Education
Brown University, American Studies, Ph.D. (1996)
Brown University, American Studies, M.A. (1990)
Wellesley College, Women’s Studies, B.A. Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude (1988)
Academic, Administrative, Research Appointments
Rice University, English Department Director of Undergraduate Studies (2020-present)
Stanford University, Affliliated Scholar, Bill Lane Center for the American West (2017-2019)
Rice University, Professor of English (2017-)
Institute for Women Surfers, Director (2014-)
Rice University, Magister of Brown College (2013-2018)
Rice University, Associate Director, Center for Study of Women, Gender, Sexuality (2012-2016)
Rice University, Inaugural Magister of Duncan College (2009-2010)
Monterey Tec University, México, Visiting Scholar in Humanities/Social Sciences (2009)
Rice University, Associate Professor of English (2007-2017)
Rice University, Magister of Baker College (2004-2010)
Western Literature Association, President (2003)
Rice University, Assistant Professor of English (2001-2007)
Rice University, Lecturer, English Department (1997-2001)
Publications (open access at Academia.edu )
Books
2010 Surfer Girls in the New World Order. Durham: Duke University Press. Winner of the Thomas J. Lyon Book Award, Sponsored by the Western Literature Association.
1999 Landscapes of the New West: Gender & Geography in Contemporary Women’s Writing. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Edited Special Issues
2018 With Susan Bernardin. Western American Literature: On the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Western Literature Association (Spring) 53:1.
2013 Western American Literature: Young Scholars (Spring & Summer) 48.1&2.
Works in Progress (Books)
Living West as Feminists: Interviews about the Where of Us (University of Nebraska Press)
An interview-based book project in public facing scholarship that puts feminist US Western scholars into conversation with one another about how scholars live their feminisms and live their relation to places and land. The core question: how do you inhabit your feminism and how does it inhabit you? Participants select a place of significance to them and interviews done in those places take off from there. Answers to questions about embodied feminisms involve a blend of the intellectual, personal, and political, and feature participants’ reflections about Whitehouse, Texas, New Orleans, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Pueblo, Mesa Verde, Bozeman, Missoula, Swan Valley, Salt Lake City, San Onofre and Panhe, St. Agatha (Ontario), among other places. A key argument is that the times we are living through require a recommitment of scholars to the intersections of feminist theory and practice. As a work in the feminist public humanities focused on the US West, the project is a first of its kind. Check out our blog documenting our feminist road trip: FeministWests
Surfeminism in an Era of Trump (Book) paused until international travel possible
Book project coming from public humanities initiative in grassroots political education, The Institute for Women Surfers. Through collaborations of scholars and activists, project conceptualizes surfeminism as a located global ecopolitics. Surfer activists in developed and developing coastal geographies band together in creative fights against global authoritarianisms, stymied climate justice programs, and sexual and other forms of gender-based violence. Reflections on trials and successes of engaged research methodologies.
The Institute for Women Surfers (IWS)
Engaged Research in the Public Humanities
www.instituteforwomensurfers.org
Institute Oceania on Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/327762115
A grassroots educational initiative in the Public Humanities co-founded in 2014, and headquartered at Rice University, IWS brings together activist women surfers and their allies to create spaces of peer teaching, learning, and mutual aid. IWS conducts in-person trainings and publicizes issues and events via social media. It hosts a website featuring projects in filmmaking, art, photography, and hip hop, as well as features the work of non-profits, feminist business owners, environmentalists, scientists, elected officials, and scholars. Collaboration between participants is the organizing principle of Institute knowledge creation. Trainings to date: California: 2014, 2015, 2017; IWS Europe (Wales) 2018, 2019; IWS Oceania (Australia) 2019. Institute International 2021 (San Diego) postponed due to COVID travel restrictions.
Articles & Book Chapters
In Progress
2022 “Being Good Relatives: A Story of Indigenous and Settler Surfeminist Collaboration,” with Dina Gilio-Whitaker. Waves of Hope, Waves of Belonging: Indigeneity, Gender, and Race in the Surfing Line Up, editors David Kemper, Lydia Heberling. University of Washington Press.
2022 “Which Crisis? Surfeminist Mobilizations Now.” Waves of Hope, Waves of Belonging: Indigeneity, Gender, and Race in the Surfing Line Up, editors David Kemper, Lydia Heberling. University of Washington Press.
Forthcoming
2021 “Staying with the White Trouble of Recent Feminist Westerns,” Western American Literature (Summer).
2021 “Standpoint, Situated Knowledges, Feminist Wests,” Gender and the American West, ed. Susan Bernardin, Routledge.
Published
2020 “West.” Keywords for American Cultural Studies, third edition. Ed. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: New York University Press. New essay for third edition.
2019 “What Leisure?! Surfeminism in an Era of Trump,” Comment, Palgrave Communications, April 30.
