LIBERTY SMITH

EDUCATION

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, MLIS, 2006.

University of California, San Diego, Ph.D. in Literature, 2003. C.Phil. and M.A. in Literatures in English, 2001.

Kenyon College, Gambier, OH, B.A. in Spanish Area Studies and English, 1994.

Centro de Estudios Unidos Colombo-Americano, Bogotá, Colombia, Study Abroad, 1992 – 1993.

 

DISSERTATION “Something Sinister in this Affair”: Femme/Butch Collaborations and “American” Politics

Chair: Michael Davidson

Committee: Jorge Huerta, Milos Kokotovic, Kathryn Shevelow, Nicole Tonkovich A transnational cultural studies approach is essential to a full understanding of mid-twentieth-century U.S. culture and especially of the moment’s defining conflation of sexual and national threats. At this time, gay government workers were special targets of suspicion, but queer women, inside and outside government, as well as outside the nation itself, fulfilled the promise of disrupting U.S. national and sexual norms. For these women, collaborative writing and art was the bridge linking their sexual/gender transgressions and larger political interventions. At the margins of the U.S.—expatriate Paris, Central America and Mexico, and the ethnic neighborhood of East Palo Alto—the “first ladies” of U.S. and Latin American literature and film collaborated to call into question the norms in their home nations and in the U.S. For example, Part One of this study shows that Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas’s collaborations on Stein’s “rose is a rose” phrase informed and anticipated their queer sexual transgressions as well as their engagements with national and fascist politics. Mid-century texts by Mexican filmmaker, Matilde Landeta, and Honduran novelist, Lucila Gamero de Medina, as well as The Howdy Doody Show and the recent plays of Cherríe Moraga, all explored in Part Two, similarly use collaboration, this time as a pedagogical tool for bringing to light the (gendered) experience of increasing U.S. imperial power in Latin America.

 

RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS

Twentieth-century U.S. literature and theater

Latina/o and U.S. ethnic literature

Transnational American Studies

Collaboration in Literature and the Arts

Pedagogy/Composition

Interdisciplinary Studies (American Studies, Women’s Studies, GLBT Studies, Cultural Studies)

Film Criticism and Filmmaking

 

PUBLICATIONS

“1903: Gertrude Stein Writes Q.E.D.” GLBT History Database. Salem Press/EBSCO (2005).

“The ‘Perverse Effects’ of Feminism and Globalization: (Trans)Gender and (Trans) Nationalism in Honduras’s First Novelist.” Michigan Feminist Studies 18 (2004) 35-58.

“Listening to the ‘Wives’ of the ‘Female Husbands’: A Project of Femme Historiography in Eighteenth-Century Britain.” Journal of Lesbian Studies 6.2 (2002): 105-20.

“Confessional Subjection and Resistance in Edwin Sánchez’s Plays.” Gestos (accepted pending revision).

“‘There will be all the world there’: ‘Sexual Trouble’ and the Fans of Castrati in Henry Fielding’s The Historical Register” (in submission).

 

HONORS AND AWARDS

Department of Literature Dissertation Fellowship, UCSD, Fall 2002.

The Woodrow Wilson National Women’s Studies Dissertation Grant, Winter 2002.

Harvey Milk/Tom Homann Scholarship, San Diego, 2001.

Tinker Foundation Field Research Grant, 2000.

UCSD Humanities Research Assistantship, 1998-99.

LIBRARY SCIENCE PRESENTATIONS

“Citation Analysis Methods for Researching and Supporting Interdisciplinary Areas,” L&I Sci 550 class presentation, Spring 2006 (coauthored with Robin Jensen and Brian Schmidt).

“What’s Your GLBT IQ?: Providing Library Services to Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Intersex, and Queer Patrons,” L&I Sci 751 class presentation, Fall, 2005.

“Readers Advisory Services in the ‘Problem Memoir,’” L&I Sci 751 class presentation, Fall, 2005.

“Conducting Primary Research with Archival Material,” L&I Sci 504 class presentation, Spring, 2005.

