Participant Biographies

Joni Adamson is author of _American Indian Literature, Environmental Justice, and Ecocriticism: The Middle Place_ and coeditor of _The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics, and Pedagogy_.  From 2003-2005, she was a member of the Federal Facilities Working Group of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee, which advises the United States Environmental Protection Agency.  In 2006, she joined the Faculty of Humanities and Arts at the Polytechnic campus to teach in the new Literature, Writing and Film Program.

 

James Blasingame is an associate professor in the Arizona State University Department of English.  He is coeditor of The ALAN Review, the publication of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English; and editor of the Books for Adolescents section of the International Reading Association’s Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy.  He has published and presented on literature for young adults and on the teaching of writing in a variety of places and venues.  Dr. Blasingame is president of the Arizona English Teachers’ Association.

 

Nina Candia is a doctoral candidate in the English Department at the University of Maryland, College Park.  She holds a B.A. from Barnard College in English and Human Rights and an M.A. from Georgetown University in Literature.  Her research interests include intersections between African American and Mexican American literature, the writings of Toni Cade Bambara, and narratives of national identity.

 

DoVeanna S. Fulton is an associate professor in the English Department and affiliate faculty in Women and Gender Studies and African and African American Studies programs at Arizona State University.  She has published and lectured in the United States, France, England, Spain, Germany and Ethiopia on African American literature and manifestations of oral traditions by Black women.  

 

Katherine Giovacchini is an undergraduate junior in Arizona State University's Department of English. She currently works as a writing tutor at the University College Writing Center.

 

Peter Goggin is an assistant professor in the English department at ASU. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in theories of literacy, environmental rhetoric, and writing and sustainability, and also publishes in these areas. He is director of the annual Western States Rhetoric and Literacy conference.

 

Neal A. Lester is professor and chair of the Department of English at Arizona State University.  Dr. Lester has lectured, taught, and published on African American literature and cultural studies.

 

Elizabeth McNeil is Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of English and affiliate faculty in Women and Gender Studies and African and African American Studies at Arizona State University. She specializes in American ethnic and women’s literatures.

 

Lynette D. Myles, Instructor at Arizona State University, teaches First Year Composition, African American Literature, black women writers, and slave narratives.  She is currently working on an article on black female sexuality and has published an essay on black female resistance and transformation in women-centered space.

 

Alleen Pace Nilsen, is an ASU professor of English and Director of the English Education program. She is the co-author of the leading textbook on young adult literature and has published many articles in English Journal, Voices from the Middle, Journal of Adult and Adolescent Literacy, and School Library Journal.

 

Terri B. Pantuso is currently a PhD student in the English Department at the University of Texas, San Antonio.  Her research interests involve African American Language with a special focus on African American Women Writers, and Afro-Caribbean literature.  Last year she presented three papers on PUSH at three different conferences and is working further on a dissertation chapter focusing upon the maternal language of the novel.

 

Michael Pfister is currently a PhD student in the Literature Department at Arizona State University. Mr. Pfister’s primary interests include Cultural Studies, African American Literature, and Border Studies. His published work includes an exploration of Afaa Michael Weaver’s poetry, African American Children’s Literature and The Rise of Radio in the Southwestern United States.

 

Steven Reigns is a poet and served as Literary Director for The Center of Tampa for two years before relocating to Los Angeles.  He is the author of Your Dead Body is My Welcome Mat, Ignited, and Cartography.  www.stevenreigns.com

 

Dan Shilling is Curator of Humanities for the Sharlot Hall Museum and a faculty associate in the English Department at Arizona State University.  He teaches courses on literary representations of sustainability and eco-criticism.

 

Monica Van Steenberg is a senior seeking a Bachelor of Arts in the Creative Writing program at Arizona State University. Her areas of study include writing, women's studies and comparative religions.

 

Erin Vonnahme is a last-semester graduate student in the English and American Literature program at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.  Her presentation will be a portion of her larger thesis work which focuses on Push, but also Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina and JT LeRoy's Sarah; all three works address sexual exploitation and domestic abuse in some capacity.  Her future plans include continued volunteer work for sexual health care providers, pursing a PhD, and teaching (and being broke because of all of that).