2018 “Introduction: Pasts, Presents, Futures.” Co-written with Susan Bernardin. Eds. Krista
Comer and Susan Bernardin. On the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Western Literature Association, special issue of Western American Literature (Spring) 53:1, xi-xix. Download PDF here.
2018 “Toward a Feminist Turn.” Eds. Krista Comer and Susan Bernardin. On the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Western Literature Association, special issue of Western American Literature (Spring) 53:1, 11-18. Download PDF here.
2018 “Houston as a Water Space,” Institute for Women Surfers, Gulf Coast Chapter. 10 May Web. 12 May 2018. http://www.instituteforwomensurfers.org/institute-gulf- coast/
2017 “Beaches as Spaces of Democracy: Center Hosts Women Surfers Conference.” Research Findings from 2017 Institute for Women Surfers. Stanford University. Bill Lane Center for the American West. . . . & the West. December 15.
2017 Afterword. “Accountabilities: Authority, Feminism, West.” Studies in the Novel: Gender and the Cultural Preoccupations of the American West. (Fall 49:3) 419-424.
2017 “Surfeminism, Critical Regionalism, Public Scholarship.” Ed. Dexter Zavzala Hough-Snee and Alex Eastman. Critical Surf Studies: A Reader. Duke University Press, 235-262.
2016 “Thinking Otherwise Across Global Wests: Issues of Mobility and Feminist Critical Regionalism.” Ed. Aaron Nyerges and Golnar Nabizadeh. PopWest. Occasion: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities (10) 1-18. Accessed 13 December 2016.
2016 “‘We’re Blacksurfing:’ Activist History & Liberation Politics in White Wash.” Journal of American Ethnic History (Winter 35:2) 68-78.
2015 “The Problem of the Critical in Global Wests.” Ed. Susan Kollin. A History of Western American Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 205-221.
2015 “Place and Worlding: Feminist States of Critical Regionalism.” Eds. Ángel Chaparro Sainz and Amaia Ibarraran Bigalondo. Transcontinental Reflections on the American West: Words, Images, Sounds beyond Borders. Valencia, Spain: Portal Editions SL, 153-71.
2014 “West.” Keywords for American Cultural Studies, second edition. Ed. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: New York University Press. New essay for second edition.
2013 “Assessing the Postwestern.” Ed. Krista Comer. Western American Literature: Young Scholars 48.1&2 (Spring & Summer) 3-15.
2011 “New West, Urban and Suburban Spaces, Postwest.” Ed. Nicolas Witschi. Literatures of the American West. New York: Routledge, 244-60.
2007 “West.” Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Ed. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: New York University Press, 238-42.
2007 “Everyday Regionalisms in Contemporary Critical Practice.” Ed. Susan Kollin. Postwestern Cultures: Literature, Theory, Space. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 30-58.
2004 “Wanting to be Lisa: Generational Rifts, Girl Power, and the Globalisation of Surf Culture.” Ed. Neil Campbell. American Youth Cultures. New York: Routledge, 237-65.
2003 “Taking Feminism and Regionalism Toward the Third Wave.” Ed. Charles Crow. A Companion to the Regional Literatures of America. New York: Blackwell Publishing, 111-128.
2003 “Western Literature at Century’s End: Sketches in Generation X, Los Angeles, and the Post-Civil Rights Novel.” Pacific Historical Review (72:3) 405-15.
1999 “Revising Western Criticism through Wanda Coleman.” Western American Literature 33:4 (Winter) 357-83. Winner: Don D. Walker Award for Year’s Best Essay, Sponsored by Western Literature Association.
1997 “Sidestepping Environmental Justice: ‘Natural’ Landscapes and the Wilderness Plot.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies 18:2, 73-101.
Reprinted from: Ed. Sherrie Inness & Diana Royers, Breaking Boundaries: New Perspectives on Regional Fiction. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. 216-236.
1997 “Literature, Gender Studies, and the New Western History.” Arizona Quarterly 53:2 (Summer) 99-134. Honorable mention for Year’s Best Essay by Western Literature Association and Western Historical Association. Essay appears in collection named by MLA & Council of Editors and Learned Journals “Annual Best Special Issue.”
Reprinted in Forrest Robinson, ed., The New Western History: The Territory Ahead. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997, 99-134.
1997 “Feminism, Women Writers, and the New Western Regionalism: Revising Critical Paradigms.” Compiled by Western Literature Association. Updating the Literary West. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 17-34.
Review Essays, Reviews, Interviews, Encyclopedia/Dictionary Entries
Review Essays
2011 “Exceptionalisms, Other Wests, Critical Regionalism.” American Literary History 23(1): 159-173.
2005 “Distinguished Achievement Award to Saldívar Family.” Western American Literature 40:3 (Fall) 342-44.
1999 “Lost (and Found) in Disneyland: WLA and Cultural Studies.” Western American Literature 32:2 (Summer) 177-81.