“New Technologies for the Humanities,” Survival Skills for Graduate School Series, UCSD, Spring, 2003.

SELECTED ACADEMIC CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

“Rearticulation as Incantation: Performativity, Pétain, and Other ‘Franco-American Things,’” Modern Language Association Meeting, 2004.

“‘Growing Ourselves a Future’: The Pedagogical Power of Community Based Theatre in Cherríe Moraga,” International Conference on Education Practice, Policy & Law, 2004.

“‘I assure you that I know feminine psychology well’: Queer National Critique in Lucila Gamero de Medina’s Amor exótico,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, 2003.

“‘(S)exile’: Queerness and Diaspora in Three Post-national Texts,” co-presented with Sangeeta Mediratta at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Conference on Translocal Flows: Migrations, Frontiers, and Diasporas in the Americas, Summer 2003.

“Touching Each Other: Contamination and Collaboration in Toklas and Stein,” USC AEGS Conference on Contamination, Winter 2003.

“Confessional Subjection and Resistance in Edwin Sánchez’s Plays,” UCLA QGRAD Conference, Fall 2001.

“The Fabulous Interpellated, Confessing, Queer, Nuyorican Subject: A Reading of Edwin Sánchez’s Multiple Performances of Resistance,” CSU Room for Play Conference, Winter 2001.

“Listening to the ‘Wives’ of the ‘Female Husbands’: A Project of Sapphic Historiography in Eighteenth-Century Britain,” University of Chicago Futures of the Queer Past Conference, Summer 2000.

“‘The Atmosphere of the Unasked Question’: Considering the Queer Products of Prejudice in Otto Weininger’s Sex and Character,” UCLA QGRAD Conference, Fall 1999.

“ Chasing Amy: A Viable Alternative to the ‘Ellen Paradigm’ in Queer Cultural Production?” Panel Coordinator, CU Feminist Theory Symposium, March 1998.

 

EMPLOYMENT

Program Manager/Special Library Manager, National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, Scotts Valley, California, September, 2006 – present.

• Provide direct reference service, training, and technical assistance to patrons.
• Manage budget and fulfill or supervise other fiscal accountability duties.
• Plan and coordinate national training, publicity, and resource creation initiatives and provide guidance to webmaster in electronic presence of Clearinghouse.
• Responsible for daily operations including staff supervision and development, communicate with government funder, and collaborate with other organizations.

 

Library Assistant III, Center for Library & Instructional Computing Services (CLICS), University of California, San Diego, March, 2006 – August, 2006.

• Presented library instruction sessions.
• Provided reference guidance on print and electronic collections.
• Performed collection development duties.
• Managed operations on weekends, including supervision of student employees, circulation, patron problem resolution, stack maintenance, and security problems.
• Assisted in training employees and providing feedback on their performance.

 

Library Technician, Access Services, San Diego County Public Law Library, San Diego, CA, March, 2005 – February, 2006.

• Managed all aspects of Access Services department including creating and implementing policies and procedures; resolving conflicts with patrons; providing circulation, ILL, and extended services to patrons; coordinating membership and circulation activities; and overseeing basic maintenance of patron computers.
• Responsible for training and staff development of four part-time and two full-time employees including: chairing search committees, training new employees, ensuring quality control of department tasks, and conducting performance evaluations.
• Performed reference duties as needed including answering ready reference questions and assisting with Spanish language reference transactions.
• Developed and performed special projects including the creation of a new department procedures manual, implementing a patron database quality control program, and generating all fiscal year-end statistical reports.

 

Research and Bibliography Assistant, Various, San Diego and Boulder, CO, September, 1997 – January, 2000 and September, 2004 – March, 2005.

• Conducted grant research and technical consultation for artists.
• Researched topics in the humanities for university faculty.
• Created, maintained, and supported use of ProCite bibliographic database for sociology and theater publications.
• Contributed to all phases of a faculty book project including library and online research, outlining, drafting, revising, and editing.

 

Writing and Literature Instructor, Various Departments, University of California, San Diego, Southern Connecticut State University, Quinnipiac University, September, 1999 – June, 2004.

