KRISTA COMER
EDUCATION
1996 Brown University, Ph.D. American Civilization
1990 Brown University, M.A. American Civilization
1988 Wellesley College, Women’s Studies with honors.
Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude.
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
2007 Associate Professor of English, Rice University
2001 Assistant Professor of English, Rice University
1997 Lecturer in English, Rice University
OTHER RESEARCH & ADMINISTRATIVE APPOINTMENTS
2010-12 American Studies Association, Constance Rourke Prize Committee for Best Article in American Quarterly
2009 September. Visiting Scholar in Humanities and Social Sciences (“Líder Académico”), Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Lectures Topic: Gender and Space.
2007-present Chair, Local/Global American West Research Cluster, The Américas Research Center at Rice University
2003-present Core Term Member of Steering Committee, Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Rice University
2003-2010 Master of Baker Residential College, Rice University
2009-2010 Interim First Master of Duncan Residential College, Rice University
2003-present Don D. Walker Award Committee, Western Literature Association’s Annual Best Essay (Chair, 2006-present)
2003 President, Western Literature Association
2002 President Elect, Western Literature Association
2001 Vice President, Western Literature Association
1999-present Editorial Board, Western American Literature
1998-2001 Executive Council, Western Literature Association
CURRENT SPECIAL PROJECTS
2011 Local/Global West International Seminar “West/Américas/Other Wests,” Rice University, a project of the Américas Research Center
2005-present Founder of Baker College Girl Talk: Intergenerational Conversations
BOOKS
in process Politics, Bodies, Surf Girls: Photos and Story (a collaborative work with photographer and filmmaker Elizabeth Pepin)
in process Beyond 766 Valencia Street. (Memoir)
in process West, Américas, Other Wests: Conversations across Western American and Latin American Studies
2010 Surfer Girls in the New World Order (Durham: Duke University Press)
1999 Landscapes of the New West: Gender & Geography in Contemporary Women’s Writing. (ChapelHill: University of North Carolina Press.)
PRIZES & HONORS
1999 Winner, Don D. Walker Award for Annual Best Essay. Sponsored by the Western Literature Association, for “Revising Western Criticism Through Wanda Coleman.” Western American Literature, Winter 1999 33(4), 357-83. Cash Award.
1999 Dean’s Summer Research Fellowship, Rice University. Support for collection of oral histories of women surfers in Santa Cruz, California.
1998 Finalist, Don D. Walker Award for Best Essay of the Year, for “Literature, Gender Studies, and the New Western History.”Arizona Quarterly 53:2 (Summer 1997). Sponsored by the Western Literature Association.
1998 Nominated for Year’s Best Essay by the Western Historical Association, for “Literature, Gender Studies, and the New Western History.” (cited above)
1997 Contributor to “Annual Best Special Issue.” Awarded by MLA and Council of Editors of Learned Journals to Arizona Quarterly 53:2 (Summer 1997), “The New Western History: An Assessment.” Contributed essay, “Literature, Gender Studies, and the New Western History,” 99-134.
1993 Horton Hollowell Dissertation Research Fellowship, Wellesley College, Cash Award.
1989 Fanny Bullock Workman Graduate Fellowship, Wellesley College, Cash Award.
1988 Mary Lyons Prize for Writing, Wellesley College, Cash Award.
1986 Joanna Mankiewicz Prize for Writing. Wellesley College, Cash Award.
1986 Mary Lyons Prize for Writing, Wellesley College, Cash Award.
ARTICLES
2010 “Exceptionalisms, Other Wests, Critical Regionalism,” forthcoming, American Literary History. Advance access: http://alh.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2010/08/24/alh.ajq043.full.pdf...
2010 “New West, Urban and Suburban Spaces, Postwest,” in Nicolas Witschi, ed. Literatures of the American West, forthcoming Routledge.
2010 “Surfing the New World Order: Gender, Generation, Place.” Under review at American Quarterly.
2007 “Western,” in Keywords for American Cultural Studies, eds. Bruce Burgett & Glenn Hendler (New York, NYU Press), 238-42.
