of her personal 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). In Albuquerque, Amanda interned
at a non-profit called Young Women United Intern (www.youngwomenunited.org)
as their Special Projects Coordinator and Anti-Violence against
Women (AVAW) Campaign rep from October 2007-May 2008.
Academically, Amanda's work can be categorized into discussions on race and gender, power and privilege, and media messages. Her current research employs these discussions by focusing on how they intersect(ed) with past and current narratives involving the criminal justice system and Native American sovereignty "rights." She is fascinated by the workings of particular ideologies and how concepts such as "violence" and "justice" are used under certain circumstances
to promote "social justice" and "domestic
harmony."
Amanda's highly optimistic passion and current life goal is to be part of what Andrea Smith has deemed the
Anti-Violence Movement, which involves respectful relationships
with communities that she has worked with and intends to work with
in the future.
Contact info: 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
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.
Tita Berger
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.
Contact info: Please
feel free to call or email me: 415-595-9393/tberger@unm.edu if you
have any questions or comments. gracias y amor.
Desi Brown
Desi Brown is a first year MA Student in the American Studies Program. He came here via a long and winding road, being raised in the Midwest (Iowa and Illinois), temporarily detained by his parents in Las Vegas, NV and exploring many personal, professional, and educational pursuits since then. He holds the record (until someone tells him differently!) of taking 22 years to complete his associates degree (CNM) and B.U.S. (UNM). During that time, he competed internationally as a semi-pro bicycle racer for a decade, had a career as an exhibit designer, was a part-time instructor at CNM Community College and started a non-profit swing dancing group that has been together for over 10 years now. In addition, Desi has been involved as a community and political activist for several years promoting many different issues such as voter rights, health care, peace studies and curriculum development.
Desi has returned to the academic world in order to develop the skills necessary to make a difference with the economically and socially disadvantaged members of his community. His intent is to use cutting edge educational tools to introduce students to the critical thinking skills that are necessary to understand current events in our culture. In doing this, he hopes to see people feel empowered to change their own lives, and those of their peers, in personal, relational and community building ways. Desi continues to be involved with NM State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino as a volunteer policy analyst and is the graduate student representative of the UNM Peace Studies Program. He is also serving as a GA to David Correia for AS182 – Intro to Science, Environment, & Technology and spends much of his time correcting the papers of his students.
Contact info: Desi can be reached via e-mail at: desib@unm.edu if you want to talk to him about his interests or if you want to learn how to Jitterbug or go on a scooter ride!
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Eric Tomás Hernández Castillo
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.
Katie Councilor
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.
Teresa (Terry) Cutler-Broyles
I am a PhD student returning to school after a five-year hiatus. I spent sixteen years getting my BA in English/Creative Writing/Cultural Anthropology and at the end of that, thinking I might become a cultural anthropologist, I discovered Cultural Studies and fell in love with theory – I know, it’s weird. I received my MA in that field in 2003. After five years of an accidental career in Technical Writing/Editing and flirting with the idea of a PhD in Political Science, I discovered the American Studies program and jumped in.
I’m a published author (local, regional, national and international magazines and a small book of travel essays) and own a small local business, InkWell International & Inkwell, Inc. Through InkWell I do writing and editing of fiction, non-fiction and screenplays, and I organize cultural writing tours to various countries including Italy (October 2008) and Turkey (October 2009), as well as local writers conferences. I teach film studies, English, and creative writing.
Hobbies include riding my bicycle, reading good fiction and biographies, writing of course, all the travel I can do, collecting and drinking good wine, cooking and having dinner parties with friends, and hanging out with husband and step-kids. My guilty secret is that I’ve spent many thousands of dollars on Amazon.com buying books of all kinds.
In the program I am studying representations of “other” in film and news media, with a focus on the Middle East, terrorism, and the world since September 11, 2001. I’m a politics junkie and am working conflict resolution into the mix as well.
Contact info: teresa_cutler@comcast.net, or at my website www.inkwell-inc.biz.
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Clare Daniel
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
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.
Contact info: dewanwj@unm.edu
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Alison Fields
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.
Jessica Fishken-Harkins
Jessica completed her undergraduate degree at Macalester College in Minnesota, with majors in Anthropology and International Studies. Since graduating, she has worked with various non-profits in the Twin Cities in areas of youth development and women’s reproductive health. As a first-year graduate student at UNM, her area of interest lies at the intersection of migration and queer cultural citizenship, including ideas of community and identity formation as well as movement across borders.
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Amy Sue Goodin
I was a 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 co-authored and presented a paper on this topic at the American Association for Public Opinion Research conference in New Orleans in May 2008 and am shopping for a journal for the paper. 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.
Contact info: amysgoodin@ou.edu or asgoodin@unm.edu
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Elizabeth Hillman
Hi, I’m Elizabeth Hillman and I am a first year MA student--I am thankful to have made it this far. Things have changed with me as I have had my first child and life is kind of like chasing feathers in an F-5 tornado at this point. Besides learning about my little miracle, I have begun to learn a lot about myself. My areas of study encompass Native Americans, circus life (away from the public eye) and The Renaissance Pleasure Faire. With Native Americans I look at representation, appropriation of spirituality and the simulacrum created by the New Age gurus that draw people in with a phony spiritual persona and the impact on both Native and Non-Native communities (both sides get hurt). With Renaissance Pleasure Faire and the Circus, I look at communitas, the Hippie Gypsy lifestyle, and what draws people to participate in such events. What is it like behind the scenes and what is the folklore about both?
