School of English

Dr David Stirrup

(BA, MA, PhD, Leeds)

Senior Lecturer Director, Centre for American Studies
Phone: 01227 (82)3440 Office: NC 40
Email: d.f.stirrup@kent.ac.uk  
Wayne Eagleboy, We the People

Research Interests

My first book, Louise Erdrich (Manchester University Press, 2010), offers comprehensive analysis of the work to date of one of Native America's best known writers. Covering her work in all genres--fiction, poetry, memoir, and children's writing--I examine Erdrich's work in relation to major debates over cultural and political sovereignty, indigeneity, modernity, and community.

I am currently working on two monograph projects: the first examines the ethical 'trace' in representations of mark-making in contemporary Anishinaabeg writing; the second, longer-term project, explores questions of indigeneity, sovereignty, and citizenship in art and literature at the Canada-US border.

I also have several collaborative projects in progress, including Literature of the Americas (co-written with David Ayers, Deborah Cohn and George Handley); Tribal Fantasies: Native Americans in the European Imaginary, 1900-2010 (co-ed. with James Mackay); Parallel Encounters: Culture at the Canada-US Border (co-ed. with Gillian Roberts); and Enduring Critical Poses, Beyond Nation and History (co-ed. with Gordon Henry, Jr.).

My work to date has drawn on a wide variety of disciplines, including Indigenous Studies, literary theory , Cultural Anthropology, History, Border Studies, and Law Studies, and focuses on literature and art from c.1880 to the present..

Research Supervision

I am supervising MPhil/PhDs on Chinese American Women's writing, the twentieth-century American short story, and Native American literary theory; and act as second supervisor to several projects, covering poetics, narrative theory, and postcolonial theory.

Prospective research students interested in working on any aspect of First Nations/Native American Literatures, indigenous studies, border studies, or Hemispheric American literatures more widely are welcome to contact me.

Professional Activities

Member of the British Association for American Studies, the British Association for Canadian Studies, and a committee/founder member of the Native Studies Research Network UK.

Teaching

My teaching broadly encompasses all areas of American Literature and offer specialist modules dealing with ethnic minority and Hemispheric American subjects.

Undergraduate:

I also lecture for American Studies.

Postgraduate:

Selected Publications

Books:

  • Louise Erdrich (Manchester University Press, 2010)

Journal Special Issues:

  • American Review of Canadian Studies, 'Culture and the Canada-US Border'. 40:3 (Sept. 2010). Co-edited with Gillian Roberts.

Recent articles and chapters:

  • 'Aadizookewininiwag and the Visual Arts: Story as Process and Principle in 21st Century Anishinaabeg Painting' in Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World through Stories Eds Jill Doerfler, Niigonwedom James Sinclair, and Heidi Kiwetinepinesiik Stark (University of Michigan Press, forthcoming 2011).
  • '"To become a bureaucrat myself": History and Law in Tracks' in Louise Erdrich Ed. Deborah Madsen (London: Continuum, 2011).
  • '"My body is my voice / Listen": Past, Presence, and the Poetic Voice (Joan Crate and Louise Erdrich)' in Usable Past Ed. Simone Pellerin (Pessac: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2010)
  • '"to the Indian names are subjoined a mark and seal": Tracing the Terrain of Ojibwe Writing' Literature Compass (2010)
  • '"According to our knowledge of ourselves": Andrew Blackbird's Odawa History' in Before Yesterday: the Long History of Native American Writing Ed. Simone Pellerin (Pessac: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2009) pp.53-66.
  • '"Songs Belong to these islands": Mapping the Cultural Terrain in Louise Erdrich's Nonfiction' in European Review of Native American Studies (20:1 2006) pp.29-34.
  • 'Narrative Community, Community Narrative: (Anti) Academic Discourse in Gordon Henry's The Light People' in Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture (39:1/2 2006) pp.141-162.
  • 'Life after Death in Poverty: David Treuer's Little' in American Indian Quarterly (29:4 2005) pp.651-672.
  • 'Artefact and Authenticity: Narrative Strategy in Contemporary Native American Fiction' in Indian Stories, Indian Histories Ed. Fedora Giordano & Enrico Comba (Turin: Otto Editore, 2004) pp.95-108.

I have essays forthcoming on installation art at the Canada-US border, Indigenous discourse and the rise of neo-fascism, and First Nations writing since 1980.

Other publications:

  • Op-ed piece (co-written wtih James Mackay) for The Guardian online. This article deals with the far-right's ideological appropriation of Indigenous Rights discourse. It generated heated debate, unsurprisingly, given its title: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/20/indigenous-britons-far-right
  • Report on our 'Culture and the Canada-US Border' project in the Postcolonial Studies Association Newsletter, summer 2010.
  • Entry on Native American Children's Literature in The Encyclopedia of American Indian Literature ( Facts on File, Spring 2007)
  • Reviews in American Studies Today/American Studies Online and the Journal of American Studies

Conference and event organisation:

  • July 6-8 2011: Kent will play host to the 3rd Native Studies Research Network UK conference, titled Indigeneity and the Arts: Visual Cultures and Communications.
  • In June 2009, Dr Gillian Roberts (Nottingham) and I co-hosted the international Culture and the Canada-US Border conference at the University of Kent. The proceedings of this conference have been disseminated via a special issue of the American Review of Canadian Studies and a proposed volume of essays.
  • I organised a short poetry reading tour for two Anishinaabeg poets, Kimberly Blaeser and Gordon Henry, Jr. in June and July 2009. Readings took place in Liverpool, London, Manchester, Cambridge, and UEA.

 

School of English, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NX

The University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NZ, T: +44 (0)1227 823054

Last Updated: 20/06/2011