Gretchen Ernster Henderson, M.F.A., P H.D

GRETCHEN ERNSTER HENDERSON, M.F.A., PH.D. Associate Director for Research | Harry Ransom Center | University of Texas at Austin P.O. Drawer 7219, Austin, TX 78713| [email protected] Gretchen Henderson is Associate Director for Research at the Harry Ransom Center and Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Texas-Austin. She is the author of four books, opera libretti, and arts media. Her writings have been reviewed and interviewed in The New Yorker, Guardian, TLS, NPR, and BBC. She has served on the faculties at Georgetown, University of Utah, and MIT, and some recent commitments include Co-Director of an NEH Institute on Museums at Georgetown and UCSC, Tanner Fellow in Environmental Humanities at the University of Utah, and Writer-in-Residence at the Jan Michalski Foundation, Switzerland. CURRENT/RECENT APPOINTMENTS Associate Director for Research, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas-Austin, TX (April 2020-) Senior Lecturer, Steve Hicks School of Social Work, University of Texas-Austin, TX (June 2020-) Lecturer, Department of English, Georgetown University, Washington, DC (January 2015-May 2020) Co-Director, National Endowment for the Humanities Institute on Museums, Washington, DC (2018-2019) Research Associate, Literature & Humanities, University of California-Santa Cruz, CA (2017-2020) Annie Clark Tanner Fellow in Environmental Humanities and Writing, University of Utah, UT (2018-2019) Hodson-JCB Fellow in Creative Arts, Brown University, RI, and Washington College, MD (2015-2016) Summer Faculty in Creative Writing, Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Gambier, OH (2013-2016) Visiting Artist in Music, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (Fall 2014) Writer-in-Residence/Kresge Faculty Fellow, University of California-Santa Cruz, CA (2013-2014) Digital Research Fellow, metaLAB, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (2012-2013) Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities, Writing and Humanistic Studies | Comparative Media Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (2011-2013) Madeleine Plonsker Creative Writer-in-Residence, Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, IL (Spring 2010) Affiliated Scholar, Departments of Art History and English, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH (2009-2019) Visiting Assistant Professor, English and Creative Writing, Knox College, Galesburg, IL (2007-2008) EDUCATION Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing, May 2009 University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO Dissertation: “On Marvellous Things Seen and Heard” M.F.A. in Creative Writing/School of the Arts, May 2004 Columbia University in the City of New York, NY Thesis: “The House Enters the Street” B.A. in History and American Studies (summa cum laude), June 1997 Princeton University, Princeton, NJ Thesis: “Adventures in Fellowship: An Examination of the College Settlements Association” PUBLISHED BOOKS Ugliness: A Cultural History (interdisciplinary arts and cultural criticism) • Translated editions: Turkish, Korean, Chinese, and Spanish (2018) • Published: Reaktion Books/University of Chicago Press (2015) • Reviewed in The New Yorker, Guardian, Maclean’s, TIME, Literary Review, TLS (cover), CAA, more The House Enters the Street (arts novel) • Published: Starcherone Books (2012) • Finalist: AWP Award Series in the Novel Galerie de Difformité (novel/arts criticism/artist’s book) • Published: &NOW Books/Northwestern University Press (2011) • Winner: Madeleine P. Plonsker Emerging Writer’s Prize Gretchen Henderson (05/2020) - 2 of 10 On Marvellous Things Heard (lyric nonfiction about music and literature) • Published: Green Lantern Press (2011) PUBLISHED CHAPBOOKS Cassandra in the Temples: Studies in Sea, Stone, and Sky • Published: 40 pgs. of poems & photographs w/online music media, Western Humanities Review (2016) Wreckage: By Land & By Sea • Published: poetry chapbook by Dancing Girl Press (2011) OPERA LIBRETTOS “Cassandra in the Temples”: Designed narrative/wrote libretto (for Guggenheim composer Elena Ruehr). Recommissioned by Georgetown U. Medical Center’s Arts & Humanities Program for Sept. 2020. Premier performance and my artist’s residency with Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth at MIT in Cambridge, MA (November 2014). Also two staged performances by Cappella Clausura (November 2015). Both supported by MIT’s Center for Art, Science, and Technology. “Crafting the Bonds”: Designed narrative/wrote libretto (for Guggenheim composer Elena Ruehr). Research and writing supported by Hodson Trust-John Carter Brown Fellowship (2016) with performance grant from Opera America for public reading/performance at MIT (June 2017). ADDITIONAL AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS Nominee, United States Artists Fellowship, 2020 Commissioned “Provocateur” for “Biodiversity Revisited,” Luc Hoffmann Institute/World Wildlife Fund, Boston, May 