Academic Positions Held

Associate Professor of English (2005 to the present)

Director of the McNair Scholars Program (2007-present)

Chair of the University Curriculum Council (2008-2009)

Assistant Professor of English (1999 to 2005)

Director of African American Studies (2002 to 2006)

Trinity University

Courses Taught: African American Literature; American Literature: Colonization to 1900; American Literature: New Realism through the Moderns; The American Novel; The Beat Generation; Introduction to African American Studies; First Year Seminar: “American” “Culture”; The Harlem Renaissance; Literature and Culture in the Latina/o Borderlands; The Lost Generation; Modernism; Postmodern Literature; Writing Workshop

Additional Research and Teaching Interests: Twentieth-Century American Literature; Modernist and Avant-Garde Movements; Ethnicity and Literature; The Institutional History of American Studies

Teaching Fellow in English & American Literature & Language (1995 to 1999)

Harvard University

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Education

Dissertation: “Literary History and the Age of Jazz: Generation, Renaissance, and American Literary Modernism” (directed by Lawrence Buell and Werner Sollors) [UMI Number: 9949807]

Undergraduate Honors Thesis: “Poetry, Performance, Politics: A Study of Two Caribbean Dub Poets” (directed by Sylvia Wynter)

Publications: Books

Teaching the Harlem Renaissance: Course Design and Classroom Strategies. Ed. Michael Soto. New York: Peter Lang, 2008.

Resources for Teaching The Bedford Anthology of American Literature vol. 2. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008.

The Modernist Nation: Generation, Renaissance, and Twentieth-Century American Literature. Tuscaloosa and London: U of Alabama P, 2004. Winner of the Elizabeth Agee Prize for outstanding scholarship in American literary studies.

Publications: Academic Articles

“Oscar Zeta Acosta,” “Harlem Renaissance,” and “Américo Paredes.” Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 2005.

“Transculturation and the Discourse of American Modernism.” Sites of Ethnicity: Europe and the Americas. Eds. William Boelhower et al. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 2004. 149-63.

“Museo Without Walls.” American Quarterly 55 (2003): 89-102.

“The Bohemianization of America (and the Americanization of Bohemia).” Literature on the Move: Comparing Diasporic Ethnicities in Europe and the Americas. Eds. Dominique Marçais et al. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 2002. 25-35.

“Hemingway Among the Bohemians: A Generational Reading of The Sun Also Rises.” The Hemingway Review 21.1 (2001): 5-21.

“Jean Toomer and Horace Liveright; or, a New Negro gets ‘into the swing of it.’” Jean Toomer and the Harlem Renaissance. Eds. Geneviève Fabre and Michel Feith. Piscataway: Rutgers UP, 2000. 162-87.

“Responding to Student Writing.” Teaching Fellow Handbook. Cambridge: Department of English & American Literature & Language, Harvard University, 1997. 43.

Publications: Reviews, Interviews, and Other Work

"Plagiarized Work." History News Network 5 May 2010.

"Learning Curve; or Wishful Thoughts for the SBOE." Burnt Orange Report 12 January 2010.

"New Buildings Less Important than Teaching." San Antonio Express-News 26 September 2009: B9.

"Late Postmodernism." Philip Roth Studies 4 (Fall 2008): 191-93.

"Voters Will Be Part of History" (with Maria Antonietta Berriozabal). Brownsville Herald 2 March 2008: E3.

"A Powerful Political Moment" (with Maria Antonietta Berriozabal). San Antonio Express-News 29 February 2008: online edition.

"U.S. Should Rethink Its Role in the World" (with Maria Antonietta Berriozabal). Austin American-Statesman 27 February 2008: online edition.

"We Must Make Concerted Effort to Meet Our Children's Educational Needs" (with Ernesto Nieto). Brownsville Herald 2 September 2007: E2.

"An Investment in the Future" (with Ernesto Nieto). San Antonio Express-News 27 August 2007: 5B.

"Where is the Village that Will Educate the Child?" (with Ernesto Nieto). Fort Worth Star-Telegram 26 August 2007: 4E.

"Wilkommen zu Hause, Karlitos!" San Antonio Current 22 August 2007: Last Words Section.

“Bean There, Done That.” San Antonio Current 7 March 2007: Last Words Section.

“Attorney General Addresses NCSL.” San Antonio Current 6 December 2006: Last Words Section.

“Recriminations-reshiminations.” San Antonio Current 8 November 2006: Last Words Section.

“PGA Village People.” San Antonio Current 18 October 2006: Last Words Section

“The Négritude Renaissance.” Twentieth-Century Literature 51 (2006): 92-95.

 “Letter to Rupert Murdoch.” San Antonio Current 2 August 2006: Last Words Section.

“The Poetics of National and Racial Identity in Nineteenth-Century American Literature.” Modern Philology 103.3 (2006): 442-45.

 “Do Know Much about History.” San Antonio Current 7 June 2006: Last Words Section.

“Star Spangled Kultur War.” San Antonio Current 3 May 2006: Last Words Section.

“Busy Signals.” San Antonio Current 29 December 2005: Last Words Section.

“Who Would Jesus Nominate?” San Antonio Current 13 October 2005: Last Words Section.

