2024 PAMLA Election Nominee Statements
Dear PAMLA members,
The time has come for our annual PAMLA elections for new officers of our Executive Committee (to see our current PAMLA officers, go here: https://www.pamla.org/about/governance/ ; to read our PAMLA Constitution go here: https://www.pamla.org/about/constitution-bylaws/ ). If you are current with your PAMLA membership, in the next week you will receive an emailed ballot link to vote for new officers. Your PAMLA Executive Committee is the body that makes major decisions regarding PAMLA. They help to plan the association’s future so that we may continue to serve our members’ needs. We require your assistance in choosing the best officers possible. Happily, the Nominating Committee, led by its chair Professor Yolanda Doub, has come up with an impressive slate of potential officers. Please take a moment to read through the candidates’ statements and then cast your vote. You can vote for one candidate out of the two nominees for Second Vice President, and two candidates out of the five nominees for Executive Committee Member-at-large. The Second Vice President moves up automatically to First Vice President and then to President in consecutive years. The two Executive Committee Members-at-large nominees who receive the most votes will each serve three-year terms.
I’d like to thank and acknowledge the fine work of the Nominating Committee (Chair Yolanda Doub and members Juan Delgado and John Schwetman). And our deep gratitude goes out to our candidates for their willingness to serve our association should they be elected. We know we are all busy, so thank you, candidates, for your dedication to service and to PAMLA! Now, let the voting commence.
Happy voting,
Craig Svonkin, PAMLA Executive Director
Candidates for Second Vice President (please vote for one nominee):
Jerry Rafiki Jenkins is Assistant Director of the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Georgia. Rafiki holds a doctorate in Literature, an M.A. in Literatures in English, and B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego. Rafiki’s research focuses on Black speculative fiction and film, and he has presented papers at the annual conventions of the Pacific and Ancient Modern Language Association (PAMLA), South Atlantic Modern Language Association, American Studies Association, National Association of African American Studies, and Popular Culture Association. Rafiki is the author of Anti-Blackness and Human Monstrosity in Black American Horror Fiction (Ohio State UP, 2024) and The Paradox of Blackness in African American Vampire Fiction (Ohio State UP, 2019). He co-edited, with Martin Japtok, Human Contradictions in Octavia E. Butler’s Work (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and Authentic Blackness/Real Blackness: Essays on the Meaning of Blackness in Literature and Culture (Peter Lang, 2011). Rafiki is also the author of several book chapters, and his peer-reviewed articles have been published in PAMLA’s Pacific Coast Philology, as well as in Screening Noir, African American Review, Journal of Children’s Literature, and Science Fiction Studies.
Jerry Rafiki Jenkins’ Candidate Statement: My growth as a scholar is largely due to my involvement in PAMLA. Indeed, early versions of several of my articles and book chapters were presented at PAMLA conferences, and the idea for Human Contradictions in Octavia E. Butler’s Work, which was edited by me and Martin Japtok, began after our participation in a PAMLA panel on Octavia Butler. I have been an active member since 2009, when I presented my first PAMLA paper, and I have served as a presiding officer, panel chair, presenter, executive committee member, and reviewer for Pacific Coast Philology. I am currently editing a symposium for Pacific Coast Philology and working on another article to submit to the journal.
When I discovered that I had been nominated for Second Vice President, I was more than excited to have the opportunity to help maintain and expand what PAMLA has provided for me and others—an intellectual space where the goal of sharing and debating ideas is not one-upmanship but making meaningful contributions to the Humanities and, therefore, to human life. The ability to provide such a space, I believe, is one of the reasons why emerging and established scholars, artists, and teachers are drawn to PAMLA. Thus, if I am elected Second Vice President, I will work with others throughout PAMLA to seek out ways to expand the organization’s reach. I believe that emphasizing the interdisciplinary nature of the Humanities is one approach to such expansion, which could include promoting PAMLA’s conferences and journals to non-Humanities departments and/or holding workshops that focus on the ways in which a degree in the Humanities could be useful in careers outside of the Humanities. With that goal guiding my service, I look forward to working with the executive board on developing a conference topic and a list of guest speakers that will encourage dialogue between Humanities and non-Humanities disciplines and maintain PAMLA’s commitment to scholarly inquiry, mentorship, professional growth, and diversity. I am excited about the opportunity to help guide PAMLA into the future as it seeks to highlight the importance of Humanities scholarship.
