New Faculty

Welcome Joseph Dupris to CU Ethnic Studies and Linguistics faculty

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 18:42:17 +0000

Welcome Joseph Dupris to CU Ethnic Studies and Linguistics faculty Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/23/2021 - 12:42

Dr. Joseph Dupris, Jr., is joining the CU faculty this fall, 2021, where he will serve as Visiting Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies and Linguistics. Dr. Dupris received his PhD in Linguistics and Anthropology from the University of Arizona in 2020. Dr. Dupris's work addresses issues around tribal language research, with a focus on analyzing language, race, and nation and sustaining the integrity of tribal polities. In the words of his PhD advisor, Dr. Ofelia Zepeda, "[Dr. Dupris's] research calls for language researchers to respect existing obligations to tribal peoples; compare national and racial contexts to better understand the role of language research in establishing and reproducing overarching (Indian, Indigenous) categories; consider the implications of racial and political recognition in tribal contexts; and offer an approach for tribalizing language research in an era of revitalization, and reclamation". It is anticipated that Dr. Dupris's CU appointment willl lead to a permanent position within the initial appointment period. Dr. Dupris is enrolled in the Klamath Tribes (the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin tribes of southern Oregon and northern California), and is of Modoc, Klamath, Paiute and Lakota descent. Dr. Dupris was introduced to maqlaqsyals as a child attending tribal culture camps. His interest in language was reignited in 2013 when he returned to Chiloquin and participated in adult maqlaqsyals language classes after graduating from the University of Washington with a degree in American Indian Studies. Since then, Dr. Dupris has developed teaching methods and workshop series to help youth learn — and adults re-embrace — a language that has long been suppressed. For over a century, beginning in the 1860s, Klamath tribal youth were separated from their families and sent to boarding schools from Pennsylvania to Nevada, where they were punished for speaking their language. These efforts helped to extinguish fluency in the language. Joe is using new methods to expand daily use of maqlaqsyals, from YouTube videos to remote teaching to an independennt study course at Chiloquin High School, which allows students from the approximately 50 percent Tribal student body to access their ancestral language. Dr. Dupris will teach ETHN 1023: Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies, in Fall 2021.

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Welcome to Professor Nishant Upadhyay!

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 21:29:55 +0000

Welcome to Professor Nishant Upadhyay! Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/04/2019 - 15:29

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Nishant Upadhyay to the Department of Ethnic Studies at CU Boulder! They received their PhD at York University, Toronto, in the Graduate Program of Social and Political Thought in 2016. Their dissertation received the National Women’s Studies Association/University of Illinois Press First Book Award 2018. The award citation expressed admiration for how Dr. Upadhyay’s manuscript was “a remarkable instance of how feminist scholarship advances non-disciplinary thought and practice by holding anti-settler colonialism, anti-Blackness and anti-caste analytics together, whilst making a contribution to postcolonial studies, transnational feminism, and South Asian diaspora studies.”

Dr. Upadhyay is passionate that students of color, especially women, queer, and trans students of color, need to feel like they belong at universities. “Whatever we have to say, think, or write is important for others to learn, and to hear,” they said in a previously published article. “It’s important for us, it’s important for the communities we come from, it’s important for the people who are in the majority or are more privileged to hear what our stories are, and we should not feel dejected by being here.” Dr. Upadhyay encourages students to “continue to do the work you want to do and bring the change.”

Prior to joining CU, Nishant taught Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Northern Arizona University. Their teaching and research focuses on intersections of race, indigeneity, caste, gender, and sexuality. Their book manuscript, Indians on Indian Lands: Transnational Intersections of Race, Caste, and Indigeneity, studies the formation of dominant-caste Hindu Indian diasporas in North America and Indian diasporic complicities in processes of settler colonialism, antiblackness, Islamophobia, and brahminical supremacy. The manuscript is under advance contract with the University of Illinois Press.

The Department of Ethnic Studies is wholeheartedly overjoyed to welcome Dr. Upadhyay!

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Jennifer Ho, Director of the Center for Humanities and the Arts interviews Jennifer Ho, Professor of Ethnic Studies ;)

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 20:51:30 +0000

Jennifer Ho, Director of the Center for Humanities and the Arts interviews Jennifer Ho, Professor of Ethnic Studies ;) Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/04/2019 - 14:51

Dr. Jennifer Ho, Director of the Center for Humanities and the Arts sits down with Professor Jennifer Ho, new faculty member in the Department of Ethnic Studies to answer some questions about her new role and recent move to Colorado. ;)

Q—Jennifer Ho, Director, Center for Humanities and the Arts: So Dr. Ho, what brought you to Ethnic Studies at CU Boulder?

A—Professor Jennifer Ho: Please feel free to call me Jennifer—I went to UC Santa Barbara as an undergrad and called many of my professors by their first name, so I invite everyone, first year student to PhD student to call me Jennifer.

Q—CHA: Ok, thanks Jennifer. So why Colorado?

A—JH: Well, I came for the same reason you did: I had an opportunity to take on a leadership position at the Center for Humanities and the Arts, and when I realized that CU Boulder has an Ethnic Studies department (a very fine Ethnic Studies department I should add) then I realized that my own intellectual interests over the last few years have been more aligned with those of Ethnic Studies, meaning, I value being among an interdisciplinary group of scholars who have a shared interest in issues of race and social justice.

