Fictions of Destruction: Post-1945 Narrative and Disaster in the Collective Imaginary
255 South Rengstorff Avenue, Apt. 135
Mountain View, California 94040
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Ramon Saldivar, Amir Eshel, Ursula K. Heise
The threat of annihilation via mass-scale destruction, whether nuclear, environmental, pathological or otherwise, is a real, current fear held by many individuals across national and cultural boundaries. My project harnesses the unique potential of narrative fiction to explore the anxieties which have permeated the cultural environment in the Nuclear Age. I address vital humanistic questions in our experience of modernity, including how our visions of futurity change along with our relationship with the turbulent past of the 20th century; ethical, pragmatic questions of human agency accentuated by survival situations; and the possible loss of the Industrial Era's rhetoric of progress.
Stanford University:
• Spring 2012: Instructor, COMPLIT 128: Survivors: Stories of Staying Alive
• Spring 2011: Teaching Assistant, COMPLIT 150: Terror and Apocalypse. Prof. Russell Berman
• Fall 2010: Teaching Assistant, COMPLIT 121: Poems, Poetry, Worlds. Prof. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht
• Winter 2010: Teaching Assistant, ENGLISH 172E /COMPLIT 142: Literature of the Americas. Profs. Ramón Saldívar and Roland Greene
• Summer and Fall 2010: Tutor, Language and Orientation Tutoring Program
• Winter and Spring 2009: Instructor, Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR 1-20): "When Comics Get Serious: The Rhetoric of Graphic Narratives"
St. Mary’s University:
Teaching Assistant / Substitute for:
• International Literary Types I: Short Story and Essay
• International Literary Types II: Poetry and Drama
• Drama Analysis
• Fiction Analysis
• Hero and Anti-Hero in Southern Fiction
• American Romanticism: Origin and Development
• Rhetoric and Composition
Guest Reader/Lecturer:
• Poetry Writing Workshop
• New Technologies in Communication
Publications and Translations:
“Uncanny Encounters: Face to Face with ‘Failed’ Assimilation.” Provocation and Negotiation: Essays in Comparative Criticism. Rodopi, Forthcoming.
Translator (in progress). El Eternauta. Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López. Publisher pending.
Interview. “Scott Bukatman on Terminal Identity and Our Contemporary Lifestyle.” Three Wise Monkeys. 11 August 2012. Part 1 of 2. http://thethreewisemonkeys.com/2012/08/11/scott-bukatman-on-terminal-ide...
Interview. “Scott Bukatman on the Art of Comics and Comics as Art.” Three Wise Monkeys. 25 Sept 2012. Part 2 of 2. http://thethreewisemonkeys.com/2012/09/25/scott-bukatman-on-the-art-of-c...
Co-author. "From Faceless Crowds to Crowds of Faces: 'You' in the World of the Future, Today." Creative Magazine 1/n. Issue 2: Survival Kit (2010 Spring): 106-116.
Spanish/English introduction, translation editor. Memorial del viento: Wind Memorial. By Pablo López del Castillo. Poetry. San Antonio, TX: Orchard Press, 2005.
“All This Clutter.” Poem. Pecan Grove Review. Vol. X. Spring 2007.
“Inverting Alice: The Female Reaction to a Culture of Opposites.” Proceedings of the Women’s Global Connection Conference 2006.
Review columnist, interviewer. “Beyond the Book,” News 4 WOAI San Antonio – woai.com. Book reviewer, executive producer and on-camera talent for more than 20 columns, many of which include author interviews and mini-documentary features on works of poetry, fiction, non-fiction and theater, among them poet Naomi Shihab Nye and history writer Paul Schneider.
Music reviewer. DailySonic. Online mp3zine. Wrote, produced and digitally edited reviews and interviews of contemporary musicians.
Translator: gallery notes, community outreach materials. Artpace Contemporary Art Gallery. San Antonio, TX.
Conferences:
“Ignite!” Presentation, “Urban/Jungles.” Division of Literatures, Cultures and Languages Graduate Conference. October 26-27, 2012. Stanford University.
• "The Broken Road to the Future: The Destruction of the Metaphor of Progress"
Featured Speaker at The Graphic Narrative Project, Stanford Humanities Center Geballe Research Workshop. October 17, 2012.
• "The Walking Dead: Hope, Despair and the Art of Survival"
American Comparative Literature Association Conference 2009. Boston, MA.
• "The DIY Handbook to Apocalypse, Or How Alternative Fiction Gave Birth to a Steam-Powered Subculture"
Hermes Consortium for Literary and Cultural Studies, 2008 International Symposium and Doctoral Seminar. University College London. "Comparative Literature: Models for Interdisciplinarity in the Humanities?"
• "The Hybrid Unheimlich: Uncanny Encounters with Octavio Paz and Gilberto Freyre"
American Comparative Literature Association Conference 2008. Long Beach, CA.
• "Facing the Monster in Modern Catalan Literature: Encounters With the Fantastic in Joan Perucho’s Les històries naturals"
South Central Modern Language Association Conference 2006. Dallas, TX. “Cultural Roundup.”
• “Imigración e hibridez en las obras de Cristina García y Ana Menéndez.” Presented during the session of the Asociación de Literatura Femenina Hispánica.
St. Mary’s University Graduate Symposium. 2006. San Antonio, TX
• “Dreaming the Homeland: Displacement and Hybridity in the Novels of Cristina Garcia and Ana Menéndez.”
• Graduate student panelist on “Current Trends in Graduate Research.”
College English Association Conference 2006. San Antonio, TX.
• “Inverting Alice: The Female Reaction to a Culture of Opposites.” Here the focus is on a postcolonial analysis of Victorian education as portrayed in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
Women’s Global Connection International Conference 2006. San Antonio, TX
• “Inverting Alice: the Female Reaction to a Culture of Opposites.” Here the focus is on what Lewis Carroll’s Alice books can teach about current global consciousness and attitudes toward unfamiliar cultures.
Latina Letters Conference 2005: “Ten Years of Latina Letters.” San Antonio, TX.
• “Angels of Light on the Wings of Uncertainty: A Study of Spiritual Symbolism in De Los Amores Negados by Ángela Becerra” (note: author of work studied no relation to author of paper).
Stanford University Humanities and Sciences Fellowships, Fall 2007-Spring 2012
Distinguished Graduate, St. Mary's University (Master of Arts, English Literature and Language)
School of Criticism and Theory, 2009. Cornell University