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English/Literature

Joel Baer

18th Century Literature/Pirates

Baer teaches 18th century studies, Jane Austen, Anne Sexton, drama, the contemporary short story and religious themes in 20th century literature. He is currently working on a book about the notorious British pirate, Captain John Avery. His research on 18th century piracy and the fiction it inspired has been published in journals in the U.S., Britain and Canada.

Stephen Burt

Poetry/Creative Writing

Burt is a poet and critic. His award winning collection of poems, "Popular Music," was published by the University of Colorado Press. He has also published essays on contemporary poetry as well as reviews in publications such as the Times Literary Supplement, Boston Reveiw and the London Review of Books. He is interested in a variety of areas including contemporary feminism, queer theory, popular culture as well as 17th century literature. He teaches courses on modern American literature, 20th century poetry and creative writing

James Dawes

American Literature/Language of War and Violence

Dawes specializes in American literature. His new book, The Language of War, is being published by Harvard University Press. It explores U.S. literature and culture from the Civil War through World War II, examining how the violence of war affects literary, legal and philosophical representations and how those representations affect violence. In addition, Dawes has published articles on a variety of subjects including human rights law, literature and medical studies, Shakespeare as well as gender and sexuality.

Diane Glancy

Native American Literature

Glancy is an award-winning poet, playwright and fiction writer who often writes about the Native American experience. She is co-editor of a new Native American Narrative Series at the University of Nebraska Press. Her newest novel is Designs of the Night Sky. Her novel, Flutie, is being adapted into a screenplay. Her other book, Pushing the Bear, about the Cherokee Nation's 1838 Trail of Tears was published by Harcourt Brace. Glancy's other books include Monkey Secret, a collection of short fiction, The Voice That Was In Travel, War Cries, a collection of short plays, The West Pole, a collection of essays, and Trigger Dance. Glancy teaches Native American literature, creative writing and

a new course on environmental writing. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards including an American Book Award, the Native American Prose Award and Macalester's Thomas Jefferson Award.

Stuart McDougal

Modern Literature/T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound/Film

McDougal is chairman of the English Department. He is interested in modern literature and literary theory. He is an expert on the poetry of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. He also studies, teaches and writes about film and has developed screenplays and film treatments. For example, he has taught courses and written a textbook on adapting literature into screenplays. He is the author of two collections of essays, Play It Again, Sam: Retakes on Cinematic Remakes and Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, which soon will be released. McDougal is a former president of the American Association of Comparative Literature.

David Chioni Moore

Non-Western Literature/African Diaspora

International Studies and Programming

Moore specializes in post-Colonial theory, 20th century non-Western literature, literature of the African diaspora and the history of criticism. He is currently researching the work of Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes and plans to publish for the first time in the U.S., a new edition of Hughes' rare book A Negro Looks at Soviet Central Asia. He is also the editor of the soon-to-be-released book Debating Black Athena. Moore's work also focuses on ethnicity, transnationality and hybridization. He has written several articles including "Feminism and Arab-Afroasiatic Humanism" and "Routes: Alex Haley's Roots and the Rhetoric of Genealogy."

Wang Ping

Creative Writing/Chinese Footbinding

A native of China, Wang is an acclaimed author, editor and translator. Her newest book on the history and culture of footbinding in China is called Aching For Beauty. Other publications include a novel, Foreign Devil, a collection of short stories, America Visa, a collection of poetry, Of Flesh and Spirit and an anthology she edited and helped to translate called New Generation: Poetry from China Today. Ping teaches courses in creative writing.

Tanya Pollard

Shakespeare/Renaissance and Greek Drama/

Literature and Science

Pollard is currently working on a book called Dangerous Remedies: Theater and Drugs in the English Renaissance, based on her research on the preoccupation with drugs, chemicals and poisons in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama as well as in contemporary medical, religious and political writings. She specializes in classical and early modern literature, drama and culture. Her research interests also include the relationship between theories of medicine and theories of theater, cosmetics and adornnment, and revenge tragedy. In addition, Pollard has served on a special advisory council to the U.S. Secretary of Education since 1994.

Sonita Sarker

British and Postcolonial Literature/Women's Writing

Women's and Gender Studies Program

Sarker specializes in 20th century British and postcolonial literature with an emphasis on women's writing as well as literary and feminist theory. She has published essays on Bessie Head, Virginia Woolf and Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. She has edited a collection of essays called Marking Times and Territories: Genders in the Globalization of South and Southeast Asia, which includes two of her own essays. In addition, she is currently revising a book on exile as well as an anthology on gender and race. Sarker is the director of the college's Women's and Gender Studies Program.

Robert Warde

British Literature/Vietnam Literature/

Baseball Literature

Warde teaches a course on American literature of the Vietnam War and is writing a book on the subject. He also teaches 19th century British literature, European art and literature, autobiography and the literature of baseball. Warde is currently working on a memoir about life in southern California.

David Wilson-Okamura

Classical and Medieval Literature/Chaucer/Virgil

Wilson-Okamura specializes in Virgil and Chaucer. He teaches courses in medieval, early modern and 19th century British literature. He has researched classical models of colonization in Shakespeare's Tempest, classical theories of comedy and tragedy in Renaissance drama, classical allusion and he has published articles on other classical, medieval and early modern subjects. In addition, Wilson-Okamura created and edits academic websites on Virgil and Chaucer.

Michelle Wright

Literature of the African Diaspora

Wright's research focuses on black Atlantic literature and postcolonial theory. She is currently working on a book on comparative black theories of subjectivity in the literature of African American, black British, Afro-German and black French literature and non-fiction. Wright is also a resource on race and technology issues as well as queer and black feminist issues in African diaspora literature.