• Instructed students in library and online research methods for all courses.
• Designed syllabi, provided all instruction, performed all evaluation, and advised students for composition and literature courses.

 

Research Assistant, Scientific Research Ethics Program, UCSD, La Jolla, CA, September, 2002 – August, 2003.

• Teamed with principal investigator to design, distribute, and code a national survey of goals in research ethics education.
• Assisted with organization of focus group meetings.

 

Diversity Programs Coordinator, Department of Housing, CU, Boulder, CO, 1997-98.

• Met with various constituencies on campus to assess student needs.
• Designed and coordinated multicultural awareness programming for 6,000 resident students.
• Hired and managed 14 diversity advocates.

 

Bilingual Program Liaison, Kenyon College Archaeology Program, Honduras, Central America, 1995.

• Managed communications and resolved conflicts between US faculty and student archaeologists and Honduran field workers.
• Trained and mentored students in intercultural interactions.
• Oversaw daily project operations.

 

Circulation Assistant, Olin Chalmers Library, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH, September, 1990 –May, 1992.

• Performed circulation desk services including checking in and out of both regularly circulating and course reserve materials, performing the closing procedure, and providing customer service to patrons.
• Contributed to material processing tasks.
• Supported night supervisor in other administrative tasks as needed.

COURSES TAUGHT

Composition Courses

• Introduction to Queer Theory
• Rereading/Rewriting Race
• U.S. Borders
• Music and Subcultures
• Cultures of Monstrosity

Culture, Art, and Technology Core Sequence

Introduction to Poetry

Topics in Ethnic American Literature: African American and Jewish Narratives of Passing

Survey of U.S. Literature 1865-present

Conversations in ESL

 

ACADEMIC/COMMUNITY SERVICE AND ACTIVITIES

Representative, Print and Photocopier Solution Selection Committee, San Diego County Public Law Library, August, 2005 – Present.

Presenter : “New Technologies for the Humanities,” Survival Skills for Graduate School Series, Spring 2003.

Panel Participant . “The Qualifying Process,” UCSD Department of Literature, Winter 2003.

Coordinator, Graduate Enrichment Series Colloquia, UCSD Department of Literature, 2001-02.

Panel Participant, “Applying for Fellowships,” UCSD Department of Literature, Spring 2002.

Union Steward, ASE/UAW, UCSD, 2001-02.

Volunteer, San Diego Dyke March, Spring – Summer 2001 and 2002.

Graduate Student Representative, Literature Department Executive Committee, UCSD, 2000-01.

Representative, Cultural Studies Section, Literature Department Graduate Student Committee, UCSD, 1999-01.

Pedagogy and Composition Training, Linda Brodkey, Director, Warren College Writing Program, 1999-2000.

Co-Founder/Member, Queer Quorum, Graduate Reading Group in Queer Theory, UCSD, 1999-2001.

Guest Lecturer, “From Foucault’s Confession to Althusser’s Interpellation to What?: Can there be Resistance in the Confessing Subject?” U.S. Queer Latino Theater, Fall 1999.

Member, Chancellor’s Advisory Committee for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered Issues, UCSD, 1998-2000.

Guest Lecturer, “Butch/Femme Culture in the U.S.,” “Queer History in the 20th Century U.S.,” “Queer Culture: After Matthew Shepard,” UCSD Extension 1998-99.

Coordinator, Ad-Hoc Committee to Respond to Matthew Shepard Hate Crime, UCSD, Fall 1998.

 

RELEVANT SKILLS

Computer

• Innovative Interfaces Millennium, Anzio, PACS, FinalcutPro, Dreamweaver, Microsoft Office, WordPerfect, FileMakerPro, Paradox, Access, Procite, Endnote, RefWorks, computer-based instructional environments (Blackboard, WebCT, Desire2Learn), and Internet research.

Languages

• Spanish: near fluent

• Portuguese: moderate reading knowledge

 

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

American Library Association

California Library Association

Society of American Archivists

 

PRINTER-FRIENDLY CV (PDF)