I research the aesthetics and experiences of desert places in 20th and 21st century literature, poetry, art, and film.
How did fierce arid landscapes become a monolithic object voided of people or agency?
I am interested in human and more-than-human entanglements, such as geological time and elemental forces like light and heat.
In what ways does vastness and an abundance of light and space contribute to desert aesthetics?
I am dedicated to encouraging people to consider and care about the various communities, especially Chicanx and Indigenous peoples, whose desert placemaking and placekeeping contains hope, wonder, and joy despite centuries of colonial violences.
What do deserts as home places look, sound, or feel like?
PUBLICATIONS
Book: Desert Distortion explores the human—more-than-human interrelationships of desert places and their representations in literature, art, and film. Texas Tech University Press, forthcoming.
Chapter: “Color, Place, and Memory in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Gardens in the Dunes.” Reading Aridity in Western American Literature. Eds. Jada Ach and Gary Reger. Lexington Books, 2020.
INTERVIEWS / MEDIA
"The Desert: A Well-Spring of the Imagination." For CBC Radio's IDEAS.
Spotlights, Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology Podcast.
"Taking a Humanistic Approach to Environmental Issues." For ASU News.
"Letting in the Light: ASU's partnership with artist James Turrell on Roden Crater leads to thought-provoking artwork." For Disrupt, the magazine for Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University.
"Peering into Landscapes with Literature." For Accents on English at Arizona State University.
"Doctoral Graduate Embraces Landscapes, Literatures." For ASUNow.
