Flannery Burke, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Courses Taught
Professor Burke teaches graduate and undergraduate classes in environmental humanities, American foodways, regional cultures, Indigenous studies, American education, and material and consumer culture.
Education
Doctor of Philosophy, History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, May 2002
Doctoral Minor, Cultural Studies, Havens Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, May 1998
Master of Arts, History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, December 1997
Bachelor of Arts, History, Magna Cum Laude, Bryn Mawr College, May 1994
Research Interests
Flannery Burke’s research explores North American regional cultures and environments as well as intersections of art, literature, and public policy. She is committed to sharing the Indigenous and Mexican cultures of the United States widely and incorporating those cultures and their histories into the regional, national, and global stories that scholars tell.
Her first book, From Greenwich Village to Taos, won the Ralph Emerson Twitchell Award from the Historical Society of New Mexico and was a finalist for the New Mexico Book Prize for History from the New Mexico Humanities Council. Her second, A Land Apart: The Southwest and the Nation in the Twentieth Century won the Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association and the Spur Award for Best Contemporary Non-Fiction from the Western Writers of America and was a finalist for the David J. Weber-Clements Prize for the Best Non-Fiction Book on Southwestern America from the Western History Association. She has published in peer-reviewed journals on topics ranging from childbirth to the status of gay men in Taos, New Mexico’s art community, and her work includes prize-winning articles on dude ranches as well as the Sun City retirement community. Her current book project, Back East, to be published by the University of Washington Press, is a study of twentieth-century writers of the American West and how their portrayals of the American East shaped contemporary American culture.
Publications and Media Placements
Books
A Land Apart: The Southwest and the Nation in the Twentieth Century, University of Arizona Press Modern American West Series, 2017
From Greenwich Village to Taos: Primitivism and Place at Mabel Dodge Luhan’s, University Press of Kansas, 2008
Articles and Essays
"Worry, USA: Dude Ranch Advertising Looks East," Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Summer 2019
“The Arrogance of the East: How Westerners Created a Region” Western Historical Quarterly, Winter 2018/19
“Spud Johnson and A Gay Man’s Place in Taos’s Creative Arts Community,” Pacific Historical Review, February 2010
“An Artists’ Home: Gender and the Santa Fe Culture Colony Controversy,” Journal of the Southwest, Summer 2004
“Artists and Boosters,” chapter in Making of the American West: New Perspectives in American Social History, Perspectives in American Social History Series, ABC-CLIO, 2007
“Choose Your Own Adventure,” OAH Magazine of History, July 2013
"What Does It Mean to Think Historically," co-authored with Thomas Andrews, Perspectives,
January 2007
She has appeared on PBS’s American Experience, Travel with Rick Steves, New Mexico PBS’s ¡Colores! and St. Louis on the Air
Honors and Awards
- Provost Faculty Research Leave, College of Arts and Sciences, Saint Louis University, 2015-2016
- Fulbright Norway Roving Scholar Fellowship, J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, 2013-2014
- Mellon Faculty Development Grant in the Humanities, College of Arts and Sciences, Saint Louis University, Summer 2009
- Butcher Scholar, Institute of the American West and Women of the West Museum, Autry National Center, 2006-2007
- Off-Campus Faculty Fellowship, Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, Brigham Young University, January 2006
- Jackson Brothers Fellowship, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, January 2004
- Harry Ransom Center Fellowship, University of Texas, Austin, June 2003
- Bill and Rita Clements Postdoctoral Fellowship, William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University, 2002-2003 academic year
- Smithsonian Institution Predoctoral Fellowship, Spring 2001
- Andrew Mellon Foundation Interpretive Seminar in the Humanities Member, Huntington Library, Summer 2000
- W.M. Keck Foundation Fellow of the Huntington Library, Spring 2000
Teaching Awards
- Innovative Teaching Fellowship Award, Reinert Center for Teaching Excellence, St. Louis University, 2011-2012 and 2018 - 2019
Community Work and Service
Between 2011 and 2013, Professor Burke was a member of the writers’ team for the (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards by the National Council for the Social Studies and the Council of Chief State School Officers. She served for thirteen years on the Missouri Council for History Education and authored a peer-reviewed article about her experience with international high school students exploring the Ferguson Uprising. She has served on committees for the college and university and for the Western History Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the American Historical Association. She partners with Chef Rob Connoley of Bulrush Restaurant to develop reparative approaches in restaurant foodways that model respect for all members of food communities.