Satoko Kakihara is Associate Professor of Japanese at California State University, Fullerton. She has been on the PAMLA Executive Committee as a Member at Large since 2022, during which she has served on the Graduate Student Scholarship Committee (2023) and the Conference Review Committee (2024). She has also worked since 2019 to help build the Asian Studies Caucus for PAMLA, having recently seen the elevation of the Asian Film and Media Special Session to the status of Standing Session.
Satoko received her Ph.D. in Literature from the University of California, San Diego after completing her B.A. in English and Linguistics and M.A. in Linguistics at Stanford University. At California State University, Fullerton, Satoko teaches courses on Japanese language, literature (medieval, modern, and contemporary), and culture (including film, anime, and manga). At previous institutions (including Nagoya University in Japan), she taught research methods in cultural studies, writing, and English as a Second/Foreign Language. She has published in such venues as the electronic journal of contemporary japanese studies, the Japanese Studies journal, and the CATESOL Journal. She has contributed to such volumes as Teaching Postwar Japanese Fiction (MLA, 2023), Culinary Nationalism in Asia (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), Asia-Pacific Film Co-productions (Routledge, 2019), and Migrant Identities of “Creole Cosmopolitans” (Peter Lang, 2011). Her first book, Women’s Performative Writing and Identity Construction in the Japanese Empire, was published by Lexington Books, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield, in 2022.
Satoko Kakihara’s Candidate Statement: I am honored to be nominated by the nominating committee to run for the position of PAMLA’s Second Vice President. I have been a part of the PAMLA community in different ways, from first presenting at its 2013 conference as a graduate student, to serving as the Presiding Officer for its Asian Literature and Culture Standing Session (2014, 2017, and 2019), and to proposing and presiding over the Asian Film and Media Special Session (2021, 2022, and 2023). I also served on the selection committee for the 2021 Pacific Coast Philology Outstanding Article Award.
If elected, my term would be driven by questions: Who are our members? In what fields do they teach and research? What kinds of topics interest them (and in what areas can we grow, to attract new members)? What geographic regions do members come from (and where can we expand our membership)? What other types of meetings and activities would benefit the membership? Do we want to do something outside of the United States? And is holding our annual meeting online once in a while really that bad?
To answer such questions, I shall turn to the PAMLA members, officers, and Executive Director for guidance. It is imperative for the health of the organization to build a strong and robust membership, comprised of scholars who feel that being a part of PAMLA offers them resources that empower them to find satisfaction in their work. I also hope for the organization and its conference to be accessible to those in different positionalities (including non-tenure track faculty, graduate students, independent scholars, and creators). As Second Vice President, I also aim to open up the possibility of meetings that do not take the form of a traditional conference, ones that fit differently into an academia—and a broader world—irrevocably changed by the recent global pandemic. This includes meeting modalities that do not require travel, or formats that allow members with financial or caregiving constraints to participate as fully as they desire. Most importantly, I want to leverage my own experiences as an Asian female scholar, who has worked both in and outside of academia, to strengthen PAMLA’s commitment to equity and inclusion and to advocate for the importance of critical humanities in our society today.
Candidates for Member-at-Large Positions on the PAMLA Executive Committee (please vote for up to two nominees):
Norah Ashe-McNalley is a Professor of Teaching Writing in the University of Southern California Writing Program, where she teaches upper division disciplinary writing courses for students in the health sciences, the arts and humanities, and food studies. She currently also serves as Writing Program Director. She has a Doctorate in English from the University of California, Irvine, and an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley. Her work, both in and outside the classroom, is informed by trauma studies and a compassionate approach to teaching and program administration. She sees this as listening with compassion, engaging with empathy and intention, and approaching problems collaboratively. Her food studies writing course asks students to explore food as a source of cultural and spiritual as well as physical nourishment, encouraging them to look at it through a variety of disciplinary lenses.