1998 Biographical essays: Lorna Dee Cervantes, Sandra Cisneros, Américo Paredes, Cherríe Moraga, Luis Valdez. Ed. Mary Ellen Brown and Bruce Rosenburg. Encyclopedia of Folklore and Literature 1. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO Press. 106-7, 422-3, 491-2, 685-6.
1997 “Joan Didion’s California.” Updating the Literary West. Compiled by Western Literature Association. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 346-51.
Book Reviews
2011 The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of Los Angeles, Ed. Kevin R. McNamara. Pacific Historical Review (80:4) 666-667.
2010 Imagining the African American West, by Blake Allmendinger, and Wrangling Women: Humor and Gender in the American West, by Kristin McAndrews. American Literature (82:1) 202-04.
1997 Trickster in the Land of Dreams, by Zeese Papanikolas. Western Historical Quarterly 28:2 (Spring) 243-4.
1994 Nepantla: Essays from Land in the Middle, by Pat Mora. Western American Literature 29:2 (Summer) 187-8.
1993 Cantora: A Novel, by Sylvia Lopez-Medina. Western American Literature 28:2 (Summer) 189-90.
Interviews
2003 “Don’t You Think We Need a Love Story Here? An Interview with Sandra Cisneros.” with José F. Aranda, Jr. Imprint News (Spring) 2-4.
Encyclopedia Entries
2001 “Surfergirls.” Girlhood in America: An Encyclopedia. Denver: ABC-CLIO Publishers, 627-31.
2001 “Joan Didion.” The Literary Dictionary, on line encyclopedic resource (www.litencyc.com).
The Institute for Women Surfers (IWS)
Engaged Research in the Public Humanities
www.instituteforwomensurfers.org
Institute Oceania on Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/327762115
A grassroots educational initiative in the Public Humanities co-founded in 2014, and headquartered at Rice University, IWS brings together activist women surfers and their allies to create spaces of peer teaching, learning, and mutual aid. IWS conducts in-person trainings and publicizes issues and events via social media. It hosts a website featuring projects in filmmaking, art, photography, and hip hop, as well as features the work of non-profits, feminist business owners, environmentalists, scientists, elected officials, and scholars. Collaboration between participants is the organizing principle of Institute knowledge creation. Trainings to date: California: 2014, 2015, 2017; IWS Europe (Wales) 2018, 2019; IWS Oceania (Australia) 2019. Institute International 2021 (San Diego) postponed due to COVID travel restrictions.
Grants, Fellowships, Prizes, Awards
Grants and Fellowships
2020 Grant for “Climates of Violence, Feminist Accountabilities,” Remote Symposium. Focus: bridging coalitional relations between the fields of African American Studies, Indigenous Studies, Latinx feminisms, and Feminist Critical Regionalism. Rice University Humanities Research Center. Symposium Dates Fall & Spring 2021.
2019 Grant for “Literary Houston.” New Course Development for Public-Facing Teaching and Website to Showcase Undergraduate Writing. Rice University. Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning (CERCL).
2019 Grant for “Gender Climate Survey.” A Collaborative Project of the Institute for Women Surfers at Rice University & the Coastography Lab at California State University Channel Islands. Rice Humanities Research Center. Faculty Innovative Research Fund.
2019 Grants for “Launch: Oceanic Surfeminisms.” A Project of the Institute for Women Surfers Oceania. Rice University Dean of Humanities, English Department, and Americas Research Center. $8,500.
2018 Grant for “Launch: European Surfeminisms.” A Project of the Institute for Women Surfers Europe (Wales). Faculty Research Fund, Rice University Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Feminist Public Humanities, $5,000.
2017 Grant for “Access to Beaches as Spaces of Democracy,” A Project of the Institute for Women Surfers. Humanities Research Center, Rice University. Public Humanities Initiative. Research Project Development, $2,500.
2016 Grant for Institute for Women Surfers III. Mosle Family Research Grant, Rice University, $5000.
2015 Grant for Institute for Women Surfers II. Rice University Humanities Research Center, $2,000.
2014 Grant for Pilot: Summer Institute for Women Surfers. Research Innovation Fund, Rice University Humanities Research Center, $3000.
1993 Horton Hollowell Dissertation Research Fellowship. Wellesley College. Cash Award.
1989 Fanny Bullock Workman Graduate Fellowship. Wellesley College. Cash Award.
Prizes and Awards
2011 Thomas J. Lyon Book Award in Western American Literary and Cultural Studies. Sponsored by the Western Literature Association. Surfer Girls in the New World Order. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
1999 Don D. Walker Award for Annual Best Essay in Western American Literary and Cultural Studies. Sponsored by the Western Literature Association. “Revising Western Criticism Through Wanda Coleman.” Western American Literature 33:4 (Winter) 357-83.
1998 Finalist. Don D. Walker Award for Annual Best Essay in Western American Literary and Cultural Studies. Sponsored by the Western Literature Association. “Literature, Gender Studies, and the New Western History.” Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory 53:2 (Summer) 99-134.
