Deborah A. Miranda Professor of English

Payne 124
540.458.8755
mirandad@wlu.edu
Website - Curriculum Vitae

Deborah A. Miranda’s primary teaching and research topics include American Literature that is off the canonical map - in other words, contemporary American Lit by authors from the margins of U.S. culture.  This literature typically approaches America culture from directions previously unconsidered, as we see the world through the eyes of Native Americans, Chicanos and Chicanas, African Americans, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Appalachians, Southern Americans, and more.  Contexts such as environmental issues, economic limitations, linguistic barriers/advantages, and historical trauma are all explored in voices typically not heard in mainstream literature.  Many of Professor Miranda's courses are cross-listed with Women's Studies, Shepherd Poverty Program, Latin American & Caribbean and African American Studies programs and, with permission of each program's director and Professor Miranda, may be taken for credit in those areas.

Professor Miranda is in demand as a guest speaker on these topics, and has lectured at numerous universities, including Ohio State University, UC Santa Cruz, Bard College, University of Illinois at Springfield, University of Texas at San Antonio, Aquinas College, UC California at Los Angeles, Oregon State University, Willamette College, Seattle University, University of California at Long Beach, Colby College, Texas Women's University, Texas A & M University, Kenyon College, Syracuse University, SUNY Oneonta, and many others.

 

Education

PhD. in English, University of Washington (2001)
M.A. in English, University of Washington (spring 2001)
B.S., Teaching Moderate Special Needs Children, Wheelock College (1983)

Professor Miranda has studied creative writing with numerous authors, including Grace Paley, Mimi Khalvati, Olga Broumas, Dorothy Allison, Ruth Behar, Leslie Marmon Silko, Linda Hogan, Norma Cantu, Norma Alarcon, Kristin Naca.  She is a member of Macondo, the writer's workshop founded by Sandra Cisneros, and the Native Writing Circle of the Americas. 

Research

Native American fiction, poetry, memoir, creative writing.  Women's literature.  Gay/Lesbian/Transgendered/Queer/2-Spirit literature.  California Indian literatures arising out of the Mission, Mexican and American eras.  Hand-made books.  Reclaimation of archival materials as resources for healing from historical trauma.  Chicana/Chicano Literature.

Professor Miranda's 2012-2013 sabbatical research was funded by a Lenfest Sabbatical Grant for her project, The Hidden Stories of Isabel Meadows and Other California Indian Lacunae.

Teaching

WRIT 100-First Year Writing Seminar: Indian Country

English 230-Poetry

English 260-Literary Approaches to Poverty

English 262-Race, Ethnicity, and Literature

English 293-American Ethnic Literature

Creative Writing Courses

English 204-Introduction to Creative Writing: Poetry Workshop

English 307-Advanced Poetry Workshop

English 307 Spring Term-Fresh, Local, Wild: the Poetics of Food

English 309-Writing the Memoir

Seminar and Capstone Topics

English 413-The Art of the Word-a whole-body experience; The Mosaic of Memoir; Off the Canonical Map in American Literature; Class, Gender and Sexuality in American Literature

English 299-U.S. History in Native American Literature

English 361-Native American Literatures

English 380-Women of Color and Feminism in Literature, Native American Women's Literature, American Ethnic Literature, Chicano/a Literature

Selected Publications

Books

Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir.  Heyday P (2013). 

Sovereign Erotics: An Anthology of Two-Spirit Literature. Ed.,with Qwo-Li Driskill, Daniel Heath Justice and Lisa Tatonetti. U of Arizona P (2011) - Silver Medalist, Independent Publisher Book Awards; Finalist, Lambda Literary Award; Pathfinder Award, Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers; Finalist, ForeWord “Book of the Year” Reviews.

The Zen of La Llorona. Salt P (2005).

Indian Cartography: poems. Greenfield Review P (1999). Winner of 1997 Diane Decorah Memorial First Book (poetry) from the Native Writer's Circle of the Americas.

Poetry and Essays

(Journals)

Poems in Association for Studies in American Indian Literature (ASAIL), Bellingham Review, Bellowing Ark, Bricolage, Callaloo, Calyx, The Cimarron Review, Natural Bridge Literary Journal, News from Native California, Platte Valley Review, Poets On, Raven Chronicles, Snake Nation Review, Southern California Quarterly, Studies in American Indian Literatures, Weber Studies: An Interdisciplinary Humanities Journal, West Wind Review, Woman's Journal, Wilderness, Yellow Medicine Review, Native Literatures: Generations, Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetry, Snake Nation Review.