Norah Ashe-McNalley’s Candidate Statement: It has been almost a decade since I first started attending PAMLA. Since then, I have come to see the annual conference as one of the most rewarding and engaging academic events of the year. PAMLA is warmly welcoming to a diverse community of scholars, fostering connections across academic silos and disciplinary boundaries. It is a genuinely inclusive space that encourages discussion across institutional boundaries. As such, I have found the conference is uniquely situated to bring together those with expertise in literature with experts in pedagogy, literacies, and composition studies. Both as teaching faculty myself and as the director of a university writing program, it has been meaningful to see the growing number of panels devoted to pedagogy, writing, and composition studies. At a time when higher education, and particularly the humanities, can feel under attack, it is all the more important to hold room for those spaces of inclusion, compassion, dignity, those spaces where genuine listening, and therefore learning, take place. As a board member, I would be committed to supporting the diversity and multidisciplinarity of PAMLA’s community.
Amy Katherine Cannon is an Associate Teaching Professor of Writing in the Thematic Option Honors Program at USC. She received her MFA from UC Irvine, where she was the recipient of the Gerard Creative Writing Endowment. She is the author of the chapbook the interior desert (Californios Press, 2019) and the mini-chapbook to make a desert (Platypus Press, 2016). At PAMLA, she most recently presented her paper on “Metaphor and Mediation in Julian of Norwich” as a part of the Medieval Literature session, shared “slow handiwork: a 100-day stitch diary” for the “Here’s a Book” roundtable, and read from her newest chapbook bright reality: poems of postpartum at one of PAMLA’s poetry readings. Her work can be found in Bone Bouquet, Inlandia, LETTERS, and LIT, among other places. She is Managing Editor of Palaver Arts Magazine, a student arts publication.
Amy Katherine Cannon’s Candidate Statement: As an invested member of PAMLA, I am honored to be considered for the position of Executive Committee Member-at-large. I am enthusiastic about the opportunity to contribute to the ongoing success and growth of this organization I appreciate so deeply.
PAMLA has long been a vital home for cross-disciplinary dialogue, making space for both serious scholarship and artistic practice. Each year, I eagerly anticipate the conference, where I have had the privilege of presenting original research and artistic projects alongside fellow scholars and creators. These experiences have not only enriched my own professional and creative development, but have also underscored the invaluable opportunities PAMLA offers for scholarly exchange and engagement across discipline and field. PAMLA is the rare place where academics and the arts are both centered.
If elected, I am committed to nurturing the collaborative and creative environment that defines PAMLA. I believe in the power of diverse perspectives to address the challenges facing our fields and higher education as a whole. I am particularly passionate about supporting graduate students, contingent faculty, and other PAMLA members who may have limited institutional support, recognizing their contributions as essential to our community. I am excited about the possibility of serving on the Executive Committee and contributing to PAMLA’s continued success. Together, I am confident we can sustain a vibrant community that celebrates scholarship, the arts, and intellectual and creative exchange.
Edward Chamberlain is an Associate Professor in the Division of Culture, Arts, and Communication at the University of Washington Tacoma. He completed his Ph.D. in American Studies and Literature at Indiana University Bloomington in 2012. This program involved an interdisciplinary approach, which allowed him to study a variety of related subjects including diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice. He views these elements as being crucial parts of the humanities today. Prior to this, he earned a dual B.A. degree in Spanish and English at the College of New Jersey in 2003. From this education, he gained a greater understanding of the varied roles of art, culture, and literature in diverse communities across borders.
In more personal terms, as the son of an immigrant, Dr. Chamberlain has endeavored to be more mindful of the ways that migration shapes people’s lives in complex ways. These experiences likewise have shaped his research and teaching. His research interests include the study of ethnicity, migration, race, gender, and sexuality across the Americas. Dr. Chamberlain’s monograph Imagining LatinX Intimacies: Connecting Queer Stories, Spaces, and Sexualities was published by Rowman and Littlefield International in 2020. He has published research articles in such journals as Pacific Coast Philology, English Language Notes, Prose Studies, and Food, Culture, and Society, among others. Currently, he is conducting research for a monograph that examines connections of food representation and daily practices in LGBTQ+ communities.
