Faculty Visiting Faculty
Emeriti Faculty
(E-mail only)
- Max Autrey
- Joanne Brown
- Bruce Campbell
- Grace Eckley
- Gary Gildner
- Norman Hane
- David Foster
- Barbara Hodgdon
- Bruce Martin
Initially I grew up on the east coast in a bilingual community, and then my family moved to the Midwest where my sense of language, identity, and place became defined and, strangely, more fleeting. I often feel---even with multiple graduate degrees in writing-that I'm still learning how to tap into the potency of words. In Spanish we have the word anyoransa (a deep sense of longing and nostalgia). Nostalgia and possibility, memory and longing -they make life and fiction credible and mysterious. My novel-The Region of Lost Names (U of Arizona P, 2008)- explores these qualities. I'm very pleased to join the English Department, and I intend to help students know their unique writing process and distinct voice, so they can compose the words they need to write. I have new fiction and nonfiction projects underway, each with their special demands of excitement, discovery, and attention. I hope student-writers who take my classes begin to value the demands they bring to their writing. Beyond the art and relaxation of cooking, walking in cities or along the seashore, I'm always magnetized to writing.
After graduating from Amherst College in 1995, I spent a few years working for corporations in New York City and San Francisco. Also, I was a staff writer for several music magazines. (My hearing hasn't been the same since those days: if you attend three or four concerts per week, please wear earplugs!) My mixed feelings about my experiences in the business world influenced my research throughout graduate school; I wrote a book-length manuscript and several articles about the concept of corporate culture and its many manifestations. While working toward my degree at Penn State, I taught lots of writing classes (in traditional classrooms and online) and I hosted a weekly radio show, "Listening to Prozac." My areas of interest include cultural studies and rhetoric/composition, and my not-so-guilty pleasures include baseball, 1980's music, and "America's Next Top Model." I'm not even slightly ashamed to tell you that I like to talk to my dog.
I come to Drake from Millersville University, in Pennsylvania, where I was an assistant professor in the English department. My Ph.D. is from Penn State, and my B.A. in English is from Rutgers University. My interests lie in literary theory, contemporary American literature, and contemporary Scottish literature. I have published articles about Don DeLillo and Irvine Welsh. Most recently, I have become interested in the relationship between literary theory and ecological awareness, especially as this relation connects to animal consciousness. Right now, I am working on a project that focuses on visual perception as it relates to the interaction between humans and birds. I am an avid birdwatcher looking forward to encountering the many grassland species of Iowa. As a new resident of the Midwest, I am quickly becoming obsessed with what remains of the tall-grass prairie.
INTERIM DEAN OF ARTS & SCIENCES, 2007-2008
I started out in forestry, but, through some alchemical reaction (trees > pulp >paper > books), ended up in English. After a transfer or two and my BA, I received an MA (Arizona State) and PhD (Illinois), and taught at the University of Michigan until Drake kindly invited me here. That was awhile ago. Since then I have been teaching and writing about Shakespeare, early modern writers, the romance, law and literature, and literary criticism. A relatively early convert to computer technology, I have developed a Shakespeare course that I teach entirely on the Web. A decade ago, an even stranger turn transformed me into the department chair, and now, for awhile, into a dean. But, to preserve my dignity (and to atone for paper consumption), I still plant a tree now and again.
I came to Drake University's English Department, where I teach courses in Drama and Irish Literature, in August of 2003. I received my BA in Latin and English from DePauw University in 1996 and my PhD in English Literature from Indiana University in 2003. While at IU, I taught courses in Drama, Fiction, Irish Literature, and Literary Interpretation and directed plays by Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Oscar Wilde, Tony Kushner, and others. Though I specialize in theater performance and twentieth-century British drama, I maintain dilettantish (and procrastinatory) interest in music, cookery, postmodern fiction, gardening, poker, chess, and playwriting. I am a mediocre runner, a poor tennis player, and a worse golfer.
After receiving a BA in Religion and Art from Susquehanna University, I whiled away several years pursuing an underpaid but agreeable career in the field of Odd Jobs, which supported my writing habit. I returned to academia in 2000, earning an MA in English from Bucknell University and a PhD in Creative Writing from Florida State University, where I taught writing courses and served as Poetry Editor for The Southeast Review. In addition to poetry, my interests include gender studies, queer theory, Holocaust studies, and translation. My first collection of poetry will be published later this year, and I’m currently completing a second collection, as well as a memoir about a year in my childhood spent living under an assumed name and running from the police. When I’m not studiously burying my nose in a book, I enjoy cooking elaborate meals, brewing beer, hiking, and loafing under convenient trees.
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT CHAIR 2007-08, DIRECTOR OF WOMEN'S STUDIES
I did my undergraduate study at a small liberal arts college in Idaho (1977-81) and received my PhD from a medium-sized university, University of Iowa (1982-1992). My areas of scholarly emphasis are twentieth-century American literatures (including U.S.), postcolonial literatures, and feminist studies. I'm also interested in gay and lesbian studies. I advise students and direct independent studies and internships in Cultural Studies, Multicultural Studies, and Women's Studies as well as in English.
I am a medievalist-classicist turned writing teacher. My MA and PhD work (at Northwestern and the University of Iowa) focussed mostly on medieval languages and literature, including forays into Old Norse, classical and Homeric Greek and Virgilian Latin. A dissertation on myth and archetype (and much teaching in the Iowa Writing Lab) inevitably returned me to writing, both as a subject for inquiry and as a focal point for my teaching. I've talked (at conferences) and written (in journals) about the theory and teaching of writing, about narrative and its uses in academic and non-academic writing. Currently at Drake, I direct the writing workshop, teach writing , and occasionally wander back into courses (Early English Texts; Myth and Archetype) where there are giants still in the earth.