1998 Finalist. Annual Best Essay. Sponsored by Western History Association. “Literature, Gender Studies, and the New Western History.” Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory 53:2 (Summer) 99-134.
1997 Contributor, “Annual Best Special Issue.” Awarded by MLA and Council of Editors of Learned Journals to “The New Western History: An Assessment,” Ed. Forrest Robinson. Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory 53:2 (Summer). “Literature, Gender Studies, and the New Western History,” 99-134.
1988 Mary Lyons Prize for Writing, Wellesley College, Cash Award.
1986 Joanna Mankiewicz Prize for Writing. Wellesley College, Cash Award.
1986 Mary Lyons Prize for Writing, Wellesley College, Cash Award.
Invited Presentations
2020 Invited Participant. Feminist Research Seminar, “Climates of Violence, Politics of Change.” Rice University Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.
2019 Invited Participant. Feminist Research Seminar, “Climates of Violence, Politics of Change.” Rice University Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.
2019 Invited Participant. “Surfeminism Responds to Authoritarianism & Climate Injustice.” Texas Ecocritical Network (TEN). Works in Progress. UT Austin. May 17.
2019 Keynote. “Surfeminist Responses to Global Right Climate and Gender Violence.” Bird’s Surf Shed. Sponsored by San Diego State University Center for Surf Research Conference: Impact Zones and Liminal Spaces: History and Culture of Surfing. April 26. Lecture on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/333552112
2019 Invited Panelist. “Women and Surfing: What’s Next?” Screening of Films by Elizabeth Pepin Silva, The Australian National Surf Museum, Torquay, Australia. February 9.
2019 Invited Presentation. “Building Feminist Alliances in Oceania.” Opening Workshop “Visualizing Social Change,” for Institute for Women Surfers Oceania. Monash University Peninsula Campus, Frankston, Victoria, Australia, February 2.
2018 Conference Paper. “After Postfeminism: Feminist Westerns, Critical Regionalism, and the Category of ‘White Women.’” Western Literature Association. St. Louis. October, 26.
2018 Invited Public Lecture. “Surfing Beyond California’s Beach Babe Clichés.” Historic Cottage at San Clemente Beach Campground.” San Onofre Parks Foundation. September 19.
2018 Invited Presentation. “Building Feminist Alliances in Europe,” for Opening Workshop, “Collaborating Across Geographies.” Institute for Women Surfers Europe (Wales), July 7.
2018 Invited Public Talk. “Feminism & Critical Surf Studies.” Annenberg Beach House, Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, California. Part of “Critical Surf Studies” panel, in honor of Nick Gabaldon Weekend. Sponsored (among others) by Black Surfers Collective, Heal the Bay, and the Santa Monica Conservancy. June 3.
2018 Faculty Colloquium. “Feminism Between Publics.” Rice University, English Department. Houston, Texas. April 12.
2018 Feminist Research Group. “Parochialism, Homing, Placing.” Rice University, Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Houston, Texas. April 5.
2018 Seminar Respondent. “Material Environmentalisms for Feminist Critical Regionalism.” C19: The Society for Nineteenth-Century Americanists. Albuquerque, New Mexico. March 22.
2018 Invited Speaker with members of the Institute for Women Surfers. “Equity and Coastal Access: Overcoming the Intangible Barriers to California’s Coast.” Sacramento, California. February 28.
2018 Invited Speaker. “Women’s Access and Questions of Value at Mavericks.” Global Wave Conference, Santa Cruz, California. March 6.
2018 Lecture. “Between Publics: Environments, Feminisms, Wests.” Stanford University, Bill Lane Center for the American West. Palo Alto, California. February 16.
2017 Lecture. “The Battle for Mavericks & Other Western Showdowns.” Stanford University, Bill Lane Center for the American West. Palo Alto, California. November 17.
2017 Panelist. “Public Humanities for Graduate Students.” Western Literature Association, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. October 27.
2016 Panelist. “Bioregionalism & Settler Colonialism: Feminist Visions.” Western Literature Association, Big Sky, Montana. September 22.
2016 Graduate Workshop. “Prioritizing Environmentalism in Surfeminism: What’s at Stake? Public Humanities Initiative & Environmental Leadership. University of Oregon, Eugene. May 18.
2016 “States of Surfeminism.” Surfing Social International Conference. Sponsored by University of Waikato. Raglan, Aotearoa New Zealand. February 10.
2016 “Surfeminism, Critical Regionalism, Public Scholarship.” Rice University Anthropology Department Seminar. Houston. January 21.
2015 Keynote. “Thinking Otherwise Across Global Wests: Issues of Mobility & Feminist Critical Regionalism.” American Literary Studies Symposium: Critical Regionalism. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. October 20.
2015 Plenary Speaker. “Toward a Feminist Turn: On the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary.” Western Literature Association. Reno. October 15.
