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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Cultivating “Indian Country”: Settler Imperialism And Bich Minh Nguyen's Pioneer Girl, Marie Lo
Cultivating “Indian Country”: Settler Imperialism And Bich Minh Nguyen's Pioneer Girl, Marie Lo
English Faculty Publications and Presentations
This article examines Pioneer Girl as a critical juxtaposition of the contradictions of settler imperialism. Settler imperialism denotes how the logic and operations of settler colonialism rationalize modes of conquest that are not reducible to the acquisition of territory but are central to the consolidation of settler state security and power. The novel’s use of Little House on the Prairie to explore the Lien family’s exile and displacement as a result of US imperial violence in Southeast Asia juxtaposes the histories of settler colonialism with imperialism, illuminating how the narratives that justify western expansion are not strictly territorial imperatives. The …
How To Build A Supercomputer: U.S. Research Infrastructure And The Documents That Mitigate The Uncertainties Of Big Science, Sarah Read
English Faculty Publications and Presentations
In this article, I argue that technical reporting and documentation processes function to mitigate uncertainty and enable complex systems in the endeavor of big science. The argument draws on two years of field research investigating technical reporting and documentation processes at a federally funded supercomputing center dedicated to scientific research. A central question the study sought to answer was, “How does one build a new supercomputer?” One of the answers that emerged is that supercomputers are built by the genre assemblages of documents that mitigate financial, political, and technological uncertainties, and their attendant risks, that are inherent to technoscientific cutting-edge …
“Decolonize” E-Literature? On Weeding The E-Lit Garden, Kathi Inman Berens
“Decolonize” E-Literature? On Weeding The E-Lit Garden, Kathi Inman Berens
English Faculty Publications and Presentations
Berens asks: Should the e-literature community include third-generation works in collections, syllabi, databases, prizes? A related question: do third-gen makers have a role in “decolonizing” e-literature? Who or what “colonizes” e-lit? E-literature, like earlier avant gardes, began as a coterie and has become a scholarly field. Using the comparison of a field versus a walled garden, the essay examines critiques of e-literature and variations on field definitions. It ends with two ideas about how to "decolonize" e-literature; about how equity and inclusion work in tandem with decolonization, but are not the same thing; and why decolonization efforts are urgent in …
“Keep Portland Weird”? Carnivalesque Elements In The Rebranding Of The Portland Book Festival, Rachel Noorda, Kathi Inman Berens
“Keep Portland Weird”? Carnivalesque Elements In The Rebranding Of The Portland Book Festival, Rachel Noorda, Kathi Inman Berens
English Faculty Publications and Presentations
The Portland Book Festival, originally known as “Wordstock,” is the main annual literary event in Portland, Oregon. It is also an increasingly prominent literary festival in the United States. The branding shift from “Wordstock” to “Portland Book Festival” in 2018 unearths key tensions, hierarchies, subversions, and cultural changes in the communicative and social functions of the Festival. The essay identifies transactional and transformative aspects of the Festival. Bank of America’s festival-naming “title” sponsorship, the partnership of cultural heritage organizations, and Portland place branding offer transactional stability for the Festival, where parties give and get in kind. The Festival’s temporary affective …