SUNY Fredonia SUNY Fredonia's Department of English

Department of English
Faculty

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z    Emeriti Faculty

Our faculty is diverse and offers a wide range of approaches to literature. In addition to having expertise in traditional and contemporary forms of literature across a range of historical periods and theoretical perspectives, faculty in the English department specialize in a variety of fields of study: American Studies, African-American Studies, British Studies, Cultural Studies, Global Studies, Journalism, Latino/a Studies, Native American Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and Women's Studies. Our faculty concentrates on excellence in teaching and personal concern for our students. Department faculty have achieved many honors, including Chancellor's Awards for Excellence, President's Award for Excellence, and Distinguished Teaching rank.

Professors in the English Department typically have an open-door policy and welcome students even beyond normal office hours for extra assistance. In addition to teaching, our faculty is active in research and in publishing their research findings in well-respected scholarly journals, anthologies, and books. Faculty members also present scholarly papers at national and international conferences annually; others read their creative work at prestigious state, national, and international venues.

Betty Barnard

Betty Barnard, Lecturer

SUNY Fredonia, M.S. in Education

Office: Fenton 2139
Phone: 716 673-3127
Betty.Barnard@fredonia.edu

William Boerst

William Boerst, Lecturer

Office: Fenton 250
Phone: 716 673-3845
William.Boerst@fredonia.edu

Diane Bohn

Diane Bohn, Secretary

Poummit Secretarial Award for outstanding service, attitude, creativity, and resourcefulness

Office: Fenton 277
Phone: 716 673-3125
E-mail: bohn@fredonia.edu
 

Kenton Brown, Lecturer

SUNY Fredonia, M.A.

Office: Fenton 251
Phone: 716 673-3863
E-mail: Kenton.Brown@fredonia.edu
Matt Brysinski

Matt Brysinski, Teaching Assistant

M.A. Candidate
Office: Fenton 238
Phone: 716 673-3846
E-mail: Matthew.Brysinski@fredonia.edu

I am currently developing my thesis around William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author. I guess I would say I have a knack for Shakespeare, metafiction, and postmodern literature. Sprinkle that with my developing interest in the author function (Barthes, Foucault, Bakhtin, Pirandello) and you get something pretty odd, I'm sure.
 

KimMarie Cole, Associate Professor / Program Coordinator, English Adolescence Education

University of Wisconsin, Ph.D.

Office: Fenton 268
Phone: 716 673-3857
E-mail: KimMarie.Cole@fredonia.edu

My recent research studies how learning communities that are constructed in and through classroom talk.  This research draws from the areas of sociolinguistics, educational linguistics, discourse analysis and second language acquisition.
 

Tom Craig, Lecturer

SUNY Fredonia, M.A.

Office: Fenton 250
Phone: 716 673-3845
E-mail: Colin.Craig@fredonia.edu

Albert Dunn

Albert A. Dunn, Associate Professor

University of Virginia, Ph.D.
SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1980

In memoriam: Prof. Albert Dunn died on June 22, 2007, after a long illness. Remembrances may be addressed to the chair of the department for his family.

Sarah Emert

Sarah Emert, Teaching Assistant

M.A. Candidate
Office: Fenton 2138
Phone: 716 673-4688
E-mail: Sarah.Emert@fredonia.edu

Ron Estes, Visiting Assistant Professor

Office: Fenton 274
Phone: 716 673-3587
E-mail: Ronald.Estes@fredonia.edu

 

Anne Fearman, Lecturer

SUNY Fredonia, M.A.

Office: Fenton 242a
Phone: 716 673-4721
E-mail: Anne.Fearman@fredonia.edu

Natalie Gerber

Natalie Gerber, Assistant Professor

University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D.

Office: Fenton 276
Phone: 716 673-3855
E-mail: Natalie.Gerber@fredonia.edu

Natalie Gerber’s research and teaching focus upon 20th-century literature, the English language, poetry and poetics, especially the expressive use of language. She is the author of the book chapter “Getting the Squiggly Tunes Down on the Page: Williams’ Triadic-Line Verse and American Intonation” in Rigor of Beauty: Essays in Commemoration of William Carlos Williams and has published articles on the relationship between the structure of the English language and the style of 20th-century poets in journals such as The William Carlos Williams Review and The Wallace Stevens Journal. Dr. Gerber earned her Ph.D. in English from UC Berkeley. She has also helped support national and local poetry endeavors, including the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festivals and Robert Hass’s tenure as U.S. poet laureate.
Sarah Gerkensmeyer

Sarah Gerkensmeyer, Lecturer

Cornell University, M.F.A
Office: Fenton 241
Phone: 716 673-3861
E-mail:  Sarah.Gerkensmeyer@fredonia.edu

I write short stories and am working on a novel.  My stories have appeared (or will soon appear) in Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Cream City Review, Sonora Review, North Dakota Quarterly, The Nebraska Review, and elsewhere.  During the summer of 2007, I was a contributor at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.  At SUNY Fredonia, I teach creative writing, freshman composition, and introductory literature courses.