2015 Public Lecture. “Third Wave Feminism.” Texas Democrat Women. Houston. August 24.
2014 Keynote. “Place as Site of World-Making: Feminist States of Critical Regionalism.” III International Conference on the American Literary West. University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. October 10. Podcast: http://ehutb.ehu.es/es/serial/1855.html
2014 Keynote. “Global Wests, Feminist Critical Regionalisms, Thinking Otherwise.” Pop West: An International Symposium. University of Western Australia, Perth. July 25.
2014 Keynote. “What’s ‘Critical’ About Critical Regionalism?” Bavarian International Summer Academy. American Studies in a Transatlantic Perspective: Critical Regionalism in Politics and Culture. Texas State University, San Marcos. June 1.
2013 Public Lecture. “’Philosophies of Storytelling.” BrownGirlSurf Event Commemorating International Day of the Girl. Patagonia, San Francisco. October 8. See: http://www.browngirlsurf.com/surfing-possibility.html
2012 Plenary Speaker. “Emerging Field Issues from Younger Scholars: Report from the Guest Editor.” Western Literature Association. Lubbock, Texas. November 9.
2012 Highlighted Session Speaker. “Theorizing a Feminist Critical Regionalism.” Society for the Study of American Women Writers, Denver. October 13.
2012 Invited Speaker. “Why Contribute?” Launch of Fundraising Campaign for “Living in Possibility,” BrownGirlSurf.com. “Rally” – A Public Space for Social Entrepreneurship, San Francisco. October 12.
2012 “Surfing and the Significance of the Frontier in American Culture After the Cold War.” An International Symposium on The Significance of the Frontier in an Age of Transnational History. The Huntington/USC Institute on California and the West, The Huntington Library. San Marino, California. February 25.
2011 Plenary Speaker. “What’s a Critical Region? Decoloniality and the American West, or Reporting from Collaborative Projects between US West Studies and Latin American Studies.” Western Literature Association. Missoula, Montana. October 6.
2010 Invited Lecture. “West & Postwest: Surfing Subcultures, Gender, Critical Regionalism.” University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. November 12.
2010 Plenary Speaker. “Critical Regionalism, Gender, Western Literary and Cultural Studies.” Western Literature Association. Yavapai-Prescott Tribal Lands (Prescott, Arizona). October 21.
2010 Literary Reading. “Surfing & Globalization.” LitQuake: a San Francisco Literary Festival, Park Chalet. October 4. YouTube: http://vimeo.com/15645795
2010 Invited Lecture. “California Surf Shops and the Transfer of Girl Localist Knowledge.” San Francisco State University. October 5.
2009 Invited Lecture. “Intergenerational Transfer of Feminist Knowledges in California Surf Shops.” Tercera Jornada Internacional. Monterrey Technological Institute. Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, México. October 8.
2009 Keynote. “Surfing the New World Order.” Líder Académico of Humanities and Social Sciences: Lecture Series on Gender, Space, Politics. Monterrey Technological Institute, Monterrey, México, September 6-12.
2008 Invited Lecture. “Girl Power in Mexico? Ethnographies of Surfistas (Surfer Girls) in Sayulita.” Segunda Jornada Internacional. Monterrey Technological Institute, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, México. October 7.
2006 Invited Lecture. “Surfing, Critical Regionalism, American Studies.” University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. April 10.
2005 Plenary Speaker. “History, Fiction and the Literary West.” Western Literature Association. Los Angeles. October 20.
2004 Past President’s Keynote. “Everyday Regionalisms in Contemporary Critical Practice.” Western Literature Association. Big Sky, Montana. September 30.
2003 “An Evening with Sandra Cisneros.” Presentation of Distinguished Achievement Award on behalf of the Western Literature Association. Westin Galleria Ballroom, Houston. October 30.
2003 Plenary Speaker. “The Status of Western Studies Inside and Out.” Western Literature Association, Houston. October 30.
2002 Plenary Respondent. For Annette Kolodny’s “Indians, American Prehistory, and the Myths of National Origin.” Western Literature Association. Tucson. October 10.
2002 Plenary Respondent. “WLA Open Forum on Regionalism and Transnationalism,” Western Literature Association. Tucson. October 11.
2002 Invited Lecture. “Ecotourism, Girls and the Mexican Surfing Surfari.” Department of Environmental Philosophy and Women’s Studies. University of North Texas.
2000 “Surfing on the Edge of History: Grrrl Power and the New World Order.” Drury University, Springfield, Missouri. April 5.
1999 Public Lecture. “Women Outlaws and the New Female Regionalism, OR Who in This World Will Believe Us?” Western Literature Day at Boulder Public Library. March 6.
1998 “In Search of More than an Endless Summer: Surf Cultures of the Early 1970s.”American Literature Association Symposium on Literature and the Environment. Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. December 4.
Conference Presentations
2019 Panel Organizer and Panelist. “Feminist Westerns Engaging Authoritarianism & Climate Injustice.” Western Literature Association, Estes Park, Colorado. September 19.
