Jennifer Koshatka Seman

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Jennifer Koshatka Seman

Lecturer of History

History

Office Hours


Tuesday/Thursday 12:30-3pm and by appointment

Biography

I am a lecturer in history at Metropolitan State University of Denver and teach courses in U.S. history, Latin American history, and the history of “Multicultural America.” I also support DREAMer and undocumented students at MSU-Denver as part of the DREAMer Network.

My first historical monograph, Borderlands Curanderos: The Worlds of Santa Teresa Urrea and Don Pedrito Jaramillo, was published by the University of Texas Press in 2021, and recently received the 2022 Américo Paredes Book Prize, awarded South Texas College.

Research Interests

    My research interests lie in in the borderlands: the interaction between subaltern practices and institutional forms of power in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and the U.S. West, focusing especially on the ways in which race, gender, and spirituality inform this interaction.

    Recent publication: Borderlands Curanderos: The Worlds of Santa Teresa Urrea and Don Pedrito Jaramillo (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2021).


    I am now working on an article that explores the broader theme of religion in the borderlands (and the West) through the lens of border crossings that include not only the US-Mexico border, but also borders between the sacred and profane, institutions and subaltern DIY cultures, and 1800 to 1900 – the turn of the century that ushered in a sense of apocalyptic anxiety and millennial promise across many spiritual traditions.

Teaching Interests

    My teaching interests lie with the multicultural history of the United States and Latin America. I am especially interested in exploring the histories of race, gender, and spirituality with my students.

Education

PhD in American History

Southern Methodist University

BA in History Major

UNT

Published Works

    Koshatka Seman, J. (2022). The Schlager Anthology of Westward Expansion: A Student's Guide to Essential Primary Sources.. Schlager Group, Seman, K. J. (2021). The Schlager Anthology of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era: A Student's Guid to Essential Primary Sources. (). Schlager Group. Koshatka Seman, J. (2021). Borderlands Curanderos: The Worlds of Santa Teresa Urrea and Don Pedrito Jaramillo. (). . Seman, K. J. (2020). Borderlands Curanderos: The Worlds of Santa Teresa Urrea and Don Pedrito Jaramillo. University of Texas Press, Seman, K. J. (2018). Review of David Wallace Adams, Three Roads to Magdalena: Coming of Age in a Southwest Borderland, 1890-1990 . Pacific Historical Review , Seman, K. J. (2017). Review of Jennifer R. Nåjera, The Borderlands of Race: Mexican Segregation in a South Texas Town . West Texas Historical Review , Seman, K. J. (2017). Review of Deborah and Jon Lawrence, Contesting the Borderlands: Interviews on the Early Southwest . Southwestern Historical Quarterly , Seman, K. J. (2017). “Laying-on Hands: Santa Teresa Urrea’s Curanderismo as Medicine and Refuge at the Turn of the Twentieth Century” . Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, SAGE, Vol. 47(2 ), 178-200. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0008429817745053. Seman, K. J. (2015). “‘How do I know…prayers don’t do more good than…pills’: Don Pedrito Jaramillo, Curanderismo, and the Rise of Professional Medicine in the Rio Grande Valley, 1881-1900” . Journal of the West, ABC-CLIO, Vol. 54 (No. 1), 15-28. .