Department Faculty
 |
Kari J. Winter Professor of American Studies Director of Graduate Studies Office: 1010B Clemens Hall Phone: (716) 645-2546, ext. 1227 Email: kwinter2@buffalo.edu |
Education
Ph.D. in English. University of Minnesota, 1990.
B.A. with honors in English and History. Indiana University, 1981.
Areas of Specialization
Kari Winter's research centers on two areas of investigation: 1) human quests for physical well-being; the ways oppression is written on the body through trauma, deprivation, violence, and degradation; how oppressed peoples attempt to endure and to affirm the value of their bodies; 2) human quests for intellectual freedom and social change; the roles of literacy, art, education, economics, and sexual desire in oppression and in liberation; connections between freedom and acts of self-narration, articulations of desire, rituals of mourning, political movements and other forms of healing and empowerment.
Selected Recent Publications
“Slaves Under the Driveway? Exhuming Buried History in Milford and Southbury,
Connecticut.” Connecticut Review (forthcoming).
“Jeffrey Brace in Barbados: Slavery, Interracial Relationships, and
the Emergence of a Global Economy.” Nineteenth-Century Contexts 29. 2-3 (2007). To be reprinted in Nineteenth-Century Worlds: Global Formations
Past and Present, eds. Greg Kucich and Keith Hanley, Routledge, 2008.
“Bordering Freedom but Unable to Cross into the Promised Land: Africans
in Early Vermont.” Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques 32.3 (2006): 473-92.
The Blind African Slave: or, Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, Nick-named Jeffrey
Brace. New edition of an 1810 slave narrative, with an introduction,
historical annotations, and appendices. Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography
Series. University of Wisconsin Press, 2005.
“The Hogshards of Bridgetown: A Case Study of a Free Colored Family
in Eighteenth-Century Barbados.” Journal of the Barbados Museum
and Historical Society 158 (2002): 29-42. Co-authored with Pedro Welch.
“The Politics and Erotics of Food in Louise Erdrich.” Studies
in American Indian Literature 12.4 (2000): 44-64.
Current Research (Works-in-Progress)
From Vermont Abolitionist to Virginian Slaveholder? Benjamin Franklin Prentiss and the Familial Politics of Antebellum America. A social history focusing on the racial and sexual politics of the Prentiss family as its members pursued various ways to wealth in antebellum Vermont and Virginia.
What's New About Slavery? Essays on Human Trafficking and Globalization.
An essay collection, co-edited with David Castillo.
Blacks in Early Vermont. A collection of essays (edited) about peoples
of African descent in Vermont from the 1770s through the Civil War.
Jeffrey Brace and His World: Slavery, War, and Freedom in the Eighteenth-Century.
A social history of the Atlantic world in the age of Revolution through the
lens of Jeffrey Brace’s life.
Recent Courses Taught
Human Trafficking
Slavery in the Americas: History
and Literature
The Slave Narrative Tradition in African American Literature
Antebellum America
Contemporary American Indian Literature
Writing Lives: Studies in Genre and Voice
The Erotics of Talk
Witch Hunts in American History
Louise Erdrich, American Indian History, and Contemporary Critical Theory
American Pluralism
Selected Professional Activities
Co-Organizer, UB Humanities Institute 2007 Conference on Human Trafficking
Chair, Gender Week 2007 (10th Anniversary
Celebration)
Advisory Board for Program in Caribbean
Studies, 2007-
UB Gender Institute Executive Committee,
2006-
UB Humanities Institute Executive
Committee, 2005-
National Endowment for the Humanities
Review Panelist for Collaborative Research Fellowships, 2006.
Editorial Board, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, 1994-
Advisory Board, Antislavery Literature Project based at Arizona State University,
2005-
Ford Foundation Fellowship Review Panelist, 1998-2004
Advisory Committee, Public Media Foundation, Boston. 1992-2000.
Recent Awards and Grants
Gender Institute Service Award,
SUNY at Buffalo. 2007.
Canadian-American Studies Committee Research Grant. SUNY at Buffalo. 2006-07.
Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy Research Grant. SUNY at Buffalo. 2005-06.
Invited by the Chinese Government (Zhejiang Province) to participate as their
guest in an international literary conference and tour. May 19-30, 2005.
Certificate of Recognition for Positive Influence on Students. Presented by
Division of Student Affairs. SUNY at Buffalo, 2005.