2007 “Everyday Regionalisms in Contemporary Critical Practice,” in Postwestern Cultures: Literature, Theory, Space, ed. Susan Kollin (University of Nebraska Press) 30-58.
2004 “Wanting to be Lisa: Generational Rifts, Girl Power, and the Globalisation of Surf Culture,” American Youth Cultures, ed. Neil Campbell (NY: Routledge) 237-65.
2003 “Taking Feminism and Regionalism Toward the Third Wave,” A Companion to the Regional Literatures of America, ed. Charles Crow (New York: Blackwell Publishing) 111-128.
2003 “Western Literature at Century’s End: Sketches in Generation X, Los Angeles, and the Post-Civil Right Novel,” Pacific Historical Review, August 2003 (72:3) 405-15.
1999 “Revising Western Criticism through Wanda Coleman.” Western American Literature, Winter 1999 33(4), 357-83.
1997 “Sidestepping Environmental Justice: ‘Natural’ Landscapes and the Wilderness Plot.” Frontiers, Special issue “Intersections of Feminisms and Environmentalisms,” 18:2 (1997) 73-101.
Reprinted from an abbreviated version published in Breaking Boundaries: New Perspectives on Regional Fiction, Sherrie Inness & Diana Royers, eds. (Iowa City:
UP Iowa, 1997) 216-236.
1997 “Literature, Gender Studies, and the New Western History.” Arizona Quarterly, Special Issue, “Assessing the New Western History,” 53:2 (1997) 99-134.
Reprinted in The New Western History: The Territory Ahead. Forrest Robinson, editor (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997) 99-134.
1997 “Feminism, Women Writers, and the New Western Regionalism: Revising Critical Paradigms.” Updating the Literary West, Compiled by Western Literature Association (Fort Worth: Texas Christian UP) 17-34.
SHORTER PIECES, BOOK REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS
2011 “The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of Los Angeles,” Kevin R. McNamara, ed. Book review, forthcoming Pacific Historical Review.
2009 “Imagining the African American West,” and “Wrangling Women: Humor and Gender in the American West,” Book reviews, American Literature (March 2010, 28:1), 202-04.
2005 “Distinguished Achievement Award to Saldívar Family,” Western American Literature, 40:3 (2005): 342-44.
2003 “Don’t You Think We Need a Love Story Here? An Interview with Sandra Cisneros” co-written with José F. Aranda, Jr. Imprint News (Spring 2003): 2-4.
2001 “Surfergirls.” Girlhood in America: An Encyclopedia. Denver: ABC-CLIO Publishers.627-31
2001 “Joan Didion.” The Literary Dictionary, on line encyclopedic resource. (www.litencyc.com)
1999 “Lost (and Found) in Disneyland: WLA and Cultural Studies.” Western American Literature 32:2 (Summer 1999) 177-81.
1998 Biographical essays on Lorna Dee Cervantes, Sandra Cisneros, Américo Paredes, Cherríe Moraga, Luis Valdez. Encyclopedia of Folklore and Literature 1, Mary Ellen Brown and Bruce Rosenburg, editors. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO Press, 106-7, 422-3, 491-2, 685-6.
1997 Zeese Papanikolas, Trickster in the Land of Dreams, rev. in Western Historical Quarterly 28:2 (1997) 243-4.
1997 “Joan Didion’s California.” Updating the Literary West, Compiled by Western Literature Association (Fort Worth: Texas Christian UP), 346-51.
1994 Pat Mora, Nepantla: Essays from Land in the Middle, rev. in Western American Literature, 29:2.
1993 Sylvia Lopez-Medina, Cantora: A Novel, rev. in Western American Literature 28:3.
CONFERENCE PAPERS/INVITED TALKS/MEDIA APPEARANCES
2011 “Novels as Advertisements & ‘Girl Localisms’ Across California and Mexico,” paper delivered at MLA, Los Angeles, January 6.
2010 “Local/Global Surf Subcultures, Neoliberal Girlhood, ‘The War on Terror,’” Paper delivered at American Studies Association, San Antonio, Texas, November 20.
