Mesa Verde Alumni

Nina Forsberg
During my first year in the program, I became interested in the non-traditional author and in exploring the possibilities of viewing as literature the journal entries and essays of scientists and workers, particularly from eighteenth-century scientific ventures. Specifically, the problematic role of the scientist as objective observer with possible imperialistic incentive seemed intriguing. I also enjoy wandering around in the Oregon outdoors and noticing the birds wherever I go.
Jason Schreiner

I graduated with a Masters in Environmental Studies in Winter 2007 and completed a thesis entitled "The Roots of Life: Marx's Concept of Social Metabolism and the Dialectics of Corporeal Praxis." The thesis reconstructs Marx's method by grounding it in the "first fact" to be established for all historical writing, which, according to Marx, is "corporeal organisation and the consequent relation the rest of nature." Specifically, my thesis specifies the categories Marx constructs for explaining how corporeally-specific human individuals are imbricated within a more-than-human world, and how material production interinvolves human and non-human agents and is thus inherently socio-ecological. My other intellectual interests include the liberation philosophy of Enrique Dussel, and the intriguing intersections among the works of Alfred North Whitehead, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, and Isabelle Stengers.

Rosanna West Walker
        I have a BA in history, an MA in folklore, and a Ph.D. in late 19th and early 20th century American and British literature. My         dissertation discusses J. M. Barrie's The Little White Bird (1902), the novel in which Peter Pan is introduced. This work is a dark, macabre sub-text to the later Peter Pan stories. Though the central chapters about Peter Pan form a dialogue with the later Peter Pan stories, The Little White Bird is not written for children. An examination of Barrie’s non-fiction also reveals that it is highly autobiographical. Through a close reading of The Little White Bird I explore the duplicity, unfulfilled desire, and sexual anxiety of this first Peter Pan story. I am most identified as a folklorist. I am activist about promoting the stories of the underrepresented rather than those of the dominant corporate culture. I teach writing, literature, and folklore at Lane Community College. I have several published articles about aspects of Peter Pan and also about Willa Cather's The Professor's House.
 

Matt Hawthorne
I'm a second-year Master's student, reading broadly in the field of literature and the environment. Questions of identity in relation to the "separate" natural world, the pastoral, and the American frontier all interest me, as do whitewater and sea kayaking, rafting, and hiking in the coastal forests of Oregon, Washington, and southeast Alaska.
 
Alastair Hunt
Alastair Hunt thinks that human beings are persuasive fictions. His interests are 19th-century British literature and culture, critical theory, rhetoric, ethics, biopolitics, and the question of the human/the animal. He is currently researching the ethico-political figure of the human species in romantic and post-romantic writing and developing a post-de Manian account of language as zootropic.

Kevin Maier

    I am interested in rhetorical theory, natural history writing, and 19th and 20th century American literature. More specifically, I study hunting and fishing narratives from around the turn of the century. In my spare time I fish and ride bikes.

Ryan Hediger

    I recently defended my dissertation, "Embodying Ethics: At the Limits of the American Literary Subject."  I show how texts that register embodiment operate at the limits of the human and the literary, exposing those limits.  I argue that this exposure can function ethically in the work of Hemingway, Terry Tempest Williams,  Gary Snyder, and others.  In spare time, I bicycle and kayak. 

Matt Kuchar
I'm most interested in literature that focuses on the experience of and identification of wilderness and the natural world. Regarding experience, exactly what roles does nature play in constructing the identity of the individual, especially through the sublime? Regarding identification, how do perceptions and definitions of wilderness shift throughout history (even as they "write" history)? Blessed and cursed by an interest in a little of everything, I hope to incorporate travel narratives and natural history writing into my studies. I love getting outside, whether it's climbing, skiing, or loafing about.
 
Sarah McFarland
My project examines how animals are represented in American literature in ways that reflect issues of gender and power, especially in non-fiction environmental writing of the 20th century. I am also interested in historical exploration narratives and earlier canonical fictions, which I find influence perceptions of animals in more recent works.
 
Rachel Miller       
 I plan to specialize in 19th and 20th century American literature, with emphases on both ecocritical and post-colonial approaches. I am especially interested in the relationship between the subordination and/or exploitation of the natural world and of human groups, especially women and indigenous peoples, and the ways that literature has both sustained and challenged the subjugation of each.
 
Cliff Boyer
       I am interested in science and evolutionary theory, as well as representations of human relationships with nature and the        environment, in American literary naturalism. I believe that an examination of determinism (biological, technological, and
environmental), as it is deployed in American Naturalism, will yield insights that will inform current ecocritical discussions.
 
Dan Shea
    I'm interested in Marxism and environmentalism, especially in relation to concepts of "reproduction" in late-Victorian and early modernist literature. Also like long walks on the beach
Mathew Branch
Mathew is a second year folklore student from the University of Wisconsin. He is focusing on Human-Environment interactions with the aim of trying to better understand how we folklorically construct
"Nature" and our views of environmental issues. He hopes that this information will be of use to environmental activists so that they can better understand the various cultures they are working with.
 
Arwen Spicer
I'm interested in the impact of Darwinism on late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century utopian literature, especially British literature. My master's thesis examined the development of a modern ecological discourse in H. G. Wells's early science fiction. I am also interested in reflections of the environment in science fiction in general.
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Last Updated 10/15/05