 

John Glovack, Lecturer

University at Buffalo, Ph.D.

Office: Fenton 246
Phone: 716 673-4714
E-mail: John.Glovack@fredonia.edu

  

Carolyn Grady

Carolyn Kieber Grady, Lecturer

SUNY Fredonia, M.A.

Office: Fenton 247
Phone: 716 673-4716
E-mail: Carolyn.Grady@fredonia.edu
Laura Guenther

Laura Guenther, Teaching Assistant

M.A. Candidate
Office: Fenton 2138
Phone: 716 673-4688
E-mail:  Laura.Guenther@fredonia.edu
 Virginia Horvath

Virginia Horvath, Professor; Vice President, Academic Affairs

Kent State University, Ph.D.

Office: Maytum 818
Phone: 716 673-3335
E-mail: Virginia.Horvath@fredonia.edu

Christina Jarvis

Christina Jarvis, Associate Professor / Director of American Studies

Pennsylvania State University, Ph.D.
SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2007

Office: Fenton 235
Phone: 716 673-3430
E-mail: Christina.Jarvis@fredonia.edu

My research and teaching interests include 20th-Century American literature, gender studies, war and popular culture, American Studies, contemporary sustainability issues, feminist theory and family studies. While my past publications have focused on intersections between war, gender, and embodiment, my current book project investigates post-1970 cultural representations of and dialogues about fatherhood in the United States. I am also working to translate new research on food, the environment, and American consumer culture into various forms of civic engagement and campus activism. At the graduate level, I have taught seminars on American Modernisms, War and Gender, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the American Family, and Cold War American Literature.
 

Doug Johnston, Lecturer

SUNY Buffalo, Ed. M.

Office: Fenton 246
Phone: 716 673-4714
E-mail: Douglas.Johnston@fredonia.edu
 

Scott Johnston, Associate Professor / Coordinator English Composition Program

University of Nevada, Ph.D.

Office: Fenton 263
Phone: 716 673-3588
E-mail: Scott.Johnston@fredonia.edu

Jenna Letersky, Teaching Assistant

M.A. Candidate
Office: Fenton 2138
Phone: 716 673-4688
E-mail: Jenna.Letersky@fredonia.edu

My interests are American literature and specifically the role of the "American dream" in terms of its representation by authors through gender, culture, and the course of history. I'd like to examine the lesser known works for a different perspective as well.

En-Shu Robin Liao, Assistant Professor

Teachers College, Columbia University, Ed.D.
Office: Fenton 258
Phone: 716 673-3851
E-mail: En-Shu.Liao@fredonia.edu

Research Interests:

  • Gaps and silences between theories and practices in multicultural teacher education
  • Interrelations and intersections between multiculturalism and globalization
  • Internationalization and trans-nationalization of multicultural education curriculum
  • Multicultural literacy
  • Feminist perspectives and teaching of literature to middle and high school students
  • Postmodern and poststructuralist concepts of agency, identity, subjectivity and discourse
  • Foucauldian concept of power relations
  • Qualitative research methods, including autobiography, ethnography and narrative inquiry

Saundra Liggins

Saundra Liggins, Associate Professor / Coordinator of African American Studies

University of California, San Diego, Ph.D.

Office: Fenton 264
Phone: 716 673-3858
E-mail: Saundra.Liggins@fredonia.edu

My research/teaching interests are in women's literature, African American literature and culture, and gothic literature.

Susan Lord

Susan Lord, Lecturer

SUNY Fredonia, M.A.

Office: Fenton 248
Phone: 716 673-3789
Email:  Susan.Lord@fredonia.edu

Brandon Martin, Lecturer

Office: Fenton 251
Phone: 716 673-3863
Email:  Brandon.Martin@fredonia.edu

Adrienne McCormick

Adrienne McCormick, Associate Professor / Department Chair 

University of Maryland, Ph.D.

Office: Fenton 278
Phone: 716 673-3125
E-mail: Adrienne.McCormick@fredonia.edu

My teaching and research interests include issues surrounding women and film, feminist performance, and women’s studies generally.  I have a book chapter forthcoming titled “Supermothers on Film, or the Maternal Melodrama in the 21st Century,” and an edited manuscript under review titled “Vagina Talk: Conversations on The Vagina Monologues and the Global V-Day Movement.”  In literary studies, I have published on contemporary Asian American poetry anthologies and on poets such as Cathy Song, David Mura, and Marilyn Chin. This research is part of a larger project attending to the relationship between poetry, theory and identity politics in contemporary American poets in general.  My broader research interests include multiethnic American fiction and drama as well.
Susan McGee

Susan McGee, Lecturer

M.A. SUNY Fredonia
Office: Fenton 247
Phone: 716 673-4716
E-mail: Susan.McGee@fredonia.edu

Shannon McRae

Shannon McRae,  Associate Professor

University of Washington, Ph.D.