2010 “West & Postwest: Surfing Subcultures, Gender, Critical Regionalism,” Invited Lecture, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, November 12.
2010 “Critical Regionalism, Gender, Western Literary and Cultural Studies,” Plenary Lecture, Western Literature Association, October 21, Yavapai-Prescott Tribal Lands (Prescott, Arizona).
2010 “Surfing & Globalization,” Invited Reading for LitQuake, San Francisco Literary Festival at the Park Chalet (Great Highway), October 4. Watch the reading on YouTube: http://vimeo.com/15645795
2010 “California Surf Shops and the Transfer of Girl Localist Knowledge,” Invited Lecture, San Francisco State University, Oct 5.
2010 “Altermodern Aesthetics & the Expediences of Culture,” Comment on “Mediated Identities, Mediated Citizenship: Race, Popular Media, and Cities from the 1970s to the Present,” Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, Santa Clara University, California, August 13.
2010 KTRK-TV (Channel 13 News) “Generation X Turns 40,” Feature story with reporter Adela Uchida. May 19. Watch the story here: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=7452697
2009 “Intergenerational Transfer of Feminist Knowledges in California Surf Shops,” Paper presented at the TerceraJornada Internacional, Monterrey Technological Institute, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.
2009 “After the Cowboy: Postwestern Masculinity, Suburbia, the Border Triology,” Paper presented at Western Literature Association, Spearfish, South Dakota.
2008 “Girl Power in Mexico: Ethnographies of Surfistas (Surfer Girls) in Sayulita,” Invited Paper presented at Segunda Tercera Jornada Internactional, Monterrey Technological Institute, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.
2008 “Architectures of Abandonment: The Nation State in Ruins,” Paper presented at Western Literature Association, Boulder, Colorado.
2006 “Feeling Western, Feeling White: Racial/Spatial Structures of Feeling.” Paper presented at Western Literature Association, Boise, Idaho.
2006 “Surfing, Critical Regionalism, American Studies” Invited Lecture, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, March.
2005 “Committing to the Wave: Surfing, Community, Critique.” American Studies Association. November, Washington, D.C.
2005 “History, Fiction and the Literary West,” Plenary Speaker, Western Literature Association. October, Los Angeles.
2005 “Malibu and Its Others in Endless Summer (1966): Taking Local Youth Cultures Global.” Paper presented at Western Literature Association, October, Los Angeles.
2004 “The Figure of the Surfer in Narratives of the New World Order,” Paper presented at the American Literature Association, San Francisco, May.
2004 “Everyday Regionalisms in Contemporary Critical Practice.” Past President’s Address to the Western Literature Association, Big Sky, Montana, October.
2003 “An Evening with Sandra Cisneros,” Public Event at the Westin Galleria Ballroom, Houston, Texas, presentation to Cisneros of Distinguished Achievement Award on behalf of the Western Literature Association. October 30.
2003 “The Status of Western Studies Inside and Out,” Plenary Organizer and Convener, Western Literature Association, Houston, October 30.
2002 Plenary Respondent to Annette Kolodny’s “Indians, American Prehistory, and the Myths of National Origin.” Western Literature Association, Tucson, October 10.
2002 “Western Literature at Century’s End: Conceptualizing the Post-ethnic Novel,” Paper presented at Western Literature Association, Tucson, October 11.
2002 “WLA Open Forum on Regionalism and Transnationalism,” Plenary Comment, Western Literature Association, Tucson, October 11.
2002 “Tourism on Vacation: Girls and the Mexican Surfing Surfari,” American Studies Association, Houston, November 15.
2002 “Ecotourism, Girls and the Mexican Surfing Surfari,” Invited public lecture, sponsored by the Department of Environmental Philosophy and Women’s Studies, University of North Texas.
2001 “Popular Culture and Girl Power,” Moderator, at the A New Girl Order: Young Women and the Future of Feminism Conference, Kings College, London, November.
