[i] Early scholarly work:  As a result of my research, I was invited to present scholarly papers at national conferences such as the Modern Language Association Conference and the National Women’s Studies Association Conference, and I also published scholarly articles (e.g., on Dorothy Parker’s fiction and poetry, on women and feminist humor, on matrilineal heritage, on teaching reading and writing to second language learners) before completing my doctorate.  My first book, Good Earth, Black Soil (1981) was in progress when I accepted a full-time position in the English Department at MSU.

[ii]   Teaching:  Eventually, English Department courses changed from three to four credits each; then, when the quarter system was replaced by the semester system, my teaching load changed to three four-credit courses per semester.  Re-assigned time for research became available for faculty in the College of A & H only recently.  During my twenty-eight years at MSU, I have been granted two four-credit research re-assignments.

[iii]   Service:  I have supervised undergraduate and graduate individual studies projects, chaired numerous MA and MFA thesis committees, and served on many thesis committees in English, Women’s Studies, Education, History, and other disciplines.  My service to the university and the community has included active work on the President’s Faculty Research Lectureship Selection Committee, the MSU Women’s Studies Program Committee, the University’s Personal Safety Task Force, the Women’s Center Advisory Group, the MSU Affirmative Action Committee, the IFO Feminist Issues Committee, several MSU Faculty Association Committees, and English Department committees.  Refer to curriculum vitae for a comprehensive listing.

[iv]    My scholarly essay based on my presentation at the First International Symposium on Autobiography was published in the volume Studies in Autobiography, edited by Dr. James Olney (Oxford UP, 1988).  Several national and international publications ensued, including my essay “‘Faithful Friend’: Nineteenth-Century Midwestern Women’s Unpublished Diaries” in International Women's Studies Forum; “Reading and Interpreting Unpublished Diaries by Nineteenth-Century Women” in  a/b: Auto/biography Studies; "What Do Women Really Mean?:  Thoughts on Women's Diaries and Lives" in The Intimate Critique:  Autobiographical Literary Criticism; "Faithful Friends:  Diaries and the Dynamics of Women's Friendships," in Communication and Women's Friendships:  Parallels and Intersections in Literature and Life.  Ed. JoAnna S. Mink and Janet D. Ward; "'We Are Not the Cleavers':  Images of Nontraditional Families in Children's Literature," in The Lion and the Unicorn; and many more. 

I also continued my record of national and international conference presentations at the Modern Language Association Annual Meetings, the Fulbright Commission’s American Studies Days, International Symposia on Autobiography, and in other venues.  [Refer to my curriculum vitae for a comprehensive listing.] 

[v]   International publications growing out of my Fulbright senior research fellowship and related conference presentations include, among others, “Reflections of Luxembourg in Rural Midwestern American Life,”  published in Bulletin Linguistique et Ethnologique de l’Institut Grand-Ducal (29: 12-31), 1999; and "Susanna Simmerl Youngblut:  A Case Study of a Luxembourg Immigrant's Life," published in the Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Genealogy and Heraldry, ed. Jean-Claude Muller (Luxembourg City, 1999).

[vi]   Scholarly editions:  Individuals who have not published scholarly editions may not realize that countless hours of work go into preparation of a scholarly edition.  All preliminary research must be done on-site because the original manuscripts are fragile and non-circulating. Extensive historical and contextual research lays the groundwork for the creation of a lengthy critical introduction and numerous endnotes that incorporate background on the diarist's life and the historical era into the scholarly edition.    A good-faith search must be undertaken to determine whether descendants of the diarist exist and, if so, whether they will grant permission for the scholarly edition to be published.  Permissions from archives must also be secured.

Next, a contract with a reputable publisher must be secured.  (Note: My contracts have never required that I pay subvention fees).  Working with the publisher includes several steps: preparation of the scholarly typescript, its submission to manuscript reviewers, revisions based on reviewers’ recommendations, submission of manuscript to copy editor, polishing and final submission for publication.  Based on my own experience, I would estimate that a minimum of two to three years of solid scholarly work must be involved.

