Student and Faculty Work 

Student Work and Publications

Keeping Watch
By Michael Decker '21

Keeping Watch is a geo-spatial narrative project that embeds oral history testimonies by former and current fire lookouts on a GIS interface. These stories were collected by Jack Kredell, Chris Lamb, and Michael Decker in the Summer of 2021 across the state of Idaho. This project was created in collaboration with the Center for Digital Inquiry and Learning. 

Storying Extinction: Responding to the Loss of North Idaho's Mountain Caribou
By Chris Lamb '21 and Jack Kredell '21

Storying Extinction: Responding to the Loss of North Idaho’s Mountain Caribou is a multidisciplinary digital humanities project that represents community response to the recent extirpation (2019) of southern mountain caribou from the South Selkirk mountains of North Idaho—the last caribou to inhabit the coterminous United States. This project was created in collaboration with the Center for Digital Inquiry and Learning. 

Building a Geospatial Archive of Species Loss as Response to Local Caribou Extinction 

By Chris Lamb '21, Jack Kredell '21, and Devin Becker

This article offers a critical assessment of Storying Extinction: Responding to the Loss of North Idaho’s Mountain Caribou, a public-facing digital environmental humanities project produced by a team of University of Idaho Library researchers following the 2019 extirpation of mountain caribou from the South Selkirk Mountains of the Inland Northwest (the last caribou to inhabit the contiguous United States). This article was published in Environmental Humanities. 

Sedimentation: An Archive of Glen Canyon

By Hannah Green '26

Sedimentation: An Archive of Glen Canyon is a forthcoming digital humanities project and master's thesis which traces Glen Canyon’s tangled human and ecological histories through the sedimentary archive. This project is being created in collaboration with the Center for Digital Inquiry and Learning. 

Sedimentary Revisions: Agential Spaces, Material Characters, and Rhizomatic Narratives of Colorado River Silt

By Hannah Green '26

This article argues that material characters are underrepresented in western discourse and literature, and examines the pressures that such nonhuman stories place on the formulations of classical western narrative. This article will be published in Storyworlds' 2026 Special Issue: Econarratological Disorientation of Place/Space, and was originally written for a graduate narratology seminar taught by Dr. Erin James.  

Faculty Work

Memorials Matter: Emotion, Environment and Public Memory at American Historical Sites
By Dr. Jennifer Ladino

In Memorials Matter, University of Idaho English Professor Jennifer Ladino investigates the natural and physical environments of seven diverse National Park Service (NPS) sites in the American West and how they influence emotions about historical conflict and national identity. 

Narrative in the Anthropocene
By Dr. Erin James

In Narrative in the Anthropocene, University of Idaho English Professor Erin James poses two complementary questions: What can narrative teach us about our current geological epoch, defined and marked by the irrevocable activity of humans on the Earth’s geology and ecosystems? and What can our current geological epoch teach us about narrative? 

Student-Faculty Collaborations

The Confluence Lab

Many English Graduate students intern with the Confluence Lab, which is co-directed by Dr. Erin James and Dr. Jennifer Ladino. The Confluence Lab engages in creative interdisciplinary research projects that bring scholars in the arts, humanities, and sciences together with community members to explore how environmental issues impact rural communities.

Beyond the Lab Coat: Creative Writing Crafted from Science

This collaboration with Idaho INBRE (IDeA Network of Biomedical Research and Excellence) and graduate students of CLASS resulted in a Fall 2024 publication of a science communication magazine featuring a preface and poems by Megan Lolley, artwork, comics, and poetry by Austin R. Eldridge, a short story by Anna Griffin, and poetry by Tom Hersey, all inspired and in collaboration with undergraduate biomedical students and their exciting research.

This project was made possible by leadership of Angel Shears of Idaho INBRE, the Confluence Lab, and Megan Lolley, who managed, organized, and edited the publication.

Pakicetus

By Dylan Foster, '25, and Dr. Eric Mittelstaedt

A collaboration with game developers at Polymorphic games, faculty leaders of the Geology department, and writers from CLASS, Pakicetus, now Pakicetus Redux, is an interdisciplinary video-game project showcasing the power and fun of gaming in educational driven narratives. Play the exciting submarine "shoot-em-up" and learn about the geologic composition of the ocean floor.

"Enjoy a window into marine geology of the deep-sea in this rogue-lite exploration game. Geologic events, seafloor shape, and in-game resources are all based on scientific data. As captain of the Salvation, you must balance resource collection, system upgrades, and a dwindling food supply as you battle against an unknown enemy bent on stopping your search for a new home (Polymorphic Games)."

How Nostalgia Drives and Derails Living with Wildland Fire in the American West

By Jennifer Ladino (English faculty), Leda N. Kobziar, Jack Kredell '21 and Teresa Cavazos Cohn

This article identifies four prevalent nostalgic figures that recur in popular representations of wildfire: the Giant Sequoia, the Heroic Firefighter engaged in “the Good Fight”, the Lone Frontiersman, and the “Noble Savage," and assesses the affordances and constraints of each of these figures for helping and/or hindering fire management. This article was published in the journal Fire.