2019 Panel Chair and Organizer. “Feminist Critical Regionalism: A Semi-Structured Conversation,” Western Literature Association, Estes Park, Colorado. September 20.
2018 Conference Paper. “Surfeminism in the Era of Trump.” Leisure Studies Association. University of Bath. Bath, England. July 10.
2018 Panelist. “Equity and Coastal Access: Overcoming the Intangible Barriers to California’s Coast.” Green California Summit, Sacramento, California, February 28.
2017 Panelist. “Experience, Situated Knowledge, Feminist Wests.” Organizer and Chair of Panel “Owning Up to Our Feminist Thinking. A Workshop in Theory and Practice.” Western Literature Association. Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. October 27.
2015 Respondent. “Resistance, Resilience, Refusal: Urban Geographies.” Western Literature Association. Reno. October 16.
2015 Respondent. “Imagining Race and Gender.” Rice University Center for the Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality, Graduate Symposium. Houston. April 17.
2014 Panelist. “Graduate Student Professionalization: Critical Trends.” Western Literature Association. Victoria, Vancouver Islands, British Columbia. November 5.
2014 Paper. “Survivance, Critical Regionalism, Feminist Storytelling in the Present.” Western Literature Association. Victoria, Vancouver Islands, British Columbia, Canada. November 5.
2014 Respondent. “Commemorating and Containing the Native.” Native American and Indigenous Study Association. Austin. May 30.
2014 Paper. “We’re ‘Blacksurfing’: Public History and Questions of Gender & Sexuality in White Wash.” Organization of
American Historians. Atlanta. April 11.
2013 Paper. “The States of Feminist Critical Regionalism.” Western Literature Association. Berkeley. October 11, 2013.
2012 Paper. “Decolonizing US Western Studies.” Western Literature Association. Lubbock, Texas. November 9.
2012 Paper. “Engaged Research Questions for Public Humanities: BrownGirlSurf and the Changing LA Brand.” Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association. University of San Diego, California. August 10.
2011 Paper. “Bordercrossings between US West and Latin American Studies.” Western Literature Association. Missoula, Montana. October 7.
2011 Paper. “Surf Girl Localisms and Global Imaginations.” Association for the Study of Literature and Environment. University of Indiana, Bloomington. June 23.
2011 Paper. “Novels as Advertisements & ‘Girl Localisms’ Across California and Mexico.” Modern Language Association. Los Angeles. January 6.
2010 Paper. “Local/Global Surf Subcultures, Neoliberal Girlhood, ‘The War on Terror.’” American Studies Association. San Antonio, Texas. November 20.
2010 Respondent. “Altermodern Aesthetics & the Expediencies of Culture.” Panel: “Identities, Mediated Citizenship: Race, Popular Media, and Cities from the 1970s to the Present.” Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association. Santa Clara University, California. August 13.
2009 Paper. “After the Cowboy: Postwestern Masculinity, Suburbia, McCarthy’s Border Trilogy.” Western Literature Association. Spearfish, South Dakota. October 2.
2008 Paper. “Architectures of Abandonment: The Nation State in Ruins.” Western Literature Association. Boulder, Colorado. October 3.2006 Paper. “Feeling Western, Feeling White: Racial/Spatial Structures of Feeling.” Western Literature Association. Boise, Idaho. October 26.
2005 Paper. “Committing to the Wave: Surfing, Community, Critique.” American Studies Association. Washington, D.C. November 4.
2005 Paper. “Malibu and Its Others in Endless Summer (1966): Taking Local Youth Cultures Global.” Western Literature Association. Los Angeles. October 21.
2004 Paper. “The Figure of the Surfer in Narratives of the New World Order.” American Literature Association. San Francisco. May 27.
2002 Paper. “Western Literature at Century’s End: Conceptualizing the Post-ethnic Novel.” Western Literature Association. Tucson. October 11.
2002 Paper. “Tourism on Vacation: Girls and the Mexican Surfing Surfari.” American Studies Association. Houston. November 15.
2001 Moderator. “Popular Culture and Girl Power.” A New Girl Order: Young Women and the Future of Feminism Conference. Kings College, London, November 14.
2001 Paper. “Postmodernism and the West: Reflections on a Post-1989 Field Imaginary.” Western American Literature. Omaha, Nebraska, October 18.
2000 Paper. “Competing for the Cultural Memory of Surfing.” Australian Cultural Studies Association. University of Queensland, Brisbane. December 3.
2000 Paper. “Reading the Gidget Novels: 1950s Female Desire and the West.” Western Literature Association. Norman, Oklahoma. October 26.
2000 Paper. “Bohemianism, Feminism, and 1950s Surfergirls.” American Studies Association. Detroit, Michigan. October 12.
2000 Paper. “Making Sense of Surf Culture.” Rice University Graduate Student Symposium “Analysis Now.” Houston. March 25.