[vii]  The Diary of Caroline Seabury, 1854-1863 (1991) is the narrative of a New England teacher living in Mississippi before and during the Civil War. This book was published as one of the inaugural titles in Dr. William L. Andrews’ groundbreaking series on American Autobiography at the University of Wisconsin Press.

Publisher’s Weekly reviewed this scholarly edition as follows:  “In this illuminating memoir of life in the American South before and during the Civil War, Seabury (1827-1893), a white, middle-class New England teacher, tells of leaving her home in 1854 and relocating to Mississippi, where she teaches the daughters of rich Southern plantation-owning families until 1863, when she returns North. A ‘Yankee’ outsider, Seabury describes the ‘great gulf’ between husbandless female instructors like herself and the ‘dilapidated’ Southern aristocracy. She decries slavery and, despite her naivete and prejudice, writes movingly about the plight of black women. When she sees a widowed servant being sold without her children at a slave auction, she observes, ‘the woman said not a word, but her looks told what was in her heart . . . she sobbed bitterly. . . . Here was one of my own sex almost as light in color. . . . I could not keep back my own tears. . . .’ This is an eloquent historical record that raises disturbing questions about the lingering psychological effects of slavery on our society today.”

[viii]  This book is a scholarly edition of the diary of an Iowa farm woman and teacher who was instrumental in the evolution of country school education in the Midwestern U.S.  Again, because the manuscript diary was available for research and transcription only at the Iowa Historical Society Archives in Iowa City, I needed to spend copious amounts of time working there, transcribing the 2,500-page manuscript diary, editing and preparing the manuscript (700 pages) and conducting historical and contextual research to prepare the finished edition.

Dorothy Schwieder, a well-respected scholar and rural historian, endorsed this edition as follows:  "I was captivated by Sarah's diary. It allows the reader to enter the world of the nineteenth-century farm child (a rare experience) and to follow that individual's life throughout her middle years and into old age. This is a longitudinal view that historians seldom have the privilege to experience.  At times it has a suspenseful quality, compelling the reader to go on and on."—Dorothy Schwieder

[ix]  This well-received book, on which I worked for five years, was published in Dr. Albert Stone's series, Singular Lives: American Autobiography.  This project gave me a much-appreciated opportunity to practice the craft of autobiographical writing while incorporating my research and scholarly interests into my own creative writing.

As Dr. James Olney reviewed it, “In Search of Susanna is a lovely weaving together of threads from the ancestral past to tell a story of the present and future. The Susanna sought in this book—and beautifully evoked—is not only Suzanne Bunkers' great-great-grandmother but the author and her daughter as well. No one restores to us the lives of women across generations as gracefully and as movingly as Suzanne Bunkers.”—James Olney, Southern Review.

[x]  Dr. Huff’s and my essay, “Issues in Studying Women’s Diaries: a Theoretical and Critical Introduction,” has been instrumental in the ongoing development of scholarship in the field of diary theory.  Well-reviewed and widely read, Inscribing the Daily sets a high theoretical standard and is considered the definitive collection more than ten years after its publication.

Writing in Choice, P. A. Haney endorsed this book:  “Students, scholars, and diarists will enjoy and benefit from reading this volume in part or whole. The editors quote generously from diaries, and the bibliography suggests further reading in every direction . . . 15 accessible, jargon-free essays expand the ‘discussion of the diary itself’ and contribute to ‘the ongoing assessment of its place within autobiography, writing by women, and the audience and cultural communities’ . . . The variety of situations, uses of diaries, and new ideas about women's diaries in this collection is enormous.” --P. A. McHaney

[xi]  With the able assistance of Keith Sell and Tammy Bracken, I produced the first and second editions of the Guidebook for Teaching Assistants in English. 1^st edition 1989. 2^nd edition 1990.