Office: Fenton 257
Phone 716 673-3848
Email: Shannon.Mcrae@fredonia.edu

The research areas I trained in are transatlantic Modernism, medieval Irish literature and culture, virtual communities, and gender theory from a mainly psychoanalytic perspective. I love teaching about the spiritual and mythological undercurrents of world literatures, the relationship between literature and history, and non-literary texts, especially film. My current book project is about early twentieth-century small town American tourist attractions as expressions of spiritual desire--because it is an incredibly interesting topic and it's a way of justifying my passion for road trips. I take a lot of road trips, on my motorcycle and in my big blue camper van named Vera Cruise.

Jeanette McVicker

Jeanette McVicker, Professor 
Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Minor in Journalism

SUNY at Binghamton, Ph.D.

Office: Fenton 232
Phone: 716 673-3852
E-mail: Jeanette.McVicker@fredonia.edu

My current research interests include 1) exploring the impact of US news coverage on subjectivity, citizenship and democracy both in the US and abroad, particularly since 9/11 and the ‘war on terror’ 2) the corporatization of the university in the US and its impact on curricular innovation, pedagogy, scholarship, and governance.  Ongoing interests include engagement with the work of Virginia Woolf and modernist studies generally; culture and politics during the 1960s; issues pertaining to the news media and the First Amendment.

  

T. Mosher

Terence D. Mosher, Associate Professor

University of Michigan, Ph.D.
SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1983

Office: Fenton 255
Phone: 716 673-3854
E-mail: Terence.Mosher@fredonia.edu

My research focuses on Thoreau and his heirs, literature of the northern forest, agrarian literature, and students as ecocritics.

M. Nelson

Malcolm Nelson, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor

Northwestern University, Ph.D.
SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1975

Office: Fenton 263
Phone: 716 673-3588
E-mail: Malcolm.Nelson@fredonia.edu

I was born at an early age and fell in love with lyric poetry and Elizabethan drama in college. Still love 'em, still prefer teaching them to anything else.  Research interests have included Robin Hood, seventeenth century catches, canons and glees, New England gravestones and burying grounds, (and currently) American Indian literature, the American Road, and wilderness.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Associate Professor

Ohio State University, M.F.A.
Hagan Young Scholar/Artist Award, 2004
Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, 2006

Office: Fenton 236
Phone: 716 673-3450
E-mail: nezhukum@fredonia.edu

My research interests include: poetry and creative non-fiction, environmental literature, mythology, and Asian-American literature. As a writer and teacher of creative writing, I'm  particularly drawn to voices that have an entwined relationship to landscape and supposition. I'm working on a series of lyric nature essays detailing the rich landscapes and environmental concerns of south India and research time spent with the Giant Clam Conservation Project in Bolinao, Philippines.  I've also just finished a series of poems detailing the lives of the people who purposefully plunged over Niagara Falls, and through that investigation, bits of natural and personal history blink alive. I'm utterly fascinated by the natural world. I love writing. Working within its craft and art, writing poetry is hard work. But it is the kind of work that totally engages me, and challenges me in ways I like.
Dustin Parson

Dustin Parsons, Visiting Assistant Professor

Bowling Green State University, M.F.A.;
Kansas State University, M.A.

Office: Fenton 239
Phone: 716 673-3128
E-mail:  Dustin.Parsons@fredonia.edu

I received my MFA in Fiction from Bowling Green State University in 2001.  My research interests include the role of place in fiction and nonfiction.  My work reflects this interest as well as an interest in lyric prose and its role in storytelling.  Included in my teaching interests are contemporary American short fiction, American Studies, and the novel.

 

Elmer Ploetz, Lecturer

University at Buffalo, M.A.

Office: Fenton 250
Phone: 716 673-3845
E-mail: Elmer.Ploetz@fredonia.edu

Angela Rosebrough

Angela Rosebrough, Lecturer

Office: Fenton 238
Phone: 716 673-3846
E-mail: Angela.Rosebrough@fredonia.edu

Gareth Sebouhian, Lecturer

Office: Fenton 251
Phone: 716 673-3863
E-mail: Gareth.Sebouhian@fredonia.edu

Ann Siegle Drege

Ann Siegle Drege, Assistant Professor

University of North Dakota, Ph.D.

Office: Fenton 256
Phone: 716 673-3849
E-mail: Ann.SiegleDrege@fredonia.edu

My interests include Drama in the classroom, Active pedagogy, Modern and Contemporary Dramatic Literature, Issues in English Education, Dramatic comedy.

