Novelist Catherine Kunce received her Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Denver. A recently completed project involves the transcription and annotation of two nineteenth-century American women writers, one of whom was Edgar Allan Poe’s onetime fiancée.
As senior instructor in CU’s Program for Writing and Rhetoric, Catherine has relied on the Center of the American West to enhance her teaching. During a class that collected stories told by Boulder-area senior citizens, Patty Limerick treated students to classroom visits and shared her experiences about visiting retirement homes while she was an undergraduate student. Students read with interest Patty’s unique thesis about her visits with the elderly, which had gained national media attention. This thesis helped prepare Catherine’s students for the rewarding yet challenging experience of dealing with a generation so often neglected and so richly deserving of attention and respect. Another course, Native American Topics, uses Legacy of Conquest as a central text. And students can count on the Center’s numerous events to invigorate classroom learning. Last fall, for example, Catherine’s Native American Topics classes attended the Center’s wonderful Native American Skies presentation at CU’s Fiske Planetarium.