NEWS
Southwest Studies in UNM's Department of English http://www.unm.edu/~english/
Michelle P. Baca, MA student in English and Southwest Semester graduate assistant, received the English Department's Katherine Mather Simms Award for 2004. The
cash award is granted to the best undergraduate or graduate essay on New Mexico Folklore. Baca's award-winning essay, “Epic History, Novelistic Discourse: Fray
Angélico Chávez's Regional Narrative, La Conquistadora,” analyzes the confluence of fact and fiction in Chávez's autobiography of Santa Fe's revered, ancient statue. The essay was previously presented at the 2003 Western Literary Association Conference in Houston, Texas.
Jesse Alemán, Assistant Professor of English and director of the Southwest Semester, was awarded a $2,500 grant from UNM's Teaching Allocations Subcommittee to build a Southwest video
library for the teaching enhancement of undergraduate and graduate courses. The library will hold mainstream western, drama, action, and horror movies alongside documentaries, independent films, and movies of historical interest filmed or set in the Southwest,
defined broadly as Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, California, and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. The English Department will house the collection, making accessible to English faculty, students, and staff, but the holdings will be open to the faculty and students
of English courses cross-listed with Native, Chicana/o, American, and Women's Studies programs.
Gloria Anzaldúa Memorial Conference
In honor of and as a memorial for Gloria Anzaldúa, prominent feminist, theorist, Chicana lesbian activist, and writer, the UNM Women
Studies Program, Feminist Research Institute, Southwest Hispanic Research Institute, English Department, the UNM Center for the Southwest, and the Women's Resource Center are sponsoring a one-day UNM Conference
on October 8, 2004. Individual papers, presentations, or panels are requested from UNM faculty, students, and staff. Proposals and papers should be sent by September 23, 2004 to Gail Houston, UNM Women
Studies Director, at MVH 2132 or Humanities Bldg 315 or via email ghouston@unm.edu.
Center for Southwest Research http://elibrary.unm.edu/cswr/ Teresa Marquez , who recently presented a paper on libraries and the Patriot Act at a library conference in China, invites all classes to visit the CSR for library instruction, orientation,
or for personal assistance with research projects. The CSR also welcomes a new director, Michael Kelly , who joined the faculty July 1, 2004.
Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya also announced the Premio Aztlan Literary Prize, which included a $1,000 award. The award will be presented in April 2005 and is intended to support writers
who have not published more than two books. No self-published books or manuscripts in progress are eligible for consideration.
Department of Spanish and Portuguese http://www.unm.edu/~spanish/ Congratulations to Professor Tey Diana Rebolledo , Chair of the Spanish Department, for receiving the Critica Nueva Critical Literature Award. The award ceremony for
Dr. Rebolledo will be held on Tuesday, October 19, from 4:00-5pm, in the Willard Reading Room of the Zimmerman Library. As part of the award, Dr. Rebolledo will give a lecture and meet with students Wednesday,
October 20, from 11am-1pm in the Willard Reading Room. Light refreshments will be served. The Critica Nueva award was initiated by Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya.
Department of Linguistics http://www.unm.edu/~linguist/ Honors undergraduate student Susan Buescher and MA student Evan Ashworth, both of UNM's Department of Linguistics, have been working with
Associate Professor Melissa
Axelrod on a dictionary and language revitalization project with Nambé Pueblo. The mentors and team leaders from Nambé are Brenda McKenna and her mother, Cora McKenna, who is the
language teacher at the Pueblo.
In May, the group put on a Colloquium on the project results so far. They performed a PowerPoint presentation, showing the history of the
Pueblo, the new draft of the dictionary, and materials for the classroom that they've developed. In attendance was the Governor of Nambé Pueblo, Tom Talache, as well as members of the Tribal Council
and residents of the Pueblo. Also attending was Esther Martinez, author of the San Juan Tewa Dictionary.
The research group also presented their work at the annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Conference, held this year at UC-Berkeley. Professor
Axelrod presented the language revitalization research along with co-presenters Cora McKenna; Brenda McKenna; Quelia Musgrave; Evelyn Onaya Hatch from Nambé Pueblo; Jule Gómez de Garcia from California State University, San Marcos; Erin Debenport
from University of Chicago; and UNM linguistics graduate students Susan Buescher and Evan Ashworth. Susan Buescher, was previously named “outstanding senior” at UNM by Sigma Xi, a science research organization.