Bruce Simon

Bruce Simon, Associate Professor / Associate Chair

Princeton University, Ph.D.

Office: Fenton 279
Phone: 716 673-3125
E-mail: Bruce.Simon@fredonia.edu

My research and teaching interests span the range of U.S. literatures and their intersections with American studies, black studies, critical race/ethnicity studies, and postcolonial studies.  Although my primary research focus is on pre-Civil War America, I'm interested in the role of universities, the nature of academic work, the structure of the profession, and the conditions of teaching and learning in the past and present.  For more about me, I encourage you to check out my website (click on my name above) and my Hawthorne blog, Citizen of Somewhere Else http://citizense.blogspot.com/

Susan Spangler

Susan Spangler, Assistant Professor

Illinois State University , Ph.D.

Office: Fenton 266
Phone: 716 673-3862
E-mail: Susan.Spangler@fredonia.edu

My ongoing research interests focus on regression under stress in student teachers and issues in composition and rhetoric, particularly writing assessment.  My pedagogical interests include contact zones, small group instructional diagnosis, and teaching for social justice.  To view information on my current courses and my teaching portfolio, click on my name and you’ll be directed to my website.

T. Steinberg

Theodore L. Steinberg, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor, Director Fredonia Honors Program

University of Illinois, Ph.D.
Chancellor's Research Award, 2005
SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1996
President's Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1987

Office: Fenton 275
Phone: 716 673-3529
E-mail: Theodore.Steinberg@fredonia.edu

My research interests are medieval and Renaissance literatures and Judaica.  My teaching interests are universal, but of course you can’t say that.  So my teaching interests are making early literatures come alive for students and showing students how these literatures are relevant to their lives.

James Thomas Stevens

James Thomas Stevens, Associate Professor / Coordinator of American Indian Studies

Brown University, M.F.A.

Office: Fenton 269
Phone: 716 673-3850
E-mail: James.Stevens@fredonia.edu

My areas of research are Native American Studies, Gender Studies/Queer Theory, Poetics and Post-Colonial Literatures.

John Stinson

John J. Stinson, Professor

New York University, Ph.D.
Kasling Lecturer, 2000

Office: Fenton 241
Phone: 716 673-3861
E-mail: John.Stinson@fredonia.edu

Emily VanDette

Emily VanDette, Assistant Professor

Pennsylvania State University, Ph.D.
Office: Fenton 259
Phone: 716 673-3853
Email:  Emily.VanDette@fredonia.edu

My primary area of research and teaching is pre-20th-century American literature. My special interest is the recovery of early American women's literature.  My recent research projects have explored the politicizing potential of family representations in women's fiction.  I teach classes in pre-20th century American literature, including American Literary Roots, Realism and Naturalism in American Literature, the American Literature Survey, and 19th-century American Women Writers.
Birger Vanwesenbeeck

Birger Vanwesenbeeck, Assistant Professor

University at Buffalo, Ph.D.
Office: Fenton 237
Phone: 716 673-3847
Email:  Birger.Vanwesenbeeck@fredonia.edu

My primary research interests are American literature, continental philosophy (Derrida), and contemporary fiction. I am currently co-editing (with Crystal Alberts and Chris Leise) a work with essays on William Gaddis, and I am at work on a book manuscript tentatively entitled "The Critical Communities of Gaddis, Pynchon, and DeLillo." Since 2001 I have been a regular book reviewer for the Belgian daily newspaper De Tijd.


Iclal Vanwesenbeeck, Assistant Professor

University at Buffalo, Ph.D.

Office: Fenton 240
Phone: 716 673-3859
Email:  Iclal.Vanwesenbeeck@fredonia.edu

Interests:  Jacobean Roman tragedies, early modern theories of tyranny, political philosophy, Turkish literature.

Christopher Vogt, Lecturer

M.A. SUNY Fredonia
Office: Fenton 238
Phone: 716 673-3846
Email: Christopher.Vogt@fredonia.edu

Melinda Wendell

Melinda Wendell, Visiting Assistant Professor

SUNY Fredonia, M.A.

Office: Fenton 254
Phone: 716 673-3844
E-mail: Melinda.Wendell@fredonia.edu

I teach and develop courses for early childhood, childhood, and adolescence education majors.  My goal is to nurture a love of reading and writing in my students that they will pass along to their students when they have classrooms of their own.  My interests include: Reading Workshop, Writing Workshop, Children's Literature, Adolescent Literature, and Poetry for Elementary and Middle School.

Department of English
277 Fenton Hall | SUNY Fredonia | Fredonia, NY 14063
Phone: (716) 673-3125 | Fax: (716) 673-4661

Fredonia Visitors Students Administration Faculty/Staff Alumni/Donors