2001 “Postmodernism and the West: Reflections on a Post-1989 Field Imaginary,” Paper presented at Western American Literature, Omaha, Nebraska, October.
2000 “Competing for the Cultural Memory of Surfing.” Paper delivered at the Australian Cultural Studies Association, University of Queensland, Brisbane, December 3.
2000 “Reading the Gidget Novels: 1950s Female Desire and the West.” Paper delivered at the Western Literature Association, Norman, Oklahoma, October 26.
2000 “Bohemianism, Feminism, and 1950s Surfergirls.” Paper delivered at the American Studies Association, Detroit, Michigan. October 12.
2000 “Surfing on the Edge of History: Grrrl Power and the New World Order.” Invited public lecture, Drury University, Springfield, Missouri, April 5.
2000 “Making Sense of Surf Culture.” Paper delivered at “Analysis Now,” Rice University Graduate Student Symposium, Houston, Texas, March 25.
1999 “Becoming a Western Writer.” Panel Chair, American Studies Association, Montreal, Canada, October.
1999 “Living Downstream: Eco-surfers and the Fight for Clean Waves.” Paper accepted for Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, Kalamazoo.
1999 “Women’s History and the California Counterculture: Surfergirls, A Case Study.” Paper delivered at Western Literature Association, Sacramento, California, October.
1999 “Historical and Geographical Imaginations of the New Female Regionalism.” Paper delivered at the Berkshires Conference of Women’s History, Rochester, NY, June.
1999 “Women Outlaws and the New Female Regionalism, OR Who in This World Will Believe Us?” Invited public lecture at the Boulder, Colorado, Public Library, in honor of “Western Literature Day.” March.
1998 “In Search of More than an Endless Summer: Surf Cultures of the Early 1970s.” Invited Paper delivered at American Literature Association Symposium on Literature and the Environment, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, December.
1998 “Wanda Coleman, ‘Blackness,’ and the Western Imagination.” Paper delivered at the Midwestern Modern Language Association, St. Louis, Missouri, November.
1998 “Reflections on the Origins of the New Female Regionalism: Thinking about Judith Freeman.” Paper presented at Western Literature Association, Banff, Alberta,
1998 “Geographical Imaginations of the New Female Regionalism.” Paper delivered at American Literature Association, San Diego, June.
1996 “Literary Sources for Gender Studies in the New Western History.” Paper delivered at joint meeting of Western Literature Association and Western History Association. Kansas City, October.
1995 “Beyond Sacred Landscapes: New Approaches to Reading Nature.” Paper delivered at Western Literature Association, Vancouver, British Columbia.
1993 “Western Narrative: A Humanist Imperative? Joan Didion and the Category of 'Western.'” Paper delivered at Western Literature Association, Wichita, Kansas.
REFEREE FOR JOURNALS & PRESSES
Journals: Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society; Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies; American Quarterly; Arizona Quarterly; Western American Literature; Pacific Historical Review; The Harbinger: International Journal of Language and Literature;
Presses: Routledge; Duke University Press, University of Nebraska Press;
WESTERN LITERATURE ASSOCIATION SERVICE
2003-present Chair, Don D. Walker Award, Western Literature Association’s Annual Best Essay
2003 President, Western Literature Association
2002 President Elect, Western Literature Association
2001 Vice President, Western Literature Association
1999-present Editorial Board, Western American Literature
RICE UNIVERSITY SERVICE (selected service)
2008-2010 Director of Undergraduate Studies, English Department.
2007-2008 Special Undergraduate Task Force. Center for Study of Women, Gender, Sexuality. Redesign, implement new major emphasizing engaged research.
2001-2; 04-05 Graduate Committee, English Department.
2005-present Core Term Member of Steering Committee, CSWGS.
2003-2010 Master, Baker College.
2009-2010 Master, Duncan College.
2005-2007 University Examinations and Standing Committee.
2001-7 Faculty Mentor and Sponsor of Mellon Program.
1997-2003 Faculty Associate, Weiss College.