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Jordon Johnson
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.
Christina Juhász-Wood
Christina grew up in Boulder, Colorado and Taos, New Mexico. She graduated from Smith College in 2006, where she majored in government. She co-founded a feminist organization on campus and volunteered with the Northampton homeless shelter. She interned with the National Organization for Women and the Native American Rights Fund. After graduating, she was employed at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, where she worked on First Amendment cases. Her academic interests include feminist legal theory, social movements and activism, visual culture, and Southwest studies. She looks forward to starting the American Studies program at UNM and working at the campus Women's Resource Center. She is presently volunteering for the Obama campaign.
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Andrew Marcum
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
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.
Contact info: amays@unm.edu
Kara McCormack
Kara McCormack is a PhD student focusing on the mythic West in the popular imagination. Exploring the ways that the “West” has been and is represented in popular culture – the packaging and consumption of the American West as a commodity, how meaning is made by producers and consumers of the West, and the collision of history, myth, and place embodied by the West – has constituted the basis of Kara’s studies throughout her graduate career.
Hailing from the beautiful city of Boston, Massachusetts, she received her MA in American studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, where her thesis focused on the cultural significance of rodeo. She received her BA in journalism from New York University. In addition to her graduate studies and work at the New Mexico Historical Review, Kara loves science fiction, the Red Sox, traveling the great state of New Mexico, exploring downtown Albuquerque, and riding the rich Albuquerque karaoke circuit.
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Gbenga Olorunsiwa
I am Gbenga Olorusnwiwa and I am currently a PhD student in American Studies here at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. I am also from Nigeria in West Africa.
My PhD Scholarly and Professional Interests are:
1. American History, Literature, and Cultural impacts on Africa
2. African History, Literature and Culture.
3. The Black Atlantic/Atlantic Slave Trade
4. The African Diaspora and Black Internationalism.
5. Post-Nationalism and Trans-nationalism
6. Post-colonialism
7. Genocide in Africa and African migration.
I also received a M.A. degree in Interdisciplinary Program in Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison here in the U.S. in 2007. My M.A research examines human right abuse & genocide in African troubled areas and how these problems cause many Africans to migrate to foreign countries, particularly the U.S. This scattering of Africans abroad is termed African Diaspora. With my undergraduate background in African poetry, history and drama, critical theory, spanning modernism, postmodernism, structuralism, deconstruction, feminism, and post colonialism, I expanded my literary and cultural frame into geographies and migration themes of the African Diaspora. My M.A thesis is entitled "Migration Narratives in Selected African Literature."
Contact info: Please email me at olorunsiwa@gmail.com or gbenga@unm.edu if you are interested in knowing more about me or about my professional and scholarly interests. Shalom. Gbenga
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Jen Richter
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.
Jeremy R. Ricketts
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.
Contact info: jrricketts@gmail.com
Karen Roybal-Montoya
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.
Contact info: kroybal1@unm.edu
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Rosemary Sallee
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.
Carmen Samora

I am the daughter of Betty Archuleta Samora and Julian Samora. My parents raised me with a defined sense of social justice and the expectation that I would be a “credit to my race”. For twelve years I taught blind adults (mostly single head-of-household Native American and Mexican American women) and developed job-training programs for this underserved group. After my father’s death, I went back to school. My father was the first Mexican American to earn a PhD in Sociology. Concerned with leadership development, his greatest achievement (according to him) was the Mexican American Graduate Studies Program at the University of Notre Dame; 57 students were accepted, and 50 students graduated with advanced degrees. Dr. Samora created a generation of scholars and his legacy continues into the present through the students he mentored.
As the director of the Julian Samora Legacy Project (JSLP), established in 2001, I have formed a coalition of five institutions with whom Dr. Samora was most connected: Notre Dame, the National Council of La Raza, Michigan State University, UT Austin, and the University of New Mexico (UNM). My dissertation, the origin story of the Southwest Council of La Raza, is one of a series of products I am developing about significant, yet little known, Latino endeavors. My personal mission has been to continue my father’s legacy of leadership development, but at the high school level. Through a web-based e-curriculum I am developing teacher resource materials, including biographical documentaries about community leaders of color. Our youth need role models beyond the usual four or five national leaders they study during a particular ethnic month. Knowing the stories and struggles of those who came before can help influence young people to believe in themselves and have faith in their future.
There have already been a number of products through the JSLP, including a book I co-authored, Moving Beyond Borders: Julian Samora and the Establishment of Latino Studies, an interactive website, and a documentary about Dr. Samora. The JSLP recently became a partner with the Southwest Hispanic Research Institute at UNM. This association serves to embed the Samora Project within an established research institute on the UNM campus.
In my vocation of teaching I relish the opportunity to put into practice what I witnessed as a child: my parents’ tireless engagement with community to better the lives of Mexican Americans, and thereby of all Americans, has been my inspiration.
Contact info:
csamora@samoralegacy.com
Jane Sinclair
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.
Kelly Sloane
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.'
Contact info: I welcome any questions about the program from prospective students
at ksloane@unm.edu.
Stephen Spence
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.
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Melina Vizcaíno-Alemán
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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