Tanya Kam
Professor

Tanya Y. Kam earned her PhD in English from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2003. Her research interests include life writing, multicultural literature, gender studies, and dystopian literature. She is currently the book editor for a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, and she enjoys teaching a variety of upper and lower-division courses at UWW.


Education
PhD in English, University of California, Santa Cruz (2003)
     Notation in American Studies

BA, University of California, Berkeley (1994)  
Double major: English & Interdisciplinary Field Studies
     (focus: sociolinguistics)
      summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa

Courses Taught
Multicultural Literature of the United States, Advanced Composition, American Minority Women Writers, Freshmen English, World of Ideas
 

Select Publications

"Comic Thanatography: Redrawing Agenct, Dialogism, and Ethics in Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? Print article published in Inks: The Journal of the Comic Studies Society, vol. 2, no. 2, Summer 2018, pp. 215-235. 

“Forests of the Self: Life Writing and Wild Wanderings,” Life Writing. Published online Oct. 16, 2015. Print article published in vol. 13, no. 3, October 2016, pp. 351-371. 


“Velvet Coats and Manicured Nails:  the Body Speaks Resistance in Zora Neale Hurston’s Dust Tracks on the Road.”  The Southern Literary Journal 42.1 (Fall 2009): 73-87.  

“Traveling Identities:  Between Worlds in Karen Tei Yamashita’s Circle K Cycles.” ellipsis:  Journal of the American Portuguese Studies Association 6 (December 2008): 9-32. 

Reviews
"Lifewriting Annual: Biographical and Autobiographical Studies: Volume 2," ed. Thomas Smith, Auto/Biography
     Studies, Summer 2009

“G. Thomas Couser’s Vulnerable Subjects,” Auto/Biography Studies, Summer 2006

“Paul John Eakin’s The Ethics of Life Writing,” Auto/Biography Studies, Summer 2004


Select Presentations

“Out of Bounds: A Cartography of Transgression in Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats,” Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States Conference. Las Vegas, Nevada; May 3-6, 2018.

“Graphic Gerontology: Eldercare, Ethics, and Comic Structure in Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?” International Auto/Biography Association Conference (IABA). Nicosia, Cyprus; May 26-19,  2016.

“Forests of the Self: Life Writing and Wild Wanderings,” International Auto/Biography Association Conference (IABA). Banff, Canada; Summer 2014.

“Family Portraits: Trauma and Mental Illness in Linked Memoirs,” International Auto/Biography Association Conference (IABA). Canberra, Australia; July 17-20, 2012.

“The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar,” International Auto/Biography Association Conference. Mainz, Germany; June 2010.

“The Virginia Tech Story: Translating Tragedy,”International Auto/Biography Association Conference. Honolulu, HI; June 2008.

“Passion, Pedophiles and Brats: Desire and Ethics in Todd Field’s Little Children,” International Conference on Narrative. Austin, Texas; May 2008.

“Velvet Coats and Manicured Nails: Zora Neale Huston (Re)Classifies the Body in Dust Tracks on the Road,” International Conference on Narrative. Washington, D.C.; March 2007.