Rate My Professor Miriam Spiers

Miriam Brown Spiers is an Associate Professor of English and American Studies at Kennesaw State University, where she holds the positions of Director of the M.A. in American Studies program and Coordinator of the Native American and Indigenous Studies program. She specializes in literature, with a focus on Native American and Indigenous literatures, science fiction, comics, formal and generic experimentation, 20th- and 21st-century American literature, and Indigenous feminisms. Spiers earned her Ph.D. in English and Graduate Certificate in Native American Studies from the University of Georgia in 2014, her M.A. in English from the University of Georgia in 2009, and her B.A. in English from Oglethorpe University in 2006. Her teaching portfolio spans Native American and Indigenous Studies, American Studies, English, and Gender and Women's Studies, including courses such as Introduction to Native American Studies, Native American Science Fiction, Contemporary Literature of the Native South, Literature and Culture of the Americas, Regional Studies: The Native South, Contemporary Indigenous Women Writers, and Literature and Performance in American Culture: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Science Fiction.

Spiers' research explores specific themes including Indigenous science fiction, queer relations in comics and literature, nuclear fears in Cherokee science fiction, sovereignty in Indigenous narratives, Haida manga and formline art, social responsibility in manga, and communities of grief in war fiction. In 2021, she published her monograph Encountering the Sovereign Other: Indigenous Science Fiction with Michigan State University Press. Her peer-reviewed articles include "Communities of Grief: Surviving War in the Fiction of Ralph Salisbury" (Transmotion 6.1, 2020), "'The Yellow Monster': Reanimating Nuclear Fears in Cherokee Science Fiction" (Native South 12, 2019), "Reimagining Resistance: Achieving Sovereignty in Indigenous Science Fiction" (Transmotion 2.1-2, 2016), "Creating a Haida Manga: The Formline of Social Responsibility in Red" (Studies in American Indian Literatures 26.3, 2014), and "Daddy's Little Girl: Multigenerational Queer Relations in Bechdel's Fun Home" (Studies in Comics 1.2, 2010). She has also authored book reviews for journals such as American Indian Quarterly, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Make/shift, and The Journal of Popular Culture. Spiers has delivered presentations at the Native American Literature Symposium and Modern Language Association conferences.