After receiving an M.A. in American Studies at the University of Maryland, I attended the University of Florida, concentrating on postwar film and culture, eventually earning a Ph.D. in Film Studies and 20th-century cultural theory. Before coming to Drake, I taught Women's Studies at the University of South Florida and film at the University of Kentucky, where I was also the Associate Director of Writing. My idiosyncratic teaching and research interests have tended to concentrate on the culture of the Cold War (1950s-80s). From Audrey Hepburn to white trash, from mobile homes to the Guggenheim Museum, the details of that era, and how those details have since been represented, fascinate me and have guided my research. I am a reverse snowbird: a Floridian who migrated north.
I came to Drake in 1996, after earning my PhD in English from the University of Iowa. During my graduate career, I studied American ethnic literature, concentrating on literature by Asian Americans and on the representation of mixed race in American narratives. I continue to write and publish poems, stories, and articles, many of which draw from my Korean heritage and from my interests in Asian American studies. At Drake, I teach beginning and advanced fiction-writing workshop courses, in which I try to bridge some of the approaches of literary theory with those of the creative writing classroom. I work with students pursuing independent projects in creative writing, which may be combined with their literary study, and with those applying to graduate creative writing programs.
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT ASSOCIATE CHAIR 2007-08
I received a doctorate in rhetoric and composition studies (SUNY-Albany), and I did graduate work in creative writing as well, receiving an MFA from the University of Iowa. Since 1988, when I arrived at Drake, I have been teaching courses in language theory, writing, cultural criticism, and filmmaking. In many of those courses, I offer students the opportunity to write across the divisions in English studies. My research and publications are primarily in the fields of writing studies and educational reform, and I continue to write and publish poetry. In addition, I have recently worked on a documentary film, writing and co-producing A Little Salsa on the Prairie: The Changing Character of Perry, Iowa, which received the Gold Eddy, the highest award, in the category of Professional Documentary, at the 2007 Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival. Since coming to Drake University, I have received two awards for outstanding teaching: the College of Arts & Sciences Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award (2000-01) and the Madelyn M. Levitt Teacher of the Year Award (2002).
I received my BA in English and Environmental Studies from Williams College and a PhD in American Literature from Stanford University. My primary interests are in early American literary culture, 18th and 19th century women writers, nature writing, and writings on "place." In my courses you can expect an interdisciplinary focus, exposure to popular writings of the past, and a dedication to the close reading of texts through a variety of methodologies.
A native of Southern California, I earned my BA in English from Humboldt State University in Northern California, then migrated to the Deep South where I completed my Ph.D. at Louisiana State University. My research interests include Popular Culture, Adolescent Literature, the American short story, and women's studies. I entertain an ongoing obsession with horror films, which began when my brother forced me to watch Night of the Living Dead. Along with a love of zombies, I am continually intrigued by the amorphous classification(s) of cultural productions as either "high" or "low" forms of art. Is it "literature" or "fiction" or a "trashy novel?" Interrogation of these troublesome labels is an ongoing preoccupation. In my courses I incorporate an interdisciplinary focus with emphases on critical thinking, close reading and cultural and feminist critical theories.
Visting Faculty
I came to Drake University from the University of Iowa, where I received an MFA in poetry at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2006. My primary interests lie in modern and postmodern literature. As a former ESL instructor, I emphasize a global perspective in my classes; I've used anthologies such as Poems for the Millennium and The Art of the Tale because they include excellent writers from Asia, Africa, South America, the Middle East, and Europe. In the fiction and poetry workshops I teach at Drake, students can expect to be both warmly supported and rigorously challenged as writers. My own poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Pleiades, Sentence, Mary, Konundrum Engine Literary Review, Coconut, Greatcoat, and elsewhere. Besides publishing a book of poetry, one of my personal goals is to make it through an entire yoga class without resting in child's pose.
A native of the east coast, my enduring interests have been in writing and politics. I went into the U.S. Army at an early age -- serving as a sergeant and paratrooper in the 82d Airborne Division -- then went on to attend Mount Holyoke and Sarah Lawrence College; I received an M.F.A. in Poetry from the latter. Following graduation, I taught first at an international private high school in New Rochelle, NY, then interested in community building and working with a diverse student body- at Greenfield Community College in Mass. An unexpected job offer led me back to New York City, where I worked for several years as a correspondent for an English-daily newspaper in Saudi Arabia, The Saudi Gazette. In this capacity, I covered local Arab, Muslim and South Asian news, aiming to catch the interest of both the native population and the substantial expatriate community in the Kingdom. I am pleased to be switching gears and focusing once again on teaching/creative writing and am currently working on a book of poems.
I received my BA from Bryn Mawr College, my MAT from Smith College, and my MA/PhD from McGill University. My research and teaching interests range from Renaissance studies and Victorian literature to modern Greek-life studies and western esotericism, and I am always thrilled and extremely impressed when my students come up with unique and original ideas (which they do very frequently). I have taught for many years at high-school as well as university level, and am a firm believer in making learning enjoyable. I simply love relaxing in good bookstores or coffee-shops, especially if it is raining...or snowing!
I grew up in the woods of northern Minnesota and completed my undergraduate degree in English and Women’s Studies at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth. I received my PhD in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo where I studied American literature, gender theory, and women writers. I’m currently working on a co-edited collection of essays about representations of male beauty in contemporary culture. Before coming to Drake, I taught writing and literature courses in St. Paul at the University of St. Thomas, Hamline, and the College of St. Catherine. In my classes I want students to feel engaged and challenged, while I hope that our time together allows them to think in new ways about their own writing and about the literature we read. Outside of school, I enjoy cooking, gardening, camping, fishing, downloading music to my new ipod, and on lazy Sundays, watching made-for-TV movies on Lifetime.