John Streamas, Ph.D.

Director, American Studies and Culture Ph.D. Program

Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies

Associate Professor of American Studies and Culture

 

Education

Ph.D., American Culture Studies: Bowling Green State University, 2001
Graduate Certificate, Ethnic Studies: Bowling Green State University, 2001
M.A., English: Syracuse University, 1981
A.B., English: Miami University, 1977

Biography

I immigrated from Japan. My mother was a war bride. I have worked in proofreading and copyediting, syntactic analysis, statistical clerking, manual writing, and periodical distribution. I have taught writing and literature courses, creative writing, ethnic studies, and American studies.

Research Interests

I am interested in the narrative and racial politics of time and space, the implications of color and colorism, and the Japanese American experience during World War II. Recently, I have explored the vexed relationship between higher education and people of color.

I am currently working on a book linking narrative temporalities to nuclear weapons and racism, tentatively titled The Ends of Times: Race and Nuclear Apocalypse.

Teaching Interests

I teach the literatures and cultures of people of color, cultural theory, immigration, and writing.

Recent & Forthcoming Publications

• “Overselling Higher Education to Communities of Color,” in Strategies and Perspectives on Social Justice, edited by Neal Lester. MLA, 2023.
• “Not Down but Different: Depression in the Shadow of the Black Dog,” in Re/Visioning Depression: Creative Approaches to “Feeling Bad,” edited by Julie Hollenbach and Robin Alex McDonald. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
• “Parallel Waters” (poem), in High Desert Journal No. 32. Spring 2021. https://www.highdesertjournal.org/john-streamas-parallel-waters.
• “Golden Years” and “Shelter Out of Place” (poems), in Tales from Six Feet Apart, online anthology from īO Journal, 2021. https://ioliteraryjournal.com/tales-from-six-feet-apart.htm.
• “The War Between School Time and ‘Colored People’s Time’,” in Teaching in Higher Education 25:6 (2020).
• “Saw Something, Said Something” and “For Richard Wright” (poems) in Rigorous 4:4. https://www.rigorous-mag.com/v4i4/john-streamas.html 
• “Asia-Pessimism: Modeling a Revolution in Failure,” in The Comparatist 43 (2019): 112-24.
• “A Vision for Scholar-Activists of Color,” in Journal of Academic Freedom volume 10 (2019). www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/streamas.pdf.
• “East by Northwest: Preserving Pacific War Memory at Hanford and Minidoka.” Dark Tourism in the American West. Ed. Jennifer Dawes. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
• “How I Lost my Academic Freedom: Difference and the Teaching of Ethnic Studies.”  In Teaching with Tension: Race Resistance and Realities in the Classroom.  Eds. Philathia Bolton, Cassander Smith, and Lee Bebout. Northwestern UP, 2019.
• “Not Same, Not Different: Counting Temporalities in Peter Malekin’s Alchemy of Time and Ruth Ozeki’s Time Being.” Time, Consciousness, and Writing: Peter Malekin Illluminating the Divine Darkness . Eds. Robert Eddy and Theo Malekin. Brill Rodopi, 2018.
• “A Mottled Minority: Asian American in the Whitening Academy.” From the Outside: Narratives from the Othered in the Academy. Eds. Jo Davis-McElligatt, Keith Dorwick, and Sandosh Khadka. Routledge, 2018.
• “The Real War That Got into the Movies: Eastwood and Spielberg in the Pacific.” The Films of Clint Eastwood: Critical Perspectives. Eds. Matt Wanat and Leonard Engel. University of Utah Press, 2018.
• “Self-Portrait Time Machine.” Time’s News 47.2 (April 2016). 10-12.
• “Punch the Clock.” Time’s News 47.2 (April 2016). 10-12.
• “The Great Ball of Life: A Theory of the Universe in Seven Observations.” Time’s News 47.2 (April 2016). 10-12.