(Anthologies)

Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Blue Light Press 2013); New California Writing (Heyday 2012); En esa redonda nacion de sangre: Poesia indigena estadounidense contemporanea (La Cabra 2011), Sing: Poetry of the Indigenous Americas (U of Arizona 2011), A Bird Black as the Sun: California Poets on Crows and Ravens (Green Poets 2011), Ecopoetry: A Contemporary American Anthology (Trinity U 2012), Spring Salmon, Hurry to Me (Heyday 2008), Aunt Lute Anthology of U.S. Women Writers, Vol. 2 (Aunt Lute 2007),  The Red Issue: Love and Erotica (Nov. 2003); A Fierce Brightness: Twenty-five Years of Women's Poetry in Calyx, ed. Bevery McFarland (Fall 2002); The Dirt is Red Here: Contemporary Native California Poetry and Art, ed. Malcolm Margolin (Hey Day Books, 2002); Bearing Witness, Reading Lives: Imagination, Creativity, & Cultural Change, ed. Gloria Anzaldua and AnaLouise Keating (forthcoming); Through the Eye of the Deer: Contemporary Animal Poems and Stories by American Indian Women, ed. Carolyn Dunn and Carol Comfort (Aunt Lute Books, 2000); Durable Breath, ed. John Smelcer and D. L. Birchfield (Salmon Run P, 1996).

(Essays)

“Extermination of the Joyas: Gendercide in Spanish California.” In Transgender Studies Reader II, ed. by Susan Stryker and Aren Aizura.  Routledge, 2013. 

“Windtalkers: Ugh!” Movie Review.   LeAnne Howe, Harvey Markowitz, and Denise K. Cummings, Eds.  Seeing Red: American Indians, Pixeled Skins.  Forthcoming from Michigan State University Press, 2011.

“Bibliography for Faculty of Color and Their Allies,” http://wiki.mla.org/index.php/Resources_for_Faculty_of_Color_Wiki

“’Saying the Padre Had Grabbed Her’: Rape is the Weapon, Story is the Cure” in Special Issue of Inter/texts on Gender, Culture, and Literature in Indigenous North America.  Fall 2010.  Ed. Laura Beard and Kathryn Shanley.

“Extermination of the Joyas: Gendercide in Spanish California” in The Gay and Lesbian Quarterly 16.1-2. January 2010.  Ed. Daniel Heath Justice.  Duke University Press.

“A Gynostemic Revolution:  Some Thoughts About Orchids, Gardens in the Dunes, and the Indigenous Erotic at Work” in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Gardens in the Dunes: a Casebook ed. by Laura Coltelli.  Edizioni Plus (Pisa University Press).  February 2007.

“Teaching on Stolen Ground.”  Placing the Academy: Essays on Landscape and Academic Identity.  ed. by Rona Kaufman and Jennifer Sinor.  Logan: Utah State University Press, 2007.

A Broken Flute:  Healing from Misrepresentation.  Alta Mira Press, 2006.  Introduction and six reviews of children’s books dealing with Native characters or issues.

“Dildos, Hummingbirds and Driving Her Crazy:  Searching for American Indian Women’s Love Poetry and Erotics.” in Towards a Native American Women's Studies:  Critical/Creative Representations.  Edited by Ines Hernandez-Avila.  Alta Mira Press, 2005. 

“Nomadic Tongues:  American Indian Writers.”  Shenandoah.  Introduction to the special Native American portfolio issue.  Ed. by R.T. Smith. v. 54  no. 3, 2004.

"What's Wrong with a Little Fantasy? Storytelling from the (still) Ivory Tower." This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation. Ed. Gloria Anzaldua and AnaLouise Keating (Routledge, 2002).

"Footnoting Heresy," with AnaLouise Keating. This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation. Ed. Gloria Anzaldua and AnaLouise Keating (Routledge, 2002).

"Dildos, Hummingbirds and Driving Her Crazy: Searching for American Indian Women's Love Poetry and Erotics." Frontiers 23.2 (2003): 135-48.

"A String of Textbooks: Artifacts of Composition Pedagogy in Indian Boarding Schools." The Journal of Teaching Writing. 16.2 (Fall 2000). Interview.

"I Don't Speak the Language that has the Sentences: An Interview with Paula Gunn Allen." Sojourner: The Women's Forum 24. 2 (Feb. 1999).