[UPDATED: 9/9/2021]
CHRISTOPHER M. MUNIZ, PHD [email protected]
EDUCATION
PHD University of Southern California Literature and Creative Writing
MFA California Institute of the Arts Interdisciplinary Writing / Critical Studies
BA University of Southern California English / Creative Writing
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
University of Southern California
Lecturer, Writing Program, Rhetoric and Composition 2017-present Advanced Writing in the Arts & Humanities Advanced Writing in the Health Sciences Advanced Writing in the Natural Sciences Human Values and Belief Systems Identity and Diversity Issues in Sustainability
Instructor, Thematic Option Undergraduate Honors Program 2015-2017 What Now? The Post-Apocalypse in the Ecological Imagination Ghost in the Machine: Robots, Replicants, and Cyborgs Writing Seminar: Thematic Option Honors Program
Instructor, Department of English 2014-2015 Creative Writing for Non-Majors
Lecturer, Writing Program, Rhetoric and Composition 2011-2013 Ethnicity Through Film Film, Power, and American History Race and Class in Los Angeles
Thrive Scholars (formerly known as South Central Scholars)
Rigorous and intensive academic enrichment program designed to prepare motivated high school scholars from underserved communities for college success. In current role as professor, designed a reading, writing, and critical thinking course for a six-week intensive summer program for rising high school seniors. This role also included the supervision of a teaching assistant.
Professor of English, Summer Academy 2021- Assistant Instructor, Summer Academy 2012-2016
CHRISTOPHER M. MUNIZ / CV
Lecturer, College Essay Writing Retreat 2016
Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, Heritage University
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation sponsors the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program (MMUF) at Heritage University. This graduate studies preparatory program offers financial support to emerging upper-division students who are interested in pursuing academic research in the arts and sciences. Heritage University is a private university in Toppenish, Washington, on the Yakama Indian Reservation.
Facilitator, Biannual ‘Statement of Purpose’ Writing Retreat 2018-present
California State University, Dominguez Hills
Lecturer, Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies 2017-2019 Latina/o Identity in the Americas Introduction to Chicana/o Literature
California Institute of the Arts
Lecturer, Department of Critical Studies 1997-1999 Writing Arts
CONFERENCES AND PRESENTATIONS:
“Collaborative Approaches to Applying Anti-Racist and Decolonial Strategies to Language Education and Area Studies [Roundtable].” Modern Literature Association Convention, Washington, D.C. January 6-9, 2022.
“Antiracist Practices for Working with Students [Panel].” Modern Literature Association Convention, Virtual Conference, January 7-10, 2021.
“Decolonizing the Classroom: Valuing Linguistic Diversity through Grading and Assessment Rubrics.” Modern Literature Association Convention, Virtual Conference, January 7-10, 2021.
“A Story of the West After All: The Trump Administration and the Rhetoric of the Frontier [Roundtable].” Western Literature Association Conference, Virtual Conference. October 22-24, 2020.
“Decolonizing the Grading Rubric: How to Value Codemeshing while Critiquing Student Writing.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. March 28, 2020.
“Sesshu Foster, AI, and the Rhizomatic West.” The Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature in the United States (MELUS), Las Vegas, Nevada. May 3-6, 2018
“Urban Environmentalism and the Ghosts of Western Past” on panel “Western Cityscapes.” The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE), Detroit, Michigan. June 20-24, 2017.
CHRISTOPHER M. MUNIZ / CV 2
“No Quarter: Cultural Identity and Historical Trauma in False Native-American Memoirs.” The Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature in the United States (MELUS), Cambridge, Massachussetts. April 27-30, 2017.
“Behind the Mask: The Pathological Appropriation of Historical Trauma in False Native American Memoir.” The Native American Literature Symposium, Mystic Lake, Minnesota. March 2-4, 2017.
“Caballo Sin Nombre: Spectral Violence in the (post)Western Borderlands of Breaking Bad.” Southwest Popular/American Culture Association, Albuquerque, New Mexico. February 16, 2017.
“Closing the (Age) Gap: College-Level Instruction for High School Students” on panel “The South Central Scholars Effect: An Innovative Approach to Closing Income-Based Achievement Gaps.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Tampa, Florida. March 20, 2015.
“From East London to East L.A.: Excavating Urban Identity and Culture in the West Coast Jungle scene.” American Studies Association Annual Meeting “The Fun and the Fury: New Dialectics of Pleasure and Pain in the Post-American Century,” Los Angeles, California. November 9, 2014.
“Whose Trauma? Whose History? Negotiating Cultural Identity and Historical Trauma in False Native- American Memoirs.” Western Literature Association Conference, Victoria, British Columbia. November 6, 2014.
“From Close Quarters to Deliverance: War as Adventure in Vietnam-Era Fiction.” American Literature Association Symposium on “War and American Literature,” New Orleans, Louisiana. October 12, 2013.
"Bleeding Through the Layers: Horror and Haunting in the American (post)West.” Western Literature Association Conference, Berkeley, California. October 10, 2013.
“Expansive Minds and Narrow-Mindedness: Public Schools, Collaboration, and Critical Thinking Assessment.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Las Vegas, Nevada. March 15, 2013.
“The Narco-Empire: Violence and Resistance in the US-Mexico Border Region; Narcocorridos and the Poetics of Violence and Resistance en la Frontera.” The American Studies Association Annual Meeting “Dimensions of Empire and Resistance: Past, Present, and Future,” San Juan, Puerto Rico. November 17, 2012.
“Pocho in the Borderlands: Constructing Mexican-American Masculinity in the New West.” Western Literature Association Conference, Lubbock, Texas. November 8, 2012.
