David K. Dunaway –
Author, Biographer, Oral Historian
Background
David is an oral historian and a biographer in print, radio, and podcast. Among other projects, for the last thirty years he has documented the work of Pete Seeger, resulting in How Can I Keep From Singing? The Ballad of Pete Seeger, published by McGraw Hill in 1981 and revised, updated, and republished by Villard/Ballantine, 2008.
Author of ten volumes of history and biography, Dunaway’s specialty is the presentation of folklore, literature, and history via public broadcasting. Over the last years he has been Executive Producer of award-winning national radio series for NPR and Public Radio International, including “Writing the Southwest” (1995); “Aldous Huxley’s Brave New Worlds” (1998); “Across the Tracks: A Route 66 Story” (2001); and “Pete Seeger: How Can I Keep From Singing?” (2008). He is currently a DJ for KUNM-FM and a Professor of English at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and the University of Sâo Paulo.
National Awards
Dr. Dunaway was the first recipient of the Oral History Associations’ Vox Populi (“Voice of the People”) Award. The intent of the Stetson Kennedy Vox Populi Award is to stimulate, and give recognition to, collections of oral histories based on activism and designed to bring about a more democratic, just, peaceful, and harmonious world. In choosing Dr. Dunaway, the Oral History Association recognized not only his body of work over the years, but the singularity of documenting social protest in folksong through How Can I Keep From Singing and Singing Out: An Oral History of America’s Folk Music Revivals. Mr. Kennedy—who made the presentation—is the only living subject of a Woody Guthrie song.
Get in touch
New York
David Dunaway
Department of English Language and Literature
MSCO3-2170
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
(505) 345-0185
[email protected]