Kristina
Bross
English
Department
EDUCATION
Ph.D., English,
Dissertation Title: “‘That
Epithet of Praying’: The Praying Indian
Figure in Early
Committee:
Janice Knight, Janel Mueller, W. Clark Gilpin
M.A., English,
B.A., English, magna cum laude,
ACADEMIC
APPOINTMENTS
August, 1999-present: Assistant Professor, English Department,
Affiliated
member, American Studies Program and Women’s Studies Program
August 2002-present, Assistant Professor,
Comparative Literature Program,
September 1997-June, 1999: Assistant Professor, English Department,
December 1994-July 1997: Director, Lake Forest Writing and Thinking
Workshop, part of the National Writing and Thinking Network at
January 1994-May 1995: Lecturer and Resident Academic Fellow,
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Dry
Bones and Indian Sermons: Praying Indians and Colonial American Identity (
This book considers the changing
representation of Christian Indians in mission literature in the 17th
century, focusing on the cultural work that the figure of the “Praying Indian”
performs in English colonial discourse.
Although the Praying Indian is usually thought to mediate the relations
of settlers and “wild” Indians, my research suggests that colonists used this
figure transatlantically to create a new and vitally important role for
themselves, an evangelical “errand into the wilderness” that was dependent on
the presence rather than absence of Indians in the New England colonies.
A Critical Edition of the Eliot Tracts, Massachusetts Historical Society (Proposal accepted by the Massachusetts Historical Society. First tract edited and vetted by the collection’s editorial board, fall 2003)
This collection will make
available to scholars and students the full collection of tracts written in
Early Native Literacies in New England: A Documentary and Critical Anthology, Hilary Wyss, co-editor (Prospectus under consideration)
This anthology seeks to make legible the wide range of
“literacies” that represents Algonquian peoples’ authorship in
Articles
and Book Chapters
“‘Come Over and Help Us’: Mission Literature and Transatlantic Studies,” introduction to a special section, Early American Literature, forthcoming, vol. 38.2.
“Dying Saints, Vanishing Savages: “Dying Indian Speeches” in
Colonial
“Seeing With Ezekiel’s Eyes: Indian “Resurrection” in
Transatlantic Colonial Writings,” in Messy
Beginnings: Postcolonial Early American
Studies. Schueller, Malini, Edward
Watts, eds.
“Cast Mistresses: The Widow Figure in Oroonoko,” in Troping
Oroonoko: from Behn to Bandele, ed.
Susan Iwanisziw. Co-authored with
“The
“‘That Epithet of Praying’: The Vilification of Praying Indians During
King Philip's War” in Fear Itself:
Enemies Real and Imagined in American Culture, ed. Nancy Schultz.
REVIEWS
Michael Winship, Making Heretics: Militant Protestantism and Free Grace Massachusetts, 1636-1641, in Early American Literature, forthcoming, vol. 38.2.
“Cabin Fever in Frontier House” (Frontier House, PBS).
“
PRESENTATIONS
“Antinomian Impulses in the Undergraduate Survey.” American
Literature Association,
“Oh
that my words were now written”:
“Satan’s
Captives, ‘Preying’ Indians, and Mary Rowlandson: Rewriting the New England Captivity
Narrative.” Early American History
Seminar,
“Satan’s
Captives, ‘Preying’ Indians, and Mary Rowlandson: Rewriting the New England Captivity
Narrative.” Department of English and
Honors Scholars Program,
“Puritan Conversion Narratives: A Transatlantic Form,” New Frontiers of Early
American Literature,
“The ‘Eliot Tracts.’”
First Early Ibero/Anglo Americanist
“Removing Mary
Rowlandson: A Case Study in Feminist
Criticism and Pedagogy.” Third Biennial International Feminism(s) and
Rhetoric(s) Conference. “Feminist
Literacies: Resisting Disciplines.”
“Dry Bones and Indian Sermons: Indian Resurrection in Early
“The Sword of Gods Word: Praying Indians and the Bible.” Material Cultures Conference sponsored by the
Centre for the History of the Book.
“‘I say to you Daniel’” The Deathbed Encounter of Praying Indians and
Missionaries.” American Literature
Association Meeting,
“Indian Sermons.”
“Turbulent Translations: The Tradition of Vernacular Translations,
1401-1663,” First
Canadian Tyndale Conference,
“‘The Sword of Gods Word’: John Eliot’s Scriptural Translations,” Tyndale’s Early Years, Third Oxford
International Tyndale Conference, September, 1998, by invitation.
“John Eliot’s Indian Bible,” What Else We Do: Faculty Forum,
“Dangerous Translation: The Reception of John Eliot’s Indian Bible,” America’s First
English Bibles, Pacific Coast Tyndale Conference,
"'That Epithet of Praying': The Vilification of Praying Indians During
King Philip's War," Fear Itself, The
"An Enquiring People: Praying Indians and Public Religious
Discourse in Early
"
"Original
Conventions, Conventional Origins:
Reading Mary Rowlandson," MLA Convention,
2003-2004, American Studies Association Community Partnership Grant, “Making History: A Pedagogical and Preservation Partnership,” Professors Susan Curtis and Shirley Rose, co-investigators.
2002-2004, Humanities Focus Grant,
National Endowment for the Humanities, “Making History: Partnerships in Archival Preservation and
Pedagogy,” Professors
The two grants listed above support a new
endeavor in teaching and researching local archives in an interdisciplinary
setting. My co-investigators are from
the History Department and the Rhetoric and Composition Program, and we have
partnered with the Tippecanoe County Historical Association to create graduate
and undergraduate service learning seminars in archival research (students will
write original, analytical theses while at the same time indexing and
performing initial preservation steps for uncatalogued archival materials) and
to foster an interdisciplinary faculty and archivist interest group that will
meet to discuss the theory and practice of archival construction, use and
preservation and the connections between local and national history.
2002-2004 Nanoscale Science and
Engineering / Nanoscale Exploratory Research,
“Explorations in Biomedical Devices:
Brownian Motion and Education,” Professor
My part in this project is an
interdisciplinary educational project.
Inspired by Purdue University’s huge monetary and intellectual
commitment to research in nanotechnology, Professor Wereley and I each offered
a course in our respective departments in the last semester—his on the science
of nanotechnology, mine on the “culture” of nanotechnology as represented in
recent science fiction. We brought our
classes together several times throughout the semester to engage them in
cross-disciplinary thinking about the technology under consideration. We plan to offer a fully interdisciplinary
honors course next spring on the topic, asking first- and second-year students
both to learn the “real” technology and to engage with the ethical questions
and issues of representation that the fiction brings to the fore.
2002 National Endowment for the
Humanities Summer Stipend, “A Critical Edition of the Eliot Tracts”
2001 Summer Faculty Grant, Purdue
Research Foundation: “Wielding the
‘Sword of Gods Word’: Translated
Scripture in
1999 State Faculty Summer Support Grant: “A Comparison of Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko to Thomas Southerne’s Dramatic
Adaptation of the Prose Narrative”
1998
State Faculty Summer Support Grant: “An
Analysis of John Eliot’s Dying Speeches
of Several Indians”
AWARDS
AND HONORS
Phi Beta Kappa, 1988
Department of English Excellence
in Undergraduate Teaching Award, 2001-2002
PROFESSIONAL
MEMBERSHIPS
American Studies Association
Modern Language Association
Society for Early Americanists
Tyndale Society