Also related to Southwest Studies, eight Department of Linguistics graduate students presented papers on Navajo at the annual Workshop on Indigenous Languages conference at UC Santa Barbara on April
30-May 1. Professor Melissa Axelrod was part of a group presenting research on Jicarilla Apache at the same conference.
Chicana/o Studies Program http://www.unm.edu/~chicanos/ Literary folklorist and Professor of Spanish Enrique Lamadrid became the director of UNM's Chicana/o Studies Program after serving as the Program's interim director and emerging as
the top candidate for the directorship after a national search. Become coming home to UNM in 1985, he taught Chicano and Latin American literature and folklore at Northern NM Community College and the
University of Oregon. Lamadrid is a scholar and cultural activist known for his research on mestizo culture, his legendary international field programs, and his community and student advocacy. His vision
of program building stresses inclusion, cultural activism, Spanish language recovery, internationalism, and community involvement.
English Department http://www.unm.edu/~english/ The English Department welcomes its newest faculty member, Professor Michelle Hall-Kells . Dr. Hall-Kells teaches Rhetoric and Composition, with a focus on Civil Rights, sociolinguistics,
and composition/literacy studies. Her book, Inclusion Not Revolution: The Everyday Rhetorics of Dr. Héctor P. García and the Emergence of a Post-WII Mexican American Civil Rights
Movement , is forthcoming from Southern Illinois Press, while her co-edited projects, such as Attending to the Margins and Latina and Latino Discourses, promise to continue her interest in discourses
and rhetorics of Civil Rights and identity.
This past summer, Dr. Elizabeth Archuleta , Assistant Professor of English, served as a consultant/writer for the Public
Radio program, “A Celebration of Southwest Storytellers,” funded
by the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities and produced by Paul Ingles. On September 27, 2003, Demetria Martinez, John Nichols, and Rina Swentzell spoke to an audience at Jemez Valley High School Auditorium.
Their panel was the third in a series that has included celebrated southwest writers such as Denise Chavez, Simon Ortiz, Tony Hillerman, Rudolfo Anaya, and N. Scott Momaday. This series is a fundraiser
for the Friends of the Jemez Springs Public Library.
Dr. Archuleta also taught two summer sections of English 150 for the TRIBES program (Tribal Resource Institute in Business, Engineering, and Science). TRIBES is the cornerstone of the Council of Energy
Resource Tribes Comprehensive Education Program. As a pre-college program for American Indian high school graduates pursuing degrees in science, business, engineering and related fields, TRIBES gives Indigenous
students an opportunity to prepare for the demands of college social and academic life. Seven of this summer's students will be attending UNM in the fall.
Dr. Archuleta authored several reference articles on Simon Ortiz (Acoma Pueblo) and Ofelia Zepeda (Tohono O'odam) for the Encyclopedia of Native American Literature and the Dictionary
of Literary Biography . Her article, “Securing Our Nation's Roads and Borders or Re-Circling the Wagons?: Leslie Marmon Silko's Destabilization of Borders,” is forthcoming in Wicazo Sa Review 's
Spring 2005 special issue on decolonization. Currently, she is researching tribal and American Indian law through the work of Christine Zuni-Cruz, Rebecca Tsosie, Robert Yazzie, and James Zion.
Michelle P. Baca , MA student in English and Southwest Semester graduate assistant, received the English Department's Katherine
Mather Simms Award for 2004. The cash award is granted to the best undergraduate or graduate essay on New Mexico Folklore. Baca's award-winning essay, “Epic History, Novelistic Discourse: Fray Angélico Chávez's
Regional Narrative , La Conquistadora ,” analyzes
the confluence of fact and fiction in Chávez's autobiography of Santa Fe's revered, ancient statue. The essay was previously presented at the 2003 Western Literary Association Conference in Houston,
Texas.
Jesse Alemán , Assistant Professor of English and director of the Southwest Semester, was awarded a $2,500 grant from UNM's Teaching Allocations Subcommittee to build a Southwest
video library for the teaching enhancement of undergraduate and graduate courses. The library will hold mainstream western, drama, action, and horror movies alongside documentaries, independent films,
and movies of historical interest filmed or set in the Southwest, defined broadly as Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, California, and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. The English Department will house
the collection, making accessible to English faculty, students, and staff, but the holdings will be open to the faculty and students of English courses cross-listed with Native, Chicana/o, American, and
Women's Studies programs. |