2019; Vienna, Sept. 2019; Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, Italy, Feb. 2020 Writer Residency Fellowship, Jan Michalski Foundation for Writing & Literature, Switzerland, May 2019 Co-Director, National Endowment for the Humanities Grant for NEH Summer Institute on “Museums: Humanities in the Public Sphere” (with UC-Santa Cruz) at Georgetown University, 2018-2019 Documentary Essay Prize Honorable Mention, Duke University Center for Documentary Studies, 2019 Artist Residency Fellowship, Taft-Nicholson Center for Environmental Humanities, MT, June 2018 Artist Fellowship for Contemplative Practice, Hemera Foundation, June 2017 William Elwood Fellowship in Civil Rights and African-American Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, December 2016 Research Grant, John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, Duke University, Durham, NC, August 2016 CNDLS/ITEL Open Track Teaching Award (Co-PI): Departments of English; Art and Museum Studies; Communications, Culture & Technology; Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 2015-2016 Hodson Trust-John Carter Brown Fellowship in Creative Arts, Brown University, RI, and C.V. Starr Center at Washington College, MD, 2015-2016 Paul Betz/Department of English Travel Grants, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 2015, 2017-18 CNDLS Curriculum Enrichment Grant, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, Spring 2015 Visiting Artist Grant, MIT’s Center for Art, Science, and Technology, Cambridge, MA, Oct.-Nov. 2014 Summer Scholar, NEH Summer Institute for College & University Professors, Athens, Greece, July 2014 Mary Catherine Mooney Fellowship, Boston Athenæum, Boston, MA, 2012-2013 RBS Scholarship, Rare Book School, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, Summer 2013 Everett Helm Visiting Fellowship, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, March 2012 RBS Scholarship, Rare Book School, University of California-Los Angeles, Summer 2011 Writer Residency Fellowship, Millay Colony for the Arts, Austerlitz, NY, May 2011 Peter Taylor Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction, Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, OH, June 2010 Madeleine Plonsker Writer Prize & Residency, &NOW Books/Northwestern University Press, Winter 2010 G. Ellsworth Huggins/University Fellowship, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 2004-2009 Residency Artist and Writer Grants, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT, Nov-Dec 2008 Writer Residency Fellowship, Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Red Wing, MN, Sept 2008 Gretchen Henderson (05/2020) - 3 of 10 Scholar Award, P.E.O. Foundation (for women doctoral students in US & Canada), 2006-2007 Writer Residency Fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA, Sept-Oct 2006 Collaborative Research Fellowship, Dept. of English (with Health Sciences), Univ. of Missouri, Fall 2006 Writing Seminar Fellowship, Erasmus Institute, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN, June 2005 Research Fellowships: Graduate School, Center for Arts & Humanities, & English, U. of Missouri, 2005-08 Writing Fellowship, School of the Arts, Columbia University, New York, NY, 2001-2002 Writer Residency Fellowship, Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow, Eureka Springs, AR, May 2001 Senior Editor, Slant, journal of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, 2000-01 Hertog Research Fellowship, Columbia University, New York, NY, 2001 Summer Scholar, NEH Summer Institute for Secondary Teachers, U. of Illinois/Newberry Library, 1999 Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude, 1997 Asher Hinds Thesis Prize in the Humanities, Princeton University, 1997 David F. Bowers American Studies Thesis & Coursework Prize, Princeton University, 1997 Thesis Research Grants: History Department, Program in American Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of International & Public Affairs, & Office of Dean of the College, 1996 Ferris Grant in Journalism, Princeton University (for internship at National Magazine Award-winning magazine, Civilization, in Washington, DC), Summer 1996 SELECTED JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS CREATIVE NONFICTION & CRITICISM • “Reimagining Biodiversity Narratives and Pandemics,” Luc Hoffmann Institute.org (April 2020) • “Life in the Tar Seeps,” Ecotone (Winter 2020) • “Thinking Like a Crosswalk,” Ploughshares (Winter 2020) • “Intermedia Genres: Breathing Lessons in Changing Climates,” Notre Dame Review (Fall 2019) • “Listen for a Pelican, Owl, Gull, Hawk, and Chickadee: Narratives for Biodiversity Revisited,” in Biodiversity Revisited Seeds of Change: Provocations for a New Research Agenda (LHI/WWF, CH, 2019). • “Field Notes: You Are Here,” in Sites & Sightlines (Salt Lake City, UT: Torrey House Press, 2019) • “Sharing and Shaping Space: Notes toward an Aesthetic Ecology,” in Interdisciplinary

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