[xii]   Service:  I served three years as a member of the MSU Bush Faculty Development Grant Team and chaired the MSU Center for Faculty Development. I also coordinated the Worlds of Thought Resident Scholar Series at MSU—planning residencies, co-editing and publishing the annual Worlds of Thought Proceedings, authoring annual Worlds of Thought Final Series Reports; authoring annual Worlds of Thought re-grant proposals.  My responsibilities also included coordinating the $100,000 annual budget; overseeing administration of the grant, chairing the scholar selection committee, planning and implementing week-long scholar residencies, supervising graduate assistants, and other duties.

[xiii]  Direction of MSU Honors Program:  Under my stewardship, membership in the MSU Honors Program increased to more than 200 students.  I advised all Honors Program members, scheduled Honors courses, coordinated the MSU Honors Learning Community, and taught several Honors courses each year.  Courses that I created and taught included “Introduction to the Honors Learning Community,” “Online Diaries and Blogs,” “The Nobel Conference,” “Honors Senior Project,” “Italian Literature and Travel,” “Saints and Sinners” and others.

[xiv]  English 649, “Autobiography and Memoir”:  This innovative course, which I have continued to develop and teach during the past 25 years, has given MSU graduate students a unique opportunity to study diverse forms of life writing and to write their own memoirs.  It has resulted in publications and MA and MFA theses by many students. After Dr. James Nickerson completed this course, I worked with him to produce the book, Out of Chaos: Reflections of a University President and his Contemporaries on Vietnam-era Unrest in Mankato and its Relevance Today.  Ed. Suzanne L. Bunkers and Ann Fee (2006).

[xv]   My curriculum vitae reflects scores of national and international conference papers, workshops, lectures, and seminars that I have presented over the years.  Documentation attached offers evidence of citations of my scholarship in the work of other scholars, both on the national and international levels.   

[xvi]   Autocritical writing, that is, writing that is both analytical and personal, has become one of my scholarly areas of expertise. I enjoy publishing not only in scholarly venues but also in pedagogical magazines, journals, and books intended for general audiences.             

My articles in The Intimate Critique:  Autobiographical Literary Criticism, a/b: Auto/biography Studies, The Palimpsest, The Blueroad Reader, The Diarist’s Journal, Iowa Woman, Women Writing on Family: Writing, Publishing, and Teaching Tips by U.S. Women Writers, and Educators as Writers: Publishing for Personal and Professional Development illustrate autocritical writing, a highly imaginative and innovative hybrid form of simultaneously scholarly and personal work.

My pedagogical edition of Sarah Gillespie: A Midwestern Farm Girl's Diary was published in Capstone Press’s Diaries, Letters, and Memoirs Series (2000), and I served as expert advisor for the series.

[xvii]   Diaries of Girls and Women: a Midwestern American Sampler, the fruit of twenty-five years of research on unpublished diaries, has become widely read, reviewed, and purchased for university and public libraries.  In addition, it is being used in college and university classrooms as well as in community workshops and seminars.  

            As I explained in my “Introduction” (3-40) to Diaries of Girls and Women, my project’s first objective was to capture and preserve the diverse lives of girls and women who lived in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin between 1837 and 1999--young schoolgirls, adolescents coming of age, newlywed wives, mothers grieving the loss of children, teachers, nurses, elderly women, immigrant nuns, and women traveling abroad. 

            My second objective was to bring together both diaries from historical society archives and diaries still in possession of the diarists or their descendents so that such important primary documents might be accessible to a wide readership.  Because my primary source materials were fragile and non-circulating, my research needed to be conducted on site at state and regional historical society and university archives.  In addition, I studied many unpublished diaries that were privately held.  My intended audiences included readers interested in Midwestern history, women’s studies, forms of autobiography, education, nursing, travel, and related subjects.

            This book was published in Dr. William L. Andrews’ groundbreaking and well-established series on American Autobiography, housed at the University of Wisconsin Press. Grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota Historical Society, the Minnesota Humanities Commission, my university, and other sources helped to fund my on-site research.

