The University of St. Thomas

College of Arts & Sciences | Department of English

HerreraOlga

HerreraOlga

Olga Herrera

Assistant Professor of English

herr0480@stthomas.edu
Phone: (651) 962-5613

Office Location: JRC 313

Courses taught in Spring 2013
ENGL 204-01
21488
Literacy in Contemp. America 0815-0920 M W F JRC 301

4 Credit Hours

Social media, texting, and instant messaging: these are all examples of 21st-century technology that is changing the way we read and write. Instead of declaring the death of the book, we will consider how print and digital literacy converge in a participatory culture that produces creative work, encourages collaboration, and shapes the flow of information. Our approach to what constitutes a "text" will be flexible and may include blogging, texting, media boards, videomaking, podcasting, wikis, etc. The writing load for this course is a minimum of 15 pages of formal revised writing. Prerequisite: ENGL 121.

ENGL 204-02
21772
Literacy in Contemp. America 0935-1040 M W F JRC 301

4 Credit Hours

Social media, texting, and instant messaging: these are all examples of 21st-century technology that is changing the way we read and write. Instead of declaring the death of the book, we will consider how print and digital literacy converge in a participatory culture that produces creative work, encourages collaboration, and shapes the flow of information. Our approach to what constitutes a "text" will be flexible and may include blogging, texting, media boards, videomaking, podcasting, wikis, etc. The writing load for this course is a minimum of 15 pages of formal revised writing. Prerequisite: ENGL 121.

ENGL 337-01
21541
Latino/Latina Literature 1335-1510 M W SCB 205

4 Credit Hours

In "AmeRican," Puerto Rican poet Tato Laviera dreams to "take the accent from / the altercation, and be proud to call / myself american, in the u.s. sense of the / word, AmeRican, America!" These lines capture an essential quality about Latino life in the United States, an existence in which Latinos are caught between worlds, between languages, between cultures, and often struggle for inclusion in an American mainstream that views them as homogenous at best, and as outsiders at worst. In reality, Latinos are as diverse a group as any major urban population--racially, ethnically, culturally, linguistically and nationally. In this class, we will read contemporary fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry by Latino authors that grapples with the multifaceted reality of Latino experience in the United States. As we read these texts, we will ask how authors attempt to define, negotiate, and contest American identity, and how these texts struggle with the relationship of Latinos to the nation in the context of a history of U.S. imperialism. Possible authors to be discussed include Junot Diaz, Ana Menendez, Luis Alberto Urrea, Cristina Garcia, Julia Alvarez, Daniel Alarcon, Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, Achy Obejas, Luis J. Rodriguez, Martin Espada, Josefina Lopez, and Ernesto Quinonez. Texts will be in English, with the possibility of occasional Spanish usage by individual authors. This course fulfills the Human Diversity requirement of the core curriculum and the Diversity distribution requirement for English majors. Prerequisite: ENGL 121 and/or ENGL 201, 202, 203, or 204.

Courses taught in Fall 2013
ENGL 201-41
41936
HON: City Lights: Urban Exper 1055-1200 M W F JRC 301

4 Credit Hours

This course explores urban experience through the perspective of writers working in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. It will focus on the way writers in those three genres use language and literary devices to address the life and landscape of the city. Although most of the writing done in this class will be analytical, we will also look at each of the three genres from a user's perspective, using some of the tools of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry to make our own sense of the urban environment. The writing load for this course is a minimum of 15 pages of formal revised writing. This course is available only to students in the Aquinas Scholars Honors program.

GENG 558-01
41915
Latino/Latina Literature 1800-2100 T JRC 481

3 Credit Hours

In January 2013, Cuban-American Richard Blanco was the first immigrant, Latino, and openly gay poet to be invited to read at a presidential inauguration. Blanco's presence, along with those of Sonia Sotomayor and Charles Rangel, point to a national recognition of Latino participation in U.S. political, civic, and cultural life. But Blanco's self-identification as immigrant, Latino, and gay also signals the multiplicity of identity that characterizes the lives of U.S. Latinos today. In our class, we will read contemporary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and film to consider how these texts construct and/or interrogate discourses of citizenship and American identity, focusing on very recently published work by Sandra Cisneros, Sonia Sotomayor, Victor Lavalle, Junot Diaz, Luis Alberto Urrea, Richard Blanco, and others. We will also examine new and recent critical directions in ethnic and Latino Studies, including theories of post-ethnicity or post-race, transnational and hemispheric studies, as well as global approaches to Latinidad. This course satisfies the Multicultural Literature distribution requirement.

Academic History

M.A., Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin
B.A. DePaul University
At St. Thomas since 2009

Expertise/Specialties

Mexican American Literature
Latino Literatures
Urban and Working-Class Literature
Chicana Feminisms
Race and Place in American Literature
Latinos/as in Film, Art, and Popular Culture

Selected Publications

“Revolutionary Dreams and Folkloric Practice: Radical Labor Politics in the Work of Carlos A. Cortez and Richard Wright.”  Forthcoming, Interior Borderlands: Writings on Latina/o Literature of Chicago and the Midwest, ed. William Barillas, University of Illinois Press.

Interview with Ramon Saldívar.  Ethnic and Third World Review of Books, University of Texas, Spring 2008.

Rev. of Lost City Radio, by Daniel Alarcón.  The Austin American-Statesman, 18 Feb. 2007: J05.

Rev. of the Gloria Anzaldúa Papers.  Ethnic and Third World Review of Books, University of Texas, Spring 2007.

Selected Presentations

“So Far from Aztlan, So Close to the Borderlands: Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, and Mexican Chicago Literature.”  Paper presented at the American Comparative Literature Association, New Orleans, LA, April 2010.

Invited speaker, inaugural Américo Paredes Literature & Letters Award ceremony honoring Ana Castillo, Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Texas, Austin, May 2009.

“Revolutionary Dreams and Folkloric Practice: Radical Labor Politics in the Work of Carlos Cortez and Richard Wright.” Paper presented at the American Studies Association conference, Albuquerque, NM, October 2008.

“In the Master’s House: Chicago Space, Race, and Labor in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Richard Wright’s Native Son.” Paper presented at the Conference of Ford Fellows, Washington D.C., September 2008.

“Blogueando:  Chicano/a Bloggers and the Construction of Gender Identity.”  Paper presented at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association conference, Boston, MA, April 2007.

Fea is as fea does:  Revisions and Reiterations of Latina Beauty in Ugly Betty.” Paper presented at the SW/TX Popular/American Culture conference, Albuquerque, NM, February 2007.

“Work for Whoever Wants It?  Race, Gender, and the Promise of Work in the City of Big Shoulders in Ana Castillo’s Peel My Love Like An Onion.”  Paper presented at the Society for the Study of American Women Writers, November 2006, Philadelphia, PA.

“Latina Literature and Trends in Mainstream Publishing.”  Paper presented at the Latina Letters Conference, San Antonio, TX, July 2005.

“‘For those who cannot out’: Textual Differences in Three Editions of The House on Mango Street.”  Paper presented at the South Central Modern Language Association Conference, Houston, TX, October 2005.

Awards

Dissertation Fellow 2008-2009
Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowships

Borderlands Research Award
College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin, Spring 2007

Alternate selection
Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowships, April 2004