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English

Ellen Cushman

Dean's Professor of Civic Sustainability; Professor of English

As Dean’s Professor of Civic Sustainability, Ellen’s research explores the perseverance of people made possible with reading and writing. She’s currently co-leading a team that is developing a digital archive to support the translation of Cherokee language manuscripts housed in museums and archives around the country in an effort to advance language perseverance and preservation efforts. This project has been generously supported with an Institute for Museums and Library Services Sparks! Ignition Grant and a Northeastern University Tier 1 Grant.

Her current research also includes two recent edited collections: Literacies: A Critical Sourcebook, 2nd edition, with co-editors Christina Haas and Mike Rose (Macmillan 2020); and Landmark Essays on Rhetorics of Difference, with co-editors Damián Baca and Jonathan Osborne (Routledge 2019). Her sole-authored books, The Cherokee Syllabary: Writing the People’s Perseverance (Oklahoma UP 2012) and The Struggle and the Tools: Oral and Literate Strategies in an Inner City Community (SUNY UP 1998), were based on activist qualitative research with her tribe and urban community members in upstate New York.

View CV
  • Cushman, Ellen. “Place and Relationships in Community Writing.” Community Literacy Journal. (Publication of Keynote Address to the Community Writing Conference).
  • Cushman, Ellen, Christine Haas, Mike Rose. Literacies: A Critical Sourcebook, 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Macmillan Learning. 2020.
  • Baca, Damian, Ellen Cushman, and Jonathan Osborne. Landmark Essays on Rhetorics of Difference. In the Landmark Essays Series of Rhetorical Studies, eds. James Murphy and Krista Ratcliffe. 2019.
  • Cushman, Ellen, Choi, Yun, and Meier, Joyce. “Improving Pre-service Teaching of Diverse Learners: Toward a Model of Teacher Reflective Inquiry Practice.” English Education. Revise and resubmit.
  • Cushman, Ellen. “Decolonial Translation as Methodology for Learning to Unlearn.” Dartmouth Conference 50th Anniversary. Ed. Christiane Donahue. Book chapter under consideration.
  • Cushman, Ellen. “Decolonizing the Imperialist Archive: Translating Cherokee Manuscripts.” Indigenous Archives in the Digital Age. Ed. Ivy Schweitzer and Gordon Henry. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. Under contract.
  • Cushman, Ellen. “Decolonial Translation: A Methodology to Equalize Knowledges in Archives.” Indigenous Archives: Keepers, Tellers, and Translation. Eds. Lisbeth Haas and Natale Zappia. University of Nebraska Press. Under contract.
  • Adams, Heather Brook and Cushman, Ellen. “Decolonizing Rhetorics.” Rhetoric Review. Essay under consideration.
  • Cushman, Ellen. Writing in and on Cherokee Terms. Book manuscript.

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