Edward Chamberlain’s Candidate Statement: In 2015, I attended a PAMLA conference for the first time, and I have continued to return to the conference because of the organization’s atmosphere of collegiality and inclusivity. Additionally, I have served as a presiding officer for several sessions over the years. Looking forward, I envision PAMLA as being an organization and conference that can foster creativity and research from all across the humanities. Likewise, I am a supporter of mentoring programs and fairness in all the work we do. This leads me to be an advocate for fair labor practices so that faculty and students have a better work-life balance.
In the past, I have served in several roles that have granted me perspectives that are relevant to this position. I’ve served as the co-chair of a multi-year arts celebration at my campus, where we coordinated various workshops and events that aimed to foster a greater sense of cultural consciousness and engagement. These experiences allowed me to be involved in several forms of administrative and collaborative work, where I co-created initiatives for the public good. In this work, I believe in the value of respectful and civil collaboration, and thus I would ensure our organization continues to create intellectual spaces that are inclusive and equitable. As a part of this, I would approach the role of member-at-large by working with compassion and embracing an empathetic approach in all the work we do. If elected, I will work to ensure that the PAMLA continues to create a welcoming space for all students, artists, and practitioners.
Alicia Rico is Associate Professor of Spanish and Chair of the Department of World Languages and Cultures at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She earned her Licenciatura in Filología Inglesa in Alicante, Spain and then she moved to Lawrence, Kansas where she did her M.A. and her Ph.D. in Contemporary Mexican and Spanish in Literature at the University of Kansas. She researches on Mexican-Jewish authors and the representation of Jewishness in Mexican and Spanish novels, which she has combined with her passion for food and food studies. She has published articles such as “Cruzando fronteras: El mercader de Tudela (1998) de Angelina Muñiz-Huberman” and “Apuntes gastronómico-sociales de El Chef ha muerto (2011) de Yanet Acosta?” among others.
Alicia Rico’s Candidate Statement: Since I started attending PAMLA in 2005, I have always found an amazing array of contributions that have provided an outlet for my personal growth. At the same time, this forum has given me the opportunity to meet colleagues excited not only by their own research but by the education we all provide presenting different cultures and backgrounds to our students. Up to now, I have contributed with my own presentations, as a presiding officer of well-established sessions, and I have also organized special sessions. Should I be elected, it will be an honor to serve on the Executive Committee and contribute to keep on fostering the enriching dialogue of PAMLA, especially at a time in which languages across the nation are not among the most sought disciplines.
Matthew Warshawsky (PhD, Ohio State University) is Professor of Spanish at the University of Portland, where he has taught since 2002. His teaching ranges from introductory Spanish to courses about the Islamic, Jewish, and Christian cultures of medieval Spain; women authors of Golden Age Spain; Don Quixote; and Latin American Jewish literature and culture. Most recently, he is the author of From New Christians to New Jews: Seventeenth-Century Spanish Texts in Defense of Judaism (Juan de la Cuesta-Hispanic Monographs, forthcoming 2024), and he has published two articles in PAMLA’s journal Pacific Coast Philology. His collaboration with undergraduates has led to coauthored publications in peer-reviewed journals of undergraduate research on the literature of Iberian authors of Jewish origin. Previously he has served on the national screening committee for Fulbright English Teaching Assistantships to Spain, as vice president of conference programs for the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies, and as chair of the Department of International Languages and Cultures at the University of Portland.
Matthew Warshawsky’s Candidate Statement: Having participated in every PAMLA conference since 2006, I look forward to this annual gathering as an opportunity to connect with colleagues whom I might not see otherwise, to present recent research and receive feedback, and to learn about the work of scholars in other fields. I especially enjoy the welcoming atmosphere of the PAMLA conference and the breadth of panels that one may attend. During this time, I have supported PAMLA by serving as a presiding officer for standing and special sessions three times and on the PAMLA Auxiliary Council. I also worked with my university so that it would co-sponsor the 2023 conference in Portland. As a member at large of the Executive Committee, I would prioritize the importance of PAMLA as a venue for graduate students (and the occasional undergraduate) and early-career scholars to share their work, as well as the inclusiveness and interdisciplinary conversations that characterize the organization. Likewise, if given the opportunity to serve, I would help PAMLA continue to be a space that advocates for the study of languages and literatures in a society that increasingly questions their importance.