Jordan Biro Walters receives 2024 book prize for ‘Wide-Open Desert: A Queer History of New Mexico’

A book written by Jordan Biro Walters, associate professor of history at The College of Wooster, received the Robert G. Athearn Award from the Western History Association (WHA) during the Oct. 23-26 conference in Kansas City, Missouri. Her book, Wide-Open Desert: A Queer History of New Mexico, published in 2023 by the University of Washington Press, offers a comprehensive, composite study of queer lives in New Mexico.

Wide-Open Desert reveals the untold stories of New Mexico’s LGBTQ+ residents who inhabited spaces from Santa Fe’s nascent bohemian art scene to the secretive military developments at Los Alamos. The book brings to life a vibrant milieu of two-spirit, Chicana lesbian, and white queer cultural producers in the heart of the U.S. Southwest.

Walters started the book project 10 years ago as a Ph.D. in history at the University of New Mexico. “I realized that the American Southwest was an understudied region in queer scholarship,” she said. “Queer New Mexican history is scattered in various archives, unpublished personal narratives, private visual queer representations, and people’s memories.” To collect the background for the book’s archival and oral research, she first talked with community members and residents across the state who were willing to share their stories.

Wide-Open Desert breaks new ground by extending and enriching LGBTQ+ history beyond the bicoastal and metropolitan touchstones that have framed perspectives on the queer past for a long time. What she found was a rich history of queer cultural expression and sexual politics that flourished long before a formalized gay liberation movement.

The award is “particularly meaningful” since it acknowledges that local queer stories are integral to understanding American West history. She previously won the WHA’s Jensen-Miller Award for a biographical article on world-renowned artist R.C. Goram (Dine/Navajo). “The association has long been a nurturing site for cultivating my scholarship,” she said.

At the College, Walters uses research findings from the book in an introductory course on the history of sexualities and in an upper division course on LGBTQ+ history. She also includes community engagement practices, especially oral history, in and out of the classroom, such as in the Histories of Feminisms, co-taught with Beatrice Adams, assistant professor of history. Walters is also a faculty director for the Wooster Digital History Project, a summer internship program that employs undergraduates to conduct community history research of the greater Wooster area.

Most of the work for the book was done before Walters joined the Wooster faculty; however, for finalizing the book project, she hired two sophomore research assistants–English major Sally Kershner ’19 to help transcribe oral histories and Piper Farrell ’25, a global and international studies major who helped develop a professional website to promote the book. Walters plans to involve students in her next book project that investigates the history of American museums collecting and interpreting sexual material culture.

Posted in Faculty, News on November 11, 2024.