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Social Issues

Terry Boychuk

Philanthropy/Health Policy

Sociology Department

Boychuk is currently researching the historical tranformation of American philanthropy in the 19th and 20th centuries. He has also studied hospitals and health policies in the U.S. and Canada. He is the author of The Making and Meaning of Hospital Policy in the United States and Canada, a comparative history of American and Canadian health policy that explains why movements for national health insurance have failed in the U.S. and flourished in Canada.

Adrienne Christiansen

Rhetoric of Social Movements/Computer Communications

Communication and Media Studies Department

Christiansen specializes in communications via computer, "war talk," feminism and the rhetoric of social movements. She has researched editorial cartoon characterizations of Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura from newspapers around the world. Christiansen has also studied and written about contemporary conservatism, AIDS activists and the Persian Gulf War. For example, she presented a paper on "'Race Traitors'" in Search of Credibility: Revisiting Aristotle's Ethos with Ward Connerly, Linda Chavez and J.C. Watts."

John Haiman

Language/Sarcasm

Linguistics Program

Haiman specializes in alienation in language and sarcasm. He has been interviewed for numerous stories about slang, gossip and other aspects of language. His book, Talk Is Cheap: Sarcasm, Alienation and the Evolution of Language, was recently published.

Mahnaz Kousha

Gender/Class/Race/Women in the Middle East

Sociology Department

Kousha is a sociologist specializing in the intersection of gender, race, class and nationality. She has researched labor relations between African American household workers and their white female employers during the first half of the 20th century. She is currently researching the changing status and image of women in Iran and the Middle East. Her new book, Nothing Can Stop This Tide:Iranian Women Speak, is being published by the Syracuse University Press. She also recently published articles on life satisfaction and happiness among Iranians.

Karen Nakamura

The Deaf /Sign Language

Anthropology Department

Nakamura specializes in sign language and deaf identity issues in the U.S. and Japan. As as a sociocultural anthropologist, her work also focuses on minority social movements in modern Japan as well as gender and sexuality issues in Japan.

Michael Obsatz

Family and Men's Issues /Violence

Sociology Department

Obsatz focuses on interpersonal skills and techniques. He is a family counselor as well as a speaker, workshop director and writer on a variety of family and men's issues including fatherhood, male socialization, raising nonviolent children, raising empathetic sons and assertive daughters, domestic violence, and coping with loss and transition. His new book is Healing Our Anger: Seven Ways to Make Peace in a Hostile World. He has a website dealing with a variety of anger issues at www.angeresources.com. Obsatz is also the author of Raising Nonviolent Children in a Violent World: A Family Handbook, which receieved a 1999 Minnesota Bood Award. His other book is From Stalemate to Soulmate: A Guide Toward Mature, Committed, Loving Relationships. In addition, he chairs the Males in Family Section of the Minnesota Council on Family Relations.

Dianna Shandy

Refugee Migration/Sub-Saharan Africa

Anthropology Department

Shandy specializes in the transnational migration of refugee and sub-Saharan Africa. She has researched the resettlement of the Nuer-speaking Sudanese refugees in the U. S. in the 1990s. In addtion, Shandy has conducted research in West and Southern Africa. She has also evaluated the effectiveness of a crime prevention project to identify challenges facing immigrant business owners in St. Paul.