The University of St. Thomas

College of Arts & Sciences | Department of English

Wilkinson

Wilkinson

Elizabeth Wilkinson

Assistant Professor of English

wilk9056@stthomas.edu
Phone: (651) 962-5632

Office Location: JRC 358
Office Hours: (Spring 2012): MWF 12:00-1:00pm; also by appointment

Courses taught in Spring 2012
ENGL 121-01
21987		 Critical Thinking: Lit/Writing 0935-1040 M W F OEC 204

4 Credit Hours

Students will read and write about literary texts critically and closely. The course emphasizes recursive reading and writing processes that encourage students to discover, explain, question and clarify ideas. To this end, students will study a variety of genres as well as terms and concepts helpful to close analysis of those genres. They will practice various forms of writing for specific audiences and purposes. Students will reflect on and develop critical awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses as readers and writers.
ENGL 121-02
21988		 Critical Thinking: Lit/Writing 1055-1200 M W F OEC 204

4 Credit Hours

Students will read and write about literary texts critically and closely. The course emphasizes recursive reading and writing processes that encourage students to discover, explain, question and clarify ideas. To this end, students will study a variety of genres as well as terms and concepts helpful to close analysis of those genres. They will practice various forms of writing for specific audiences and purposes. Students will reflect on and develop critical awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses as readers and writers.
ENGL 337-02
22322		 Native American Literature 1335-1440 M W F OEC 204

4 Credit Hours

From first contact, non-indigenous peoples began writing about indigenous peoples. Those first recorded impressions, naturally, came from what they saw--filtered, however, through their European world views. Because indigenous peoples had no voice in these early depictions, Native identity was largely a European creation, at least as it was delivered to the non-Native general public. Losing control of one's identity, especially to a colonizing force, has dire consequences. A created identity can be used to justify forced religious conversion, forced re-education in boarding schools, loss of land, and attempted erasure of culture. And, so, indigenous peoples, when they learned the language being used to make them the object of the gaze, fought back using that very weapon. As Gloria Bird and Joy Harjo (Laguna/Sioux) tell us, Native Americans reinvented the enemy's language and used it for their own purposes. This course will investigate Native literature produced during the seven eras of U.S.-Native relations and will investigate the relevent historical context. Likely texts will include AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES by Dakota author Zitkala-Sa, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins' LIFE AMONG THE PIUTES, CEREMONY by Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo), Turtle Mountain Ojibwe author Louise Erdrich's TRACKS, selections from Sherman Alexie (Couer D'alene/Spokane) and Dakota author Charles Eastman. This course satisfies the Human Diversity requirement of the core curriculum and the Diversity Literature requirement for English majors. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 111/121 and ENGL 112/201-204, or ENGL 190.
Courses taught in Fall 2012
ENGL 121-08
41735		 Critical Thinking: Lit/Writing 0935-1040 M W F TBD

4 Credit Hours

Students will read and write about literary texts critically and closely. The course emphasizes recursive reading and writing processes that encourage students to discover, explain, question and clarify ideas. To this end, students will study a variety of genres as well as terms and concepts helpful to close analysis of those genres. They will practice various forms of writing for specific audiences and purposes. Students will reflect on and develop critical awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses as readers and writers.
ENGL 121-11
41738		 Critical Thinking: Lit/Writing 1055-1200 M W F TBD

4 Credit Hours

Students will read and write about literary texts critically and closely. The course emphasizes recursive reading and writing processes that encourage students to discover, explain, question and clarify ideas. To this end, students will study a variety of genres as well as terms and concepts helpful to close analysis of those genres. They will practice various forms of writing for specific audiences and purposes. Students will reflect on and develop critical awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses as readers and writers.
GENG 647-01
42481		 19th C. Amer Women's Rhetoric 1800-2100 M TBD

3 Credit Hours

Potential topics may include Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Mark Twain, literature of the Civil War, the rise of the woman novelist, and Transcendental writing. Credit may be earned more than once under this number for different emphases. This course satisfies the pre-1900 American Literature distribution requirement. Prerequisite:GENG 513 or permission of the instructor

Academic History

Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Greensboro
M.A., Virginia Polytechnic and State University
B.A., M.Ed., The Pennsylvania State University at University Park
At St. Thomas since 2008

Expertise/Specialties

Native American and Indigenous Literatures
American Literature before 1900
Women's Literatures
Electric Bass and Lead/Harmony Vocals Wilkinson James Band

Selected Publications

“Gertrude Bonnin’s Transrhetorical Fight for Land Rights.” Women Writing Between the Wars. Ed. Anne George. Southern Illinois University Press (forthcoming)

“Ann Rinaldi’s My Heart Is on the Ground as Literary Colonization of Zitkala-Ša’s American Indian Stories.” Indigenous Nations Studies Journal 3.1 (2002): 47-62.

Selected Presentations

“Piute Pedagogy: Rhetorical Connections across Gender, Class, Culture.” A paper written with Bethany Fletcher, UST graduate student in English. Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), Louisville, KY March 2010

“White Women and the Transrhetorical Agency of Indianism.” Society for the Study of American Women Writers (SSAWW), Philadelphia, PA October 2009

“Margaret Fuller and the Transrhetorical Agency of ‘Indianism.” Native American and Indigenous Studies Association Conference (NAIS), Minneapolis, MN 2009

“I am the mother of men”:  Nan-ye-hi’s Cherokee Rhetoric of Motherhood in Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century Treaty Negotiations. Southern American Studies Association (SASA) Conference, Fairfax, VA 2009

“Feminist, Indian-Feminist, and Anti-US Indian Policy Sentiments in Texts by Zitkala-Sa, Sarah Winnemucca, and Joy Harjo.” Native American and Indigenous Studies Conference (NAIS), Athens, Georgia, 2008.

“‘We Are Your Mothers’:  Cherokee Women’s Voices for Land Preservation.” American Literature Association Conference (ALA), Boston, 2007.

“Declaiming and Demarcating: Gertrude Bonnin’s Sentimental Campaign for Native Land.” Society for the Study of American Women Writers Conference (SSAWW), Philadelphia, 2006.

“Sarah Winnemucca: ‘Postindian Warrior’ Writing for the Land.” Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States Conference (MELUS),     Boca Raton, 2006.

“Created ‘White’-ness and Hopi Prophecy in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead.” New Directions in American Indian Research: A Gathering of Emerging Scholars, Chapel Hill, 2004.

“(Re)Narrative Resistance: The Political Writings of Zitkala-Sa.” International American Women Writers of Color Conference (AWWOC), Baltimore, 2004.

Service

Co-faculty advisor of Iota Psi chapter, Sigma Tau Delta International English Society
Co-coordinator of English Department colloquium series
Co-coordinator of St. Thomas ACTC English Majors Conference  

Membership in Professional Organizations

Native American and Indigenous Studies
Society for the Study of American Women Writers
Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States
American Literature Association
Modern Language Association
College Composition and Communication (CCC)