- Faculty
- Maimuna Dali Islam
- Rochelle Johnson
- Scott Knickerbocker
- Diane Raptosh
- Susan Schaper
- Eric Spencer
Last day to elect Pass/Fail - second six-week courses.
Last day to withdraw from semester courses.
Thanksgiving break.
Thanksgiving break.
Instruction resumes.
Last day of classes.
Final examinations begin.
Final examinations end.
Fall semester ends - 6 p.m.
Holiday recess begins.
Final marks due - 12:00 noon.
English
Maimuna Dali Islam
Maimuna Dali Islam
I teach a wide array of courses at the college, ranging from contemporary postmodern literature to literary theory to advanced seminars on imperialism and colonization to creative writing and the poetics of writing fiction. While my interests and course offerings are wide and eclectically varied, my main academic focus is on international literature (world literature), emphasizing, predominantly, nations that have been colonized and occupied as well as cultures that have been subjugated or obliterated. I study—through literature, essays, documentaries, and film—the nature of postcolonial states after they have been ravaged by decades or centuries of occupation and colonization. I explore ways in which colonization manages to parasitically establish itself. I am an avid reader of news, history, fiction, and non fiction which represent past and present instances of occupation in Asia and the Middle East. My approach, while academic, is always infused with the human element of oppression and suffering and of hope.
My personal interests, like my intellectual foci, are eclectically varied. I love to travel, and I plan a trip overseas (mostly to Asia) every year. Immersing myself in countries and with languages that are unfamiliar to me is the most exhilarating of experiences. Muddling my way through unfamiliar bazaars, world heritage sites, financial hubs, (people’s back yards) is my concept of extreme sports. When I am not hopping around the world, I am nestled in my home reading latest releases from Murakami or Ishiguro or Lemony Snicket, reading the news on the internet, and watching serial dramas, talk shows, movies, and music videos from India, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, China, Japan, and the Middle East (thank you YouTube, Google video, Yahoo Asia, YesAsia, Netflix, and Ebay!). I also throw some mean dinner parties for visiting international students and peripatetic friends.
Recent Honors, Grants, & Awards
- NEH grant for research travel throughout Japan: “Representations of Immigrant Culture in Japan,” (Summer 2006)
- NEH grant to attend Palm Springs International Film Festival, (January 2006)
- Fiction Jury Member, Vermont Student Center Summer Fellowship, (August 2004)
- Honorable Mention for poem “Darkness Seeped with Tea,” 2003 Emily Dickenson Poetry Award, e Anthology, Universities West Press, 2004
Lalbagh Fort/Pari Bibi Tomb, Dhaka, 2006 - Biography published in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers, 8th edition (Sept, 2004) [nominated multiple times by former CofI students (classes of ’02, ’03, ’07)]
- Listed in national magazine Poets and Writers under “Recent Winners” for being a recipient of the Vermont Student Center Fellowship, (May 2004)
- Full Fellowship recipient for fiction: Vermont Studio Center Residency for Writers (Jan-Feb 2004)
- Fiction Judge, Idaho Magazine’s Fiction Award for Young, Adult, and Professional Writers, (Feb. 2003)
- NEH Summer Institute Grant, University of Chicago: “Transformation and Legitimation in Early Islamic States” (June-August 2002)
Recent Publications & Conferences
- Article “A Way in the World of an Asian-American Existence: Agha Shahid Ali's Transimmigrant Spacing of North America and of India/Kashmir," Cross-Wires: Asian American Imaginations in National, Transnational, and Global Contexts, Temple University Press, 2006
- 2002 SALA/MLA New York (Dec 2002): “Elixir of Immortality: Paradoxes of Language and the Capturing the Divine in Madhumalati”
- 2002 RMMLA Conference, Arizona (Oct 2002): “Agha Shahid Ali and Kashmir Burning: Kashmiri-American Poetry of Loss and Death.”
Recent Relevant Experience
- Travel to Hong Kong to explore immigrant culture, relevant to Chungking Express, Feb 2006
- Faculty Advisor, Asian Studies Minor (The College of Idaho, 2001-present)
- Faculty Representative for The College of Idaho, Rhodes Scholarship, 2005-2007
- Chair, “Faculty Growth and Development Committee,” The College of Idaho, 2003-2004
- Invited Lecturer, “Early Islam and the Rise of an Empire,” Boise Rotary Club, Jan 2002
