{"id":276,"date":"2020-03-02T18:13:13","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T18:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/blog\/?p=276"},"modified":"2020-03-02T18:13:13","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T18:13:13","slug":"fel-executive-committee-member-r-mckenna-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/blog\/fel-executive-committee-member-r-mckenna-brown\/","title":{"rendered":"FEL Executive Committee member R. McKenna Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Today&#8217;s blog post introduces another Executive Committee member<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"229\" class=\"wp-image-277\" style=\"width: 150px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Brown.jpg\" alt=\"\">      R. McKenna Brown<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was raised and educated in the southern United States, and am currently Professor of World Studies and <a href=\"https:\/\/chs.vcu.edu\/about\/directory\/#letter-b\">Special Assistant for Global Initiatives <\/a>to the Dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My research interests centre on the links between language\nand identity and the mobilisation of those links, particularly among the\nHighland Maya peoples of Guatemala, where I have carried out research since\n1985. My co-authored publications include <em>Maya Cultural Activism in\nGuatemala<\/em> and <em>The Life of Our\nLanguage Kaqchikel Maya Maintenance, Shift, and Revitalization<\/em>.&nbsp; From 1989 to 1996, I served as founding\nco-director of <em>Oxlajuj Aj<\/em>, an intensive summer field school in Kaqchikel\nlanguage and culture and oversaw the publication of a resulting textbook <em>\u00bfLa \u00dctz Aw\u00e4ch? Introduction to Kaqchikel\nMaya Language<\/em>.&nbsp; I also co-curated the\nexhibit <em>Ixchel\u2019s Thread: Maya Weavings from the Bowdler Collection<\/em> at\nthe Virginia Commonwealth University Anderson Gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the years, I have held leadership positions in several\ncommunity and professional organizations including Colaborando Juntos (CJ),\nVirginia Latino Higher Education Network (VALHEN), the World Affairs Council of\nGreater Richmond, the Guatemala Scholars Network, and the Modern Language\nAssociation. I also produced a two-part video project on the current Mayan\nmovement for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a translation of Mayan\npoetry was selected as Finalist for the 2002 PEN Literary Award for Poetry in\nTranslation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My first exposure to FEL was attending its <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/conferences\/1999\/proceed1999.htm\">third conference<\/a> in Maynooth, Ireland in 1999.\u00a0 I organised the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/conferences\/2002\/proceed2002.htm\">sixth conference<\/a>  in Antigua, Guatemala in 2002, edited that year\u2019s proceedings volume and served as co-editor of several subsequent volumes. It has been both a pleasure and an honour to be associated with the FEL and to serve alongside outstanding colleagues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s blog post introduces another Executive Committee member. R. McKenna Brown I was raised and educated in the southern United States, and am currently Professor of World Studies and Special Assistant for Global Initiatives to the Dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University. My research interests centre on the links &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/blog\/fel-executive-committee-member-r-mckenna-brown\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">FEL Executive Committee member R. McKenna Brown<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fel_ec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281,"href":"https:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions\/281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ogmios.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}