1999 Panel Chair. “Becoming a Western Writer.” American Studies Association. Montreal. October 29.
1999 Paper. “Living Downstream: Eco-surfers and the Fight for Clean Waves.” Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, Kalamazoo, July.
1999 Paper. “Women’s History and the California Counterculture: Surfergirls, A Case Study.” Western Literature Association. Sacramento, California. October 15.
1999 Paper. “Historical and Geographical Imaginations of the New Female Regionalism.” The Berkshires Conference of Women’s History. Rochester, New York. June 5.
1998 Paper. “Wanda Coleman, ‘Blackness,’ and American West Imaginations.” Midwestern Modern Language Association. St. Louis. November 5.
1998 Paper. “Reflections on the Origins of the New Female Regionalism: Thinking about Judith Freeman.” Western Literature Association. Banff, Alberta, Canada. October 15.
1998 Paper. “Geographical Imaginations of the New Female Regionalism.” American Literature Association. San Diego. June 28.
1996 Paper. “Literary Sources for Gender Studies in the New Western History.” Joint meeting of Western Literature Association and Western History Association. Kansas City. October 4.
1995 Paper. “Beyond Sacred Landscapes: New Approaches to Reading Nature.” Western Literature Association. Vancouver, British Columbia. October 13.
1993 Paper. “Western Narrative: A Humanist Imperative? Joan Didion and the Category of `Western.'” Western Literature Association. Wichita, Kansas. October 7.
Television Appearances, Radio Interviews, YouTube Videos, Blog Posts
2013 YouTube. “Philosophies of Storytelling.” BrownGirlSurf Event Commemorating International Day of the Girl. San Francisco. October 8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKr3q_ZbSBw
2013 Radio Interview with Producer West Terry. All Action Sports Radio (AASR). “Roxy Petition & Stephanie Gilmore.” San Diego. September 19. http://www.allactionsportsradio.com/show-archives/all-action-sports-radio-9-22-13
2013 Blog Post. “Road to Roxy: Petition Delivery.” corischumacher.com. September 13. http://www.corischumacher.com/2013/09/13/roxy-petition-delivery
2013 YouTube. “Roxy Trailer Petition Delivery: Next Steps.” September 13. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVrPl7nIZvE
2012 Blog Post. “Ninja, Surfer, Rapper, Environmental Educator: Another Day at the Beach with Mira Manickham.” July. http://www.browngirlsurf.com/4/category/kcomers%20corner%20krista%20comer5ff5244e9d/1.html
2010 YouTube. “Surfing & Globalization,” LitQuake: San Francisco Literary Festival, Park Chalet, October 4. http://vimeo.com/15645795
2010 YouTube. “Krista Comer & the Culture of Surfing.” Sponsored by Duke University Press for Surfer Girls in the New World Order. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax04ICMHgv0
2010 Feature news story. KTRK-TV (Channel 13 News) “Generation X Turns 40,” With Reporter Adela Uchida. May 19. http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=7452697
Teaching
Dissertation Supervision
Julie Williams. “Embodying the West: A Literary and Cultural History of Environment, Body, and Belief.” English Department, University of New Mexico. Committee Member.
Casper Bendixsen, “Pastoralist Ethics and a Spirit of Traditionalism: Livestock, Land, and Kin in the US West.” Anthropology Department, Rice University. Committee Member, May 2014.
John Escobedo. “Mestizaje in Literatures of Dominican Republic, Chicano/as, Puerto Rico.” English Department, Rice University. Committee Member. June 2006.
Gina Weaver. “Representations of Vietnamese Women in US Vietnam Memoir and Film.” English Department, Rice University. Committee Member. May 2006.
Michon Benson. “Masculinity in 19th Century Slave Narratives and Contemporary Hip Hop Culture.” Department of English, Rice University. May 2006. Director.
Priscilla Ybarra. “Walden Pond in Aztlan?” Department of English, Rice University. Committee Member. May 2005.
Shannon Leonard. “Theorizing Mixed-Race Subjectivity in 20th Century Asian American Literature and History.” Committee Member. May 2006.
Undergraduate Honors Theses
Thomas Chen. “Diasporic Literature & the Coloniality of Power.” English, Rice University. 2016. Director.
Ben Ong. “Colonial and Gender Politics in Environmental Documentaries.” Study of Women, Gender & Sexuality, Rice University. 2013. Director.
Josh Cory. “Knowledge and Community in the Transgender Foundation of America.” Study of Women, Gender & Sexuality, Rice University. 2013. Director.
Joshua Redwine. “Americanizing Gay Identities: The Metropolitan/Renegade Binary Contemporary Cinema.” Study of Women, Gender & Sexuality, Rice University. Reader.
Lena Silva. “Contact Improvisation Dance & Feminist Performance Art.” Study of Women, Gender & Sexuality, Rice University. 2013. Reader.
