A. Bibliographical Methods: A student preparing for his comprehensive examination asked about criticism on a writer. “I am looking in JSTOR,” said he. I said he should look in the MLA Bibilography. JSTOR is good, but it only has what it has, it does not give a complete panorama of what is. “I see,” said he.
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B. Puzzle: calling all Spanish and Portuguese professors. For a minor area on a Ph.D. exam in English, where the student only reads English, the area being “multi-ethnic women writers in the Americas,” whom should I have the student read? I mean: who has been translated, and whom can be most easily worked into a coherent reading list for a student who cannot read secondary sources in Spanish or Portuguese and has no Latin American(ist) background? The English department has decided the list must include writers from throughout the Americas, and must be balanced.
They want the list to cover 1492-2008, because they are concerned there may not be enough total non white women writers in the Americas for a PhD reading list if one looks at fewer than five centuries. But I am going to tell them to avoid the 15th-18th centuries entirely. I am going to tell them that even the twentieth century alone is enough. I will make suggestions but I will not allow them to imagine we are “covering” the field.
I am thinking of some contemporary Caribbean people such as Michelle Cliff, Maryse Condé, and Nancy Morejón. Rosario Castellanos is possible because there is criticism on her in English, and she writes about matters indigenous, but I think of her as white. (That is one of the problems with this puzzle: who is “ethnic?”) It would be possible to do some testimonio. What do you think?
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C1. I realize that the normal answer would be to tell the student to learn a foreign language first, so they can really work. That is not how this universe works, however, and I am curious to know what sort of patches anyone might suggest for the situation.
C2. I also realize that I should not be thinking about this at all, I should be doing “my” work, but thinking about it in tandem with what I am “really” doing seems to be motivating. I need to study a lot more than I do, and all motivation is excellent.
C3. I should be excited about creating activities for intermediate foreign language courses the way I am about creating interesting PhD reading lists in Comparative Literature. Because of this characteristic I should not be a professor.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
There is a site that used to be called Voices from the Gaps and is now called VG that puts up pages about women writers of color, first in the U.S. and now more in an international framework. That is a good place to send your lazy English colleagues who are too lazy to learn another language. What does “balanced” mean? No, never mind. don’t waste another minute on it: send them the link and make them do it. Warning: the pages are created by students, nominally under the supervision of faculty, but I wouldn’t think of them as compeltely authoritative, but they are a good resource for getting started.
http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/
You can search it in various ways, including by location.
And they also have this idea about “axes of affiliation” that might be worth considering in your conversations with them.
Gracias, Joanna! Axes of affiliation: do you mean their idea that Sor Juana and Silvina Ocampo are Xicana? I have already informed them that this is not the case and they were amazed, amazed.
There are a bunch of modernist women writers, most of whom are translated… Bombal and de la Parra, for instance, as well as Ocampo.
HI JON and thanks for commenting on this. Yes, I know of these translations, but can those writers just be studied as additional American writers? How well should people be expected to know them and their contexts … and secondary sources and so on … ? I mean, my colleagues in English are willing to call all these people Chicana or “Latina” writers, can I allow that on a PhD examination … ? They are willing to assume none of them are white, and all of them are working class, can I allow this?