Faculty | SUNY Fredonia

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.

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
	Betty Barnard, Lecturer SUNY Fredonia, M.S. in Education Office: Fenton 2139 Phone: 716 673-3127 E-mail: Betty.Barnard@fredonia.edu

	William Boerst, Lecturer Office: Fenton 250 Phone: 716 673-3845 E-mail: William.Boerst@fredonia.edu

	Diane Bohn, Secretary Poummit Secretarial Award for outstanding service, attitude, creativity, and resourcefulness Office: Fenton 277 Phone: 716 673-3125 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, 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

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

	Anne Fearman, Lecturer SUNY Fredonia, M.A. Office: Fenton 242a Phone: 716 673-4721 E-mail: Anne.Fearman@fredonia.edu

	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 20^th-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, 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

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

	Kirstin Collins Hanley, Assistant Professor University of Pittsburgh, Ph.D. Office: Fenton 238 Phone: 716 673-3846 E-mail: Kirstin.Hanley@fredonia.edu

	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, 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

	David Kaplin, Assistant Professor Indiana University, Ph.D. Office: Fenton 232 Phone: 716 673-3852 E-mail: David.Kaplin@fredonia.edu On rainy afternoons, you can find me reading the novels I most enjoy - by Dickens, Gaskell, Trollope, Thackeray, and Eliot - aloud to myself in a fake British accent. At other times, I'm usually teaching courses in British literature from the Romantic and Victorian periods, comparative and world literature, mystery and detective fiction, and law and literature. My current research centers around lying and its role in national identity formation in nineteenth-century Britain and France. I have also written about the relationship between changing prescriptions for Victorian manliness and the unmanly characters in Trollope's novels; the significance behind first impressions in Dickens's Dombey and Son; and the semiotics of Italo Calvino's hybrid language of tarot cards in The Castle of Crossed Destinies. Every day, I wake up to the realization that I am no longer practicing law, and the resulting smile lasts all day long.

	John Kijinski, Professor; Dean for Arts and Humanities University of Wisconsin, Madison, Ph.D. Office: Maytum Hall 806 Phone: 716 673-3174 E-mail: John.Kijinski@fredonia.edu

	Daniel Laurie, Lecturer SUNY Fredonia M.A. Office: 268 Fenton Phone: 673-3857 E-mail: Daniel.Laurie@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, Associate Professor / Associate Chair / 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, Lecturer SUNY Fredonia, M.A. Office: Fenton 248 Phone: 716 673-3789 Email: Susan.Lord@fredonia.edu

	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 21^st 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, Lecturer M.A. SUNY Fredonia Ph.D. Candidate, SUNY Binghmanton Office: Fenton 247 Phone: 716 673-4716 E-mail: Susan.McGee@fredonia.edu


	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, Professor SUNY at Binghamton, Ph.D. President's Award for Excellence, 2008 Office: Fenton 241 Phone: 716 673-3861 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, as well as women's studies generally; contemporary critical and cultural theory and media studies, culture and politics during the 1960s; issues pertaining to the news media and the First Amendment.

	Kathryn Moore, Lecturer Buffalo State University, M.A. Office: Fenton 250 Phone: 716 673-3845 E-mail: kathryn.moore@fredonia.edu

	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.

	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, eco-criticism, mythology, and Asian-American literatures. As a writer and teacher of creative writing, I'm particularly drawn to voices that have an entwined relationship to landscape and supposition.

	Dustin Parsons, 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.

	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, Associate Professor 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, 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.

	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, 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 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, 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, 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.

	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 EnglishFaculty

Department of English
Faculty