Karen Spitzfaden. “Young People, Christianity, and the Need for Feminist Outreach.” Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality, Rice University. 2008. Director.
Courtney Camp. “New Ways of Looking: Visual Culture in Third Wave Feminism,” Department of English, Rice University. 2007. Director.
Graduate Courses
Critical Regionalisms and Questions of Where (Rice University)
Contemporary Literature & Culture (Rice University)
History & Memory in Literatures of 1968 (Rice University)
Matters of Space: Indian Country, the US/Mexico Borderlands, Los Angeles (Rice University)
Gender, Space, Politics (Monterrey Tec, México)
Directed Readings (Graduate)
Feminist Theory & Environmental Justice
Asian American Literature
US West and Its Others
Feminist Critical Regionalism & Cormac McCarthy
Critical Regionalism & Empire
Undergraduate Courses
Senior Seminar & Research Workshop
Literary Houston
Literatures of Environmental Justice (English capstone)
Feminist Engaged Research: SWGS Seminar & Practicum (SWGS capstone)
Introduction to Study of Women, Gender, Sexuality
Critical Reading and Writing (Genre, Poetics)
Practices in Literary Study (Theory, Interpretation)
Survey of American Literature
American Literature After 1950
Asian American Literature & Culture
Environment and Literature
The American West and Its Others
Generation X in Literature and Culture
Youth Studies
Feminist Theory: Third Wave Feminist Cultures
Directed Readings (Undergraduate)
Queer Gen X
Asian American Literature
Third Wave Feminist Literature and Culture
Feminist Critical Regionalism & US/Mexico Border Literatures
Referee for Journals & Presses
Journals
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies
American Quarterly
Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory
Western American Literature
Pacific Historical Review
American Literature
American Literary History
The Harbinger: International Journal of Language and Literature
American Journal of Philology
Gender, Place and Culture
ISLE: Interdisciplinary Study of Literature and Environment
Transnational Asia
University Presses
Routledge
Duke University Press
University of Nebraska Press
Continuum
University of Arizona Press
University of California Press
Peter Lang
Rice University Service
College Magister. Brown College (2013-)
Magisters’ Committee. Chair (2015)
College Magister. Baker College (2004-2010)
College Magister (Inaugural). Duncan College (2009-2010)
Examinations and Standing Committee Member (2005-2007)
Mellon Program. Faculty Sponsor and Mentor (2001-7)
Faculty Associate. Wiess College (1997-2003)
Special University Projects as Baker College Magister
Young Women’s Feminism, Speaker Series. Jennifer Baumgartner and Amy Richards; Liz Funk; Carly Kocurek (2009-10)
“Girl Talk.” Initiative for generational understanding between older and younger feminists (2005-10)
“Port Talks.” Speaker Series, (2004-10):
Prof. David Gutiérrez, UCSD; Clifford Dasco, M.D., AbramsonFamily Center; Houston journalist Art Rascon; Rice University President David Leebron; Rice Dean of Humanities Gary Wihl; Rice University Campus Minister Kurt Ritz; Screenwriter Suzanne O’Malley; Biologist Mary Ellen Lane; Houston County Judge Ed Emmett
English Department, Rice University
Director of Undergraduate Studies (2020-present)
Undergraduate Curriculum Committee Member (2011-16)
Director of Undergraduate Studies (2008-2010)
Graduate Committee (2001-2; 04-5)
Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality, Rice University
Postdoctoral Fellow Mentor (2012-)
Associate Director, Adviser to the Major (2012-2016)
Chair, Postdoctoral Fellowship Hiring Committee (2014)
Postdoctoral Fellowship Hiring Committee Member (2012)
Member, Steering Committee (2003-)
Américas Research Center, Rice University
Chair, Local/Global West Research Cluster (2007-)
Member, Committee for Latin American Studies Major (2014)
Convener, US West/Américas International Seminar (2011)
Member, Center Charter Steering Committee (2007)
Professional Service
Western Literature Association
Executive Council, Elected Member (2019-present)
Thomas J. Lyon Book Award, Committee Chair (2018)
Editorial Board, Western American Literature (1999-)
Program Committee, Western Literature Association Conference, Reno (2014-15)
Chair, Don D. Walker Award for Best Essay in Western American Literary and Cultural Studies (2006-11)
Committee Member, Don D. Walker Award for Best Essay in Western American Literary and Cultural Studies (2003-6)
President, Western Literature Association (2003)
President Elect, Western Literature Association (2002)
Vice President, Western Literature Association (2001)
American Studies Association
Rourke Prize Committee for Best Essay in American Quarterly (2010-12)
Professional Organizations
American Studies Association
Western Literature Association
Western History Association
Coalition of Western Women Historians
Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
Organization of American Historians
Pacific Coast Branch—American Historical Association
Pen Center West
Modern Language Association
Australian Cultural Studies Association
National Women’s Studies Association
Society for the Study of American Women Writers
