Dean Rader is an American writer, blogger, poet, and professor who teaches at the University of San Francisco

University of San Francisco

The University of San Francisco , is a private, Jesuit/Catholic university located in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1855, USF was established as the first university in San Francisco. It is the second oldest institution for higher learning in California and the tenth-oldest university of...

. He is primarily known for his scholarly work on Native American

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

. In 2008, his blog, The Weekly Rader, got some attention in the blogosphere when one of his posts, http://weeklyrader.blogspot.com/2008/01/grading-state-of-union.htmlgrading President Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

's State of the Union

State Of The Union

"State Of The Union" is the debut single from British singer-songwriter David Ford. It had previously been featured as a demo on his official website, before appearing as a track on a CD entitled "Apology Demos EP," only on sale at live shows....

 Speech, "graded" President George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

's speech as if it were a student paper. In April 2008, Rader's blog got even more attention as he was one of the first to write about the web sensation Stuff White People Like.

Rader is also a well-published poet who won two major poetry prizes in 2010. His poem "Hesiod in Oklahoma, 1934" won the Sow's Ear Review poetry prize, judged by Kelly Cherry. The Sow's Ear Prize, with a purse of $1,000, is among the most lucrative awards for a single poem. Rader's debut poetry collection, Works and Days, won the 2010 T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize

T. S. Eliot Prize (Truman State University)

The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is awarded annually by Truman State University, which is a United States university located in Missouri. It is given "for the best unpublished book-length collection of poetry in English, in honor of native Missourian T. S. Eliot’s considerable intellectual and...

 judged by Claudia Keelan

Claudia Keelan

-Life:Keelan, who was born in Anaheim, California, is a graduate of Humboldt State University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Missing Her , and has published poems widely in magazines and journals, including The American Poetry Review,...

. Awarded for the best unpublished collection of poems, the award is the only domestic poetry prize sanctioned by Eliot's widow. It carries a purse of $2,000 and publication by Truman State University Press.

Books

• The World is a Text", (2001; 2005; 2008; 2010) Prentice Hall.
• Speak To Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry, University of Arizona Press.
• Engaged Resistance: American Indian Art, Literature, and Film (forthcoming from the University of Texas Press in 2010)
• Works & Days (T. S. Eliot Prize, 2010). Truman State University Press, 2010. Judge, Claudia Keelan.

Other publications

• The Weekly Rader
• Studies in American Indian Literature
• Fire
• San Francisco Chronicle
• College English
• POOL http://poolpoetry.com

Career

• Department of English, University of San Francisco
• Dean of Humanities, University of San Francisco
• Editor, Studies in American Indian Literature
• National Endowment for the Humanities Chair, USF, 2009–2010

Accomplishments

• M.A. & Ph.D in Comparative Literature from the State University of New York at Binghamton
• Rader has had fellowships at Harvard University and Princeton University
• In 2007, Rader won poetry prizes from Crab Orchard Review and Common Ground Review
• Rader was named the National Endowment for the Humanities Chair at the University of San Francisco, 2009–2010.
• Rader won the T.S. Eliot Prize
  T. S. Eliot Prize (Truman State University)
  The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is awarded annually by Truman State University, which is a United States university located in Missouri. It is given "for the best unpublished book-length collection of poetry in English, in honor of native Missourian T. S. Eliot’s considerable intellectual and...
  
  for his collection of poems Works & Days http://tsup.truman.edu/TSEliotPrize/previous_winners.asp

External links

• Borderlands Web Audio Project (Interview and poetry reading by Rader
• Dean Rader's website
• University of San Francisco Page
• Baltimore Sun story on Stuff White People Like
• http://www.sows-ear.kitenet.net/announcements.html Sow's Ear Poetry Award Announcement
• http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/21/RVSI1C0TRJ.DTL&type=printable Article in San Francisco Chronicle about the T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize