Joanna Brooks is chair and associate professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University. Recently, Joanna co-organized the “Our Voices, Our Visions” Mormon women’s literary tour with Holly Welker and writes dynamic creative nonfiction in addition to publishing academically. She writes a regular column, “Ask Mormon Girl,” at Mormon Matters.
Education
BA with Honors, English, BYU 1993
Ph.D., English, UCLA, 1999
What are your area (s) of expertise/specialization?
My fields of expertise include American Studies, American literature, religion, and race. Most of my published scholarship focuses on American culture before 1800.
What are you currently studying, or what are some of your current projects?
I’m just finishing up a big anthology entitled Transatlantic Feminisms in the Age of Revolutions, which collects Anglophone protofeminist and feminist writings by women around the Atlantic world from the 17th through the early 19th centuries. My next big project uses Anglo-American ballads about the migration from England to the Americas as a resource for developing new insights into why so many poor English folks–my ancestors included–made the trip to the Americas. Our cherished “land of opportunity” narrative accounts only for the advertised attractions of North America. The conditions that pushed poor folks out including massive deforestation, environmental destruction, and social displacement are not yet a part of our story.
What has your experience been like as a woman in the academy?
I admire women who have used their power to create new spaces and opportunities for others to tell their stories. I admire great mentors and organizers who take risks in the service of a vision and have laid the foundations for their fields, like Richard Yarborough, one of my teachers at UCLA. I think of women like the American Indian writer and scholar Paula Gunn Allen, one of my teachers at UCLA, who never lost her sense of humor, and my colleague Ann Cvetkovich at Texas who has never lost her kindness and generosity. And since I am a department chair now, I increasingly look to the examples of women like Sidonie Smith at Michigan who have been intellectually alert, hopeful, and hardworking shapers of their institutions and the field.
Joanna, your projects sound fascinating. This semester in my women’s studies class we talked briefly (in a discussion of Margaret Fuller) about Judith Sargent Murray and Mary Wollstonecraft writing around the same time. I assume they’ll be in your book on transatlantic feminisms in the Age of Revolution? You indicate that you’re staying in the Anglophone world. Does that mean Olympe de Gouges and Etta Lubina Johanna Palm d’Aelders won’t be included? I find it fascinating that each of these remarkable women are showing up in different European countries in the 1790s and have wondered how much they corresponded.
Comment by David G. — April 29, 2010 @ 7:51 pm
I agree with David that your project sounds fascinating. I am also interested in transatlantic intellectual history during the same period, so I have loved your work and am looking forward to what you do in the future.
Comment by Ben — April 30, 2010 @ 3:51 am
Hi David, Ben–Yes, actually, we are doing Olympe de Gouges in translation. We are finding a remarkable amount of intellectual exchange not only between English and French women–not so surprising–but also between English and indigenous American women. Some American indigenous societies were admired for their matricentrality or other traditions of woman-centered land ownership and leadership. J
Comment by Joanna Brooks — April 30, 2010 @ 9:11 am
More great stuff from this series. Thanks for your participation, Joanna, and thanks as always, Liz, for the series.
Comment by Christopher — April 30, 2010 @ 10:01 am
Very interesting, Joanna. Seems like I ran across a book last semester that discussed possible influences between the late-19th century woman’s movement and Native women, but it seemed a bit campy and not very scholarly. But you’re finding material earlier? Are you finding actual writings from indigenous women? I’m familiar with Sarah Winnemucca’s 1880s era autobiography, which is well known as the first autobiography written by a Native woman in the United States, but I don’t know much about earlier writings. I look forward to what you find.
Comment by David G. — April 30, 2010 @ 10:57 am
Check out a wonderful interview with Joanna on Mormonstories.org
She is a perfect example of the the type of people we need to hear more from at church.
Comment by Corn Duck — May 3, 2010 @ 1:07 pm