“Expansive Minds and Narrow Mindedness: Public Schools, Collaboration, and Critical Thinking Assessment: Curricular Innovation and Limitation.” Conference on College Composition Communication, Las Vegas, Nevada. April 14, 2012.
Moderator, “Utopic Performances of Gender and Sexuality.” Mellon-Mays West Coast Regional Conference, UCLA. February 8, 2013.
“Narcocorridos and the Nostalgia of Violence: Postmodern Resistance en la Frontera.” Music and Crisis Conference, Santa Barbara, California. April 14, 2012.
CHRISTOPHER M. MUNIZ / CV 3
“The Narcocorrido as Site of Postwestern Critique/Intervention.” Western Literature Association Conference, Missoula, Montana. October 8, 2011.
Invited Lectures/Workshops:
"Choosing the 'WRIT' 340." USC Transfer Student Community Roundtable. Introduced incoming transfer students to the purpose of WRIT340 and the range of skills, competencies, and opportunities this course provides, October 1, 2020 and January 28, 2021
Writing the Bones, Heritage Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Virtual Writing Retreat, Summer 2020, Virtual, August 7-9, 2020
Career Guest Speaker, Save Our Youth (SOY), Costa Mesa, California, February 12, 2020
The Art and Craft of Non-Fiction Writing, USC Faculty Forum, USC Dornsife Prison Education Project, California Institute for Men, Chino, California, 2019
On Being a Person of Color in the University, CSU First Summer Fellowship Program (FSFP), Mellon May Undergraduate Fellowship Program, California State University, Fullerton, 2018
What is Ph.D. Work Like?, Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Western Regional Conference, University of Southern California, 2016
Preparing for Graduate-Level Work, Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship forum, University of Southern California, 2013, 2014, 2015
College Writing Symposium, Alhambra Unified School District, 2014
Creative Writing: The Power of Voice, Puente 9th Grade Student Leadership Conference, 2012
On the Intersection of Music and Literature, Cultural Studies Program, Occidental College, 2010, 2011
Artist vs. Scholar, California Institute of the Arts, 2010
Psychology of Music, College of Letters, Arts & Sciences, Univ. of Southern California, 2007, 2008
Freshman Composition, Chicana/o Studies, Cal State Northridge, 2006, 2007
Media Coverage:
“Seeing Each Other’s Humanity with Chris Muniz.” Writing Remix Podcast [interview by Daniel Dissinger and Stephanie Payne]. June 11, 2021
“The How the Why [interview by Jon-Barrett Ingels].” Black Hill Press / 1888.Center (June 7, 2015)
PUBLICATIONS
“Sweetpea.” Ploughshares Issue #148 (Summer 2021): 23-26. Fiction.
CHRISTOPHER M. MUNIZ / CV 4
“Narcocorridos and the Nostalgia of Violence: Postmodern Resistance en la Frontera.” Western American Literature 48.1-2 (Spring & Summer 2013): 56-69.
Review of Sequoia Gardens: California Stories by Ernest J. Finney, and: The Garden of the World by Lawrence Coates. Western American Literature 48.3 (Fall 2013): 354-56.
FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
Writing Program Master Teacher, University of Southern California, 2020-2022
University Outstanding Teaching Award, University of Southern California, 2016
Award for Excellence in Teaching, University of Southern California, 2015
Louis Owens Award, Western Literature Association, 2012, awarded to an exceptional graduate student engaged in “broadening the field of western American Literary Studies.”
J. Golden Taylor Award, Western Literature Association, 2011, juried award selected “by a team of experts in the field and given annually to an outstanding work of scholarship.”
Social Science Research Council / Mellon Mays Graduate Fellow, 2010 – 2017
USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences Doctoral Fellow, 2010 – 2015
Social Science Research Council Pre-Doctoral Research Grant, 2014
Social Science Research Council Graduate Studies Enhancement Grant, 2011, 2012, 2013
USC Dornsife Creative Writing & Literature PhD Summer Research Grant, 2015, 2016
Phi Kappa Phi (National Honor Society), University of Southern California, 2015-2018
Honorable Mention. Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers, 2014
USC EDGE (Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education) Summer Institute Fellow, 2011
USC EDGE (Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education) Travel Grant, 2011
ACADEMIC SERVICE & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Member, Diversity Committee, Writing Program, University of Southern California, 2019-present.
Member, Merit Review Committee, Writing Program, University of Southern California, 2020-present.
Member, Upper Division Curriculum Committee, Writing Program, University of Southern California, 2019-present
Senior Thesis Advisor, Britt Jacobson (Global Studies), “Lost in the Moment: the Ubiquity of Cell Phones.” 2020-2021
CHRISTOPHER M. MUNIZ / CV 5
Moderator, Twenty-Fourth Annual Thematic Option Undergraduate Research Conference, University of Southern California, April 20, 2021
Moderator, Undergraduate Writers’ Conference, University of Southern California, March 31, 2021
Moderator, CCCC at USC Regional Conference, December 18-19, 2020
Moderator. Twenty-Second Annual Thematic Option Undergraduate Research Conference, University of Southern California, April 17-18, 2019.
RELATED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Editorial Associate Editor, Among Margins: Critical and Lyrical Writing on Aesthetics Anthology; Ricochet Editions, 2016 Editor-in-Chief, Gold Line Press, 2014 – 2015 Fiction Editor, Gold Line Press, 2014 Founding board member of Ricochet and Gold Line Press, 2010 Reader, Best of the Net Anthology, Sundress Publications, 2010
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
American Studies Association; Association of Writers and Writing Programs; Modern Language Association; The Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States; Southwest Popular/American Culture Association; Western Literature Association
PROFESSIONAL REFERENCES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
CHRISTOPHER M. MUNIZ / CV 6