            As internationally renowned diaries scholar Margo Culley wrote, "No one is more qualified to undertake such a project; Suzanne Bunkers's extensive work with unpublished manuscript diaries and her work in diary/autobiography theory combine here to produce a volume of interest to scholars and general readers alike. This book will fill an important niche in the literature of American women's diaries."—Margo Culley, author of American Women's Autobiography and A Day at a Time: Diary Literature of American Women.

[xviii]   Moving Towards Respect:  More than seventy participants, including MSU professors, teaching assistants, area K-12 instructors, and community activists participated in this workshop, which emphasized respect for diversity, along with global action to combat intolerence.  Workshop presenters were international scholars Cor Suijk and Barry van Driel of the Anne Frank Stichting.

[xix]   Subsequently, Dr. Dowlin and I co-authored an article on the District 77 Mahkato Education Day and ongoing reconciliation efforts; this article was published in New Standpoints: Le magazine pratique et professionnel des enseignants d'anglais de collège et de lycée (2006), the French magazine for teachers of English throughout French-speaking Europe.

[xx]   Study and Travel in Italy:  In March 2008, six graduate students, along with six undergraduate students, completed English 495/595, “Literature of Rome,” then traveled with me to Rome, Naples, Pompeii, and Sorrento.  In 2006, I presented an invited university lecture on my current research in auto/biography at the University of Macerata, Italy.

[xxi]   Recent scholarly papers have been presented in several international venues (e.g., English University of Peking, University of Muenster, University of Hong Kong, University of Verona, University of Krakow).  Please refer to my curriculum vitae for a comprehensive listing.

[xxii]   Contributions to graduate education at MSU, nationally, and internationally:  A number of doctoral dissertations and master’s theses, completed at universities in the United States, France, Australia, Canada, and other countries, rely on my scholarship on diaries and auto/biography.  [Refer to materials and citations attached.]   For example, I served as an informal advisor to French scholar Claire Sorin as she completed her doctoral dissertation, The Body in Nineteenth-Century American Women's Diaries, 1830-1870.  Along with British scholar Helena Whitbread, editor of I Know My Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister 1791-1840,   I served as an informal advisor to Italian scholar Cristina Grilli, whose thesis on the diaries of Anne Lister was completed in 2006. Additional dissertations and theses bearing evidence of my scholarly influence include those by Genevieve J. Long, Deborah Silverman Bowen, Lisa Muir, Danielle Orr, Regina C. Davis, Eryk E. Tahvonen, Emma Beer, Audrey L. Perkins, Heather R. Beattie, and others. [Refer to documentation attached.]     

[xxiii]  Most recent achievements:  I endeavor to continue producing innovative, imaginative, and original scholarship. For example, I have just completed archival research on the facsimiles of the diaries of Anne Frank, housed in the well-secured collections of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and made available solely to internationally recognized scholars.  My next project will be to conduct research in the National Archives of Luxembourg on the fates of Jewish Luxembourg citizens during and after World War II.  I will present my research at the Third International Conference, “Beyond camps and forced labour: current international research of survivors of Nazi persecution,” at the Imperial War Museum, London, on 7-9 January 2009.

          My most recent publication, a pedagogical article based on my development of my English 213 “Diaries and Diarists” general education course, appears in the newly published collection Teaching Life Writing Texts (2008), published by the Modern Language Association, the international professional organization in the fields of literature and modern languages.  

            I continue to mentor graduate students in literature and creative writing at my own university.  Recent MFA and MA theses that I have directed at MSU include those by Cheryl Masse, Kristina Lilleberg, and Diana Kaardal.  At the moment, I am serving on thesis committees for Sarah Langdon in English and Katherine Bowman in Women’s Studies.

My strong and consistent record of service to national and international organizations includes a term on the Delegate Assembly of the Modern Language Association; a term as Co-Editor of Concerns, the National Newsletter of the Women's Caucus of the Modern Language Association; membership on the editorial board of international juried journals; membership on the advisory board of the New England Diaries Project; manuscript reviews for numerous publishers; and membership on the Luxembourg-American Cultural Center Planning Group.