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Terri Pantuso
Academic
Interests:
African American Women's Literature and
Language, Afro-Caribbean Women's Literature, Women's Studies.
Graduate Research Assistant
to Dr. Sonja L. Lanehart
Current
research project(s):
Currently, I am pursuing discourse
analysis of first-person narratives written by African American
women that include various representations of African American
motherhood. I am examining the language used by the authors from
both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as it is representative
of a maternal dialect. What I have found thus far is that the
sentimental mode employed in slave narratives of the nineteenth
century should be reconsidered as subversive maternal narratives
that are echoed throughout the twentieth century in works which
utilize a higher rate of African American Women's Language rather
than mainstream English. While some might argue that this is due to
changes in targeted audiences, I believe that the subversive nature
of the canon of African American Women's Literature requires
diligence of scholars who analyze such works.
Publications:
‘He my shiny
brown boy:’ African American Maternal Vernacular in Sapphire’s
Push has been accepted for inclusion in a collection tentatively titled
PUSHing
Boundaries, PUSHing Art: Considering Sapphire’s Works for
Scholarship and Pedagogy.
(forthcoming)
“Who is Left to
Mother Me? Mothering Fore and Aft While Riding the Waves.”
Mothers Movement Online August, 2006.
http://mothersmovement.org/essays/06/07/pantuso_1.html
Conference Presentations:
February, 2007,
PUSHing Boundaries, PUSHing Art: A Symposium on the Works of
Sapphire, Tempe, AZ, ‘He my shiny brown boy:’ African American
Maternal Vernacular in Sapphire’s Push
November,
2006, Society for the Study of American Women Writers,
Philadelphia, PA, Following the Condition of the Mother: American
Mother Language in Sapphire’s Push
October, 2006,
Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Tucson, AZ, ‘Language is a Place of
Struggle’: Speaking the ‘Mother’ Tongue in Sapphire’s Push
June, 2006,
National Women’s Studies Association, Oakland, CA, Agency and Ownership
Through Motherhood in Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a
Slave Girl and Sapphire’s Push, Who is Left to Mother
Me? Mothering Fore and Aft While Riding the Waves
Hometown:
Houston, Texas
Previous
degrees: BA in Political Science, Texas A&M
University, 1990; Lifetime Teacher
Certification in Texas for Secondary English 6-12
Current
Hobbies: When/If I have free time, I enjoy spending it with
my three daughters either playing, cooking, reading, or simply
watching them grow.
Favorite
Authors: Toni Morrison, Edwidge Danticat, Terry McMillan,
Zora Neale Hurston
Ultimate
Vacation: Greece,
Martinique, St. Lucia, or any
island with beautiful beaches and silence.
Email:
terri.pantuso@utsa.edu;
terripantuso@sbcglobal.net
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