
Contact Information
Fields of Interest
Biography
Maya Sonenberg is currently at work on four projects. In Models for Raising the Dead, each chapter links actual ancestors with literary ancestors, combining memoir, family history, fiction, and close readings with visual elements (drawings, manipulated photographs, diagrams) in order to create meaning through association and metaphor and to explore the ways both genetic material and cultural constructs shape us. The second book focuses on her grandmother as an immigrant "pioneer," Jewish Utopian settlements in the Dakotas and the Bronx at the turn of the 20th century, and her love for the very problematic novels of Laura Ingalls Wilder. She is also working on a series of essays about 20th century choreographer Merce Cunningham, and a miniature book about miniatures, focusing on a fairy tale about a black fox.
Pedagogically, she is interested in helping each student develop their own writerly passions to the fullest extent, an exercise in both freedom and responsibility. Her workshops use the Critical Response Process, developed by choreographer Liz Lerman, which switches the focus from statement to question and places the artist and their intentions at the center of every conversation. She has co-taught with the art department and routinely includes the study and making of artists' books in her undergraduate classes and graduate-level independent studies.
Research
Selected Research
- Sonenberg, Maya. “Seventh.” Dark Matter: A Journal of Speculative Writing 8 (Winter 2015/2016): 67-70. Web.
- Sonenberg, Maya. 26 Abductions. Lincoln, NE: The Cupboard Pamphlet, 2015.
- Sonenberg, Maya. “Disintegration.” Western Humanities Review LXVII.1 (Winter 2013): 55-58.
- Sonenberg, Maya. "Not-Knowing and the Proliferation of Plot, or On Reading ‘The Babysitter’ for the 34th Time.” FlashPoint: A Multidisciplinary Journal in the Arts and Politics 15 (Spring 2013): n. pag. Web.
- Sonenberg, Maya. “Visitation.” The Literarian 11 (Fall 2012): n. pag. Web.
- Sonenberg, Maya. “Princess of Desire.” Web Conjunctions January 2011: n. pag. Web.
- Sonenberg, Maya. "My Mother’s Closet.” South Loop Review Spring 2011: 90-97. Print.
- Sonenberg, Maya. "Models for Raising the Dead.” Hotel Amerika 10.1 (Fall 2011): 26-35. Print.
- Sonenberg, Maya. “Inebriate of Air.” Fairy Tale Review Aquamarine Issue (September 2009): 167-172. Print.
- Sonenberg, Maya. Voices from the Blue Hotel. Portland: Chiasmus Press, 2006
- Sonenberg, Maya. Cartographies. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989.
- Maya Sonenberg, Bad Mothers, Bad Daughters, University of Notre Dame Press, 2022