“¡Pinche Minutemen!” San Antonio Current 29 September 2005: Last Words Section.

“Mambo Peligroso.” San Antonio Express-News 29 May 2005: Culturas Section.

 “Leading Latina Author to Speak (Interview with Cecile Pineda).” San Antonio Express-News 18 July 2003: S.A. Life Section.

“Gritos.” San Antonio Express-News 18 May 2003: Culturas Section.

“Still the New World.” MELUS: Journal of the Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature in the United States 27 (2002): 238-41.

“Border Matters.” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 23 (Spring 1998): 135-39.

Selected Paper Presentations and Guest Lectures

Invited Public Testimony on Revised Social Studies Standards, Mexican American Legislative Caucus, Texas House of Representatives, Austin, April 2010.

"Writing and Reading Between the Lines: Recovering Voices of Mexican-origin Women," Western History Association conference, October 2009.

“Espansish Harlem on My Mind: Notes on the Study of Race and Ethnicity in American Cultural History,” Heman Sweatt Symposium on Civil Rights, University of Texas at Austin, March 2008.

“‘Mecca for … the entire Negro World’: Racial Identity and National Origin in Harlem, 1910-1930,” American Studies Association convention, Philadelphia, October 2007.

“Mapping Fear: Harlem in the Geographic Imagination.” Multicultural Conference, San Antonio College, April 2007.

“Citizens, Outcasts, and Enemies: Transnational War and Latino/a Agency,” American Studies Association convention, Oakland, October 2006.

“Of Borders and Bandits: Los Sediciosos in American Cultural History,” National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies conference, Guadalajara, Mexico, June 2006.

“What’s Modern about America? What’s American about Modernism?” and “Great and Greater Gatsbys,” Marion Koolgler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, April 2006.

“Texas: Cultural Studies, Mexicans and Modernity, 1915-1941,” Inter-University Program for Latino Research conference, Austin, January 2005.

“The Alamo: An Icon for all Ages,” Daughters of the Republic of Texas 16^th History Forum, The Alamo, San Antonio, October 2004.

“Cutting It Short: Mina Loy and the Modernist Long Poem,” Society for the Study of American Women Writers international conference, Ft. Worth, September 2003.

“Theorizing the Border, Theorizing the Body,” Latina Letters conference, St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, July 2003.

“How to Be a Bohemian: Lessons from Puccini to Moulin Rouge,” Hot Shot Lecture Series, Trinity University, San Antonio, August 2002.

“Europe’s Lost Generations,” International Hemingway Society conference, Stresa, Italy, July 2002.

“Transculturation and the Discourse of American Modernism,” MESEA (Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and Americas) conference, Padua, Italy, June 2002.

“This is Your Life—in Literature,” Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, May 2002.

“The Alamo in Literature and Film,” Institute of Texan Cultures, San Antonio, October 2001.

“Hawthorne and the Puritan Imagination,” Edison High School, San Antonio, September 2001.

“Dismembering the Alamo: Adina De Zavala and the Gender Politics of History,” Latina Letters conference, St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, July 2001.

“William Carlos Williams’s Modernist President,” American Literature Association conference, Cambridge, May 2001.

Panel Chair, “Men, Women, and Girls in Twentieth-Century African-American Women’s Literature,” Society for the Study of American Women Writers first international conference, San Antonio, February 2001.

Panel Chair, “Contemporary Literature: Searching for the American Dream But Finding Texas,” American Studies Association of Texas 44^th annual meeting, Baylor University, Waco, November 2000.

“The Bohemianization of America (and the Americanization of Bohemia),” Europe and the United States: Comparative Ethnic Literatures conference, Université d’Orléans, Orléans, France, June 2000.

“The Significance of La Frontera in American History,” Multicultural Conference, San Antonio College, April 2000.

“Langston Hughes and Jazz and Blues in Harlem and Paris,” Edison High School, San Antonio, November 1999.

“Feminist Modernism and Ethnic Modernity: Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior,” Harvard University Extension School, April 1999.

“Renaissance Rhetoric and American Cultural Nationalism,” American Studies Association conference, Seattle, November 1998.

Panel Chair, “The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: History and Literature, Theory and Practice,” National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies conference, Mexico City, May 1998.

“Américo Paredes, Chicano Critical Discourse, and the New American Studies,” Ford Foundation Latina/o Studies Seminar, Harvard University, April 1998.

“Jean Toomer and Horace Liveright; or a New Negro gets ‘into the swing of it,’” International Conference on the Harlem Renaissance, Université Paris VII (Denis Diderot), Paris, January 1998.

“Chicano Narrative and the American Canon,” Chicano Cultural Critique conference, University of Colorado, Boulder, April 1997.

“Done With Lamps and Mirrors: Reconsidering the Romance Thesis,” America, Inc. conference, Columbia University, May 1997.

Additional Professional Memberships and Public Service 

American Association of University Professors

American Studies Association

Benitia Family Center Board of Directors (former)

Modern Language Association

National Hispanic Institute Trustee (former)

San Antonio Education Partnership Board of Directors

Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (2003 Conference Committee)

Trinity University Press Editorial Board (former)