Today we’d like to introduce you to Rebecca Janzen.
Hi Rebecca, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
In the spring of 2020, I, like many people, found myself facing an unprecedented situation. I had been a professor since 2013, and over the years had traveled a significant amount to conduct research, speak at conferences, and speak at various universities about my research. I’m an associate professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature, and I research Mexico – most recently, religion in film, human rights and constitutional reforms, and Mennonites and Mormons.
I’m also Canadian, and so during the summer months or over university holidays I had usually traveled to see my family And then suddenly I couldn’t. So, I did the next logical thing and returned to two of my childhood hobbies. I read a lot of childhood books (https://journaloflmmontgomerystudies.ca/vision-forum/lm-montgomery-physical-books-and-pandemic) and spent time outside. I had gone to summer camp as a kid and then worked at two summer camps (Fraser Lake Camp and Easter Seals Camp Merrywood) for a total of 5 summers. In recent years, I had not spent as much time outdoors – first because from 2013-2017 I lived and worked in a town of 4000 people while teaching at a college of under 1000 students. Anytime I went for a walk of more than a mile I was in a corn field or a soy field or a park! I didn’t have to try very hard to get outside.
Then, I moved to South Carolina, and along with adapting to my new job at the University of South Carolina, I explored some of the beautiful parks and riverwalks here in Columbia and traveled to the upstate to hike (once in a rainstorm where I was very afraid of thunder, and another time on roads that were so winding that the friend I went with needed to take Dramamine).
Throughout 2020 and 2021, I visited all 47 of South Carolina’s state parks, as well as many state natural areas and state forests, as well as the national parks and forests that we have here in South Carolina. I hiked more miles than I ever had before, and I drafted portions of two books in the outdoors. I became an ultimate outsider. The two books were published. Even though it’s still a pandemic, I know where I can go outside!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Moving to South Carolina has been a challenge. I speak English as my first language, but I did not always understand what people were saying when I moved here (now if I am unsure, I know the polite way to ask folks to repeat themselves). It is also very hot here and I bike to my office, so I’ve gotten really into different brands of electrolytes. Once I took up hiking and camping, I bought so much Nuun that they should pay me for promoting it.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a McCausland Fellow and Associate Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. I am a scholar of gender, disability, and religious studies in Mexican literature and culture whose research focuses on excluded populations in Mexico. I am known for my research on a wide range of topics, all dealing with Mexico.
My first book, The National Body in Mexican Literature: Collective Challenges to Biopolitical Control (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137543011) (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2015), explored images of disability and illness in 20th-century novels and short stories. My second book, Liminal Sovereignty: Mennonites and Mormons in Mexican Culture (https://sunypress.edu/Books/L/Liminal-Sovereignty) (SUNY, 2018), focused on members of those two religious minorities that are descended from Canadian and American immigrants, respectively. Unholy Trinity: State, Church, and Film in Mexico (https://sunypress.edu/Books/U/Unholy-Trinity2) (SUNY, 2021) deals with film and religion in Mexico, and Unlawful Violence: Law and Cultural Production in 21st Century Mexico (https://www.vanderbiltuniversitypress.com/9780826504449/unlawful-violence/) (Vanderbilt, 2022), is about human rights, law, and literature.
The Plett Foundation, the Kreider Fellowship at Elizabethtown College, the C Henry Smith Peace Trust, and the Newberry Library in Chicago have supported my research. You can read more about me here: https://sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2022/04/breakthrough_star_rebecca_janzen.php and about my book on film here:
https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/artsandsciences/about/news/2021/unholy_trinity.php
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I am an avid reader of genre fiction, and do a lot of my own home repairs.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.vanderbiltuniversitypress.com/9780826504449/unlawful-violence/
- Others: https://sunypress.edu/Contributors/J/Janzen-Rebecca
- Email: janzenr@mailbox.sc.edu
- Twitter: @rebeccacsjanzen
Image Credits
Kim Truett, Rebecca Janzen, Mychelle Berry, and Kieley Sutton