BAKER & CAMPUS EVENTS RE: YOUNG FEMINISM
2009 Sponsored, organized, and fundraised Speakers Series related to young women’s feminism: activist/writers Jennifer Baumgartner and Amy Richards, writer Liz Funk, video game theorist Carly Kocurek.
2005-present “Girl Talk.” Founded initiative to build generational understanding between older and younger feminists. Monthly meetings on topics related to gender and its impact on young adult as well as midlife issues.
2004-present “Port Talks.” Organizer of invited talks on topics of current interest. Speakers include UCSD Prof. David Guiterrez, Clifford Dasco, M.D. of the Abramson Family Center, Houston journalist Art Rascon, Rice University President David Leebron, Rice Dean of Humanities Gary Wihl, Rice University Campus Minister Kurt Ritz, Screenwriter and journalist Suzanne O’Malley, Rice biology professor Mary Ellen Lane, Houston County Judge Ed Emmett.
TEACHING
Courses Offered Regularly (Undergraduate and/or Graduate)
- American Literature, 20th and 21st Century.
- Literature and The American West and its Others: precolonial-present, gender, race, culture, literature, film, theory, postwest/Global South.
- Youth Studies: Generation X in Lit & Culture, X & Millennials, Obama and Youth Vote, Post Civil- Rights Politics, Trans-Americas Youth Studies (subcultures, music, gangs), Youth & Globalization.
- Third Wave Feminisms: Theory, Culture, Literature, Activisms, Globalization. Girlhood in the Western World & Neoliberalism.
- Literature and Literary Analysis for English Majors (poetics and critical writing)
- Practices of Literary Study for English Majors (interpretive strategies and writing about theory)
- Critical Regionalism (interdisciplinary theory and methodologies)
- Courses for majors in the Center for Study of Women, Gender, Sexuality
Courses Offered Occasionally or in Development
- Asian American Literatures
- Environmental Feminist Literatures and Philosophy
- Comparative Ethnic Literatures of Twentieth Century US
- Literature on Location: Where is Houston, Texas? (teaching toward the Public Humanities, in development)
- History and Memory in the Literatures of 1968 (developing)
- Trans/Post/Emergent Nationalisms: Mexifornia, Calexico, Amexica, or the Nation of 24 million (developing for the minor in Latin American Studies)
GRADUATE ADVISING
2008-10 Adriane Bezuska, Dissertation Committee. Poverty Studies, Contemporary American Literature & Culture.
2008-present Casper Bendixsen, Dissertation Committee. Rodeo Cowboys: Gender, West, Ethnography.
2006 Suzanne Rindell, Advising Committee. Ecocriticism, 20th C American literature, Interdisciplinarity, Girls’ Studies.
2004-2005 Victoria Ford Smith, Advising Committee. Youth and Children’s Literature.
2002-2006 John Escobedo, Dissertation Committee. Mestizaje theorized comparatively via literatures of Dominican Republic, Chicano/as, Puerto Rico.
2002-2006 Gina Weaver, Dissertation Director. Representations of Vietnamese women in US Vietnam Memoir and Film.
2002-2006 Michon Benson, Dissertation Director, Masculinity in 19th Century Slave Narratives and Contemporary Hip Hop Culture.
2001-2005 Priscilla Ybarra, Dissertation Committee. “Walden Pond in Aztlan?” Feminist environmental philosophy, race theory, critical regionalism, landscape theory.
1996-2001 Shannon Leonard, Dissertation Committee. Theorizing mixed-race subjectivity in 20th century Asian American literature and history. Comparative ethnic studies.
1996-2001 Michelle Taylor, Advisor. African American literature and women’s history, 19th and early 20th century. Also African Americans in The American West.
1996-2004 Andrea Tennemeyer, Advisor. Mexican American literature, Chicano Studies, comparative ethnic studies, the American West.
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
(variously, 1988-present)
American Studies Association
Western Literature Association
Western History Association
Coalition of Western Women Historians
Pacific Coast Branch—American Historical Association
Pen Center West
Modern Language Association
Australian Cultural Studies Association
National Women’s Studies Association