Q—CHA: What are you working on now?

A—JH: Well, the work of the Center keeps me pretty busy, as you know, but the two book length projects I’ve been working on is a memoir about my breast cancer diagnosis in 2010 and subsequent fertility issues, and a book about my maternal family’s migration from Hong Kong to Jamaica to North America—it’s really about Chinese immigrants in the global South—and I started it when I was living and working in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, so it’s interesting to think about me writing this book while living and working outside of the global South and in the Rocky Mountain region, which I know has its own distinct histories of race and Asian Americans.

Q—CHA: What are you looking forward to the most about being in Ethnic Studies?

A—JH: As I alluded to earlier, my work, by which I mean the things I like to write about and teach about, has really shifted from the realm of literary criticism to cultural studies/critical race studies. My primary intellectual investment is to have productive conversations about race, in print and in person. So I’m looking forward to seeing the kinds of conversations I can have about race in an Ethnic Studies context—and I’m very excited about the kinds of conversations I can have with my colleagues and with PhD students in the department. It feels like a natural progression for me since the whole reason I wanted to go to grad school in the first place was to introduce people to Asian American literature and the issues Asian Americans face. Asian American literature and literary study will always be a passion of mine, but as I’ve grown in my thinking and teaching and writing, I’m seeing the need to zoom out and look at the role of white supremacy and the role of race and racism in shaping the lives of everyone.

Q—CHA: Is there anything else you’d like to tell people?

A—JH: I’m very excited to be here and welcome the opportunity to meet as many people as I can, so I hope folks will come find me in Macky Auditorium Room 201 because I’m holding open office hours as CHA Director from roughly 10-12pm on Wednesdays – if you email the CHA office they can send you a link to my google sheet. I’m definitely eager to learn all I can about CU, Boulder, and my new home state of Colorado, so I hope folks will find me and share their recommendations for places to visit and see and especially things to eat!

Postscript from the Department of Ethnic Studies: We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Ho to our department!

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Welcome to New Faculty Member Natalie Avalos!

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 20:41:31 +0000

Welcome to New Faculty Member Natalie Avalos! Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/04/2019 - 14:41

Dr. Avalos is as a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Ethnic Studies and will be joining the department as an Assistant Professor in the 2020-21 academic year. Prior to joining CU Boulder as a postdoc, she taught Religious Studies at Connecticut College. A Chicana of Apache descent, Dr. Avalos was born and raised in the Bay Area. She received her doctorate from the University of California at Santa Barbara in Religious Studies with a special focus on Native American and Indigenous Religious Traditions and Tibetan Buddhism. She is a Ford Predoctoral Fellow, FTE Dissertation Fellow, and recipient of UC Santa Barbara’s Humanities Dissertation Research Fellowship. Dr. Avalos is an ethnographer of religion whose work in comparative Indigeneities explores the religious dimensions of transnational Native American and Tibetan decolonial movements.

She is currently working on her manuscript titled The Metaphysics of Decoloniality: Transnational Indigeneities and Religious Refusal. It argues that the reassertion of Indigenous metaphysics not only de-centers settler colonial claims to legitimate knowledge but also articulates new forms of sovereignty rooted in just (and ideal) relations of power between all persons, human and other-than human.

Dr. Avalos is very happy to be back in this region of the country, where there is so much sun but also green chile—her favorite food! She's thrilled to be part of such a dynamic department, where she can support diverse students of all backgrounds.

The Department of Ethnic Studies is equally delighted to welcome Dr. Avalos!

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Welcoming our new Assistant Professor specializing in Chicano/a History, Immigration and Carcerality Studies, Jessica Ordaz!

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 18:18:48 +0000

Welcoming our new Assistant Professor specializing in Chicano/a History, Immigration and Carcerality Studies, Jessica Ordaz! Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/26/2018 - 12:18

Dr. Ordaz grew up in Brentwood, California. She is the granddaughter of bracero agricultural laborers and the daughter of migrant workers. At the age of 18 she left home to pursue higher education and became a first gen college student at UC Santa Barbara triple majoring in Women’s Studies, History and Global Studies. It was here she was involved in organizations such as El Congreso and Women United for Justice, Education, and Revolution (M.U.J.E.R.), groups that promote cultural enrichment, higher education, and political consciousness within the Chicana/o community. Dr. Ordaz then continued to graduate school receiving her Masters in American Studies from Cal State, Fullerton and her PhD in American History from UC Davis.

Dr. Ordaz is currently working on a book manuscript that will historicize the roots and functions of immigration detention centers by exploring the background of the El Centro Immigration Detention Center in Southern California.

Having just moved to Colorado in July, she is super excited to get to know her colleagues and grad students in the Ethnic Studies department, the student body at CU Boulder, along with exploring Denver and the beautiful surrounding areas.

The Department of Ethnic Studies is extremely thrilled to welcome Dr. Ordaz!

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Professor Sepúlveda Joins the Department of Ethnic Studies

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Aug 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Professor Sepúlveda Joins the Department of Ethnic Studies Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/31/2017 - 00:00

Join us in welcoming Dr. Enrique Sepúlveda to our department! Dr. Sepúlveda brings his knowledge and skills in migration and border studies in global Latinx communities, critical literacy and pedagogy, and education and social justice (among many others), and we are excited to have him as a new colleague.

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