2007-08 Visiting Scholar
Deborah Miranda

The UCLA Institute of American Cultures, in cooperation with the American Indian Studies Center has awarded a visiting scholar fellowship to Dr. Deborah Miranda for the 2007-08 academic year.

Deborah is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Washington and Lee University. Dr. Miranda’s proposed project title is The Light from Carrisa Plains: Re-inventing California Indian Identity. This project will trace the historical, psychological, economic and cultural journey of one California Indian family from Missionization to the re-invention of indigenous identity in the 21st century. Using oral histories, B.I.A. documents, Mission records, contemporary genealogy, family photographs, and anthropological research, Dr. Miranda will tell a story that has been silenced by dismemberment. The Light from Carrisa Plains will serve as an antidote to the toxic histories and shattered identities that Native peoples have inherited.

Professor Miranda received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington in 2001.  Her fields of interest include:  Contemporary Native American Literature, Native American literacy, Women’s Literature, History of Colonization in North America, Poetry of Resistance, GLBT poetry, Two-Spirit Histories and Philosophy, American Ethnic Literatures.  In 2006, she was awarded an American Philosophical Society Grant for Native American Research.