Literature | Full-Time Faculty & Staff

Assistant Professor

Katherine Attie is a scholar of early modern British literature, culture, and intellectual history. She teaches courses in Shakespeare, Renaissance poetry, and British literature from Chaucer to the eighteenth century. Before joining the faculty at A... [More]

Professorial Lecturer

Janet Gebhart Auten directs the Writing Center and teaches the graduate Teaching Composition course. She holds an MA from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and a PhD in Rhetoric/ Composition and American Lit. from Bowling Green State Un... [More]

Writing Instructor

Cindy Bair Van Dam joined the Department of Literature faculty in 1995. She earned an MA from American University in 1993 and a BA from the University of Nebraska in 1991. Prior to teaching at AU, she taught at Howard University. Her professional int... [More]

Assistant Professor

Professor Berry teaches courses in British literature including the Romantic period. She also teaches courses in literary criticism including gender and sexuality studies. Her research and published work consider the relationship between literary tex... [More]

Assistant Professor

Fiona Brideoake’s teaching and research focuses on British literature and culture of the long eighteenth century. Her particular interests include Bluestocking feminism, queer historiography, Jane Austen, sociability and material culture, and eightee... [More]

Writing Instructor

Ed Comstock holds an MA in Literature from American University, and is an ABD PhD in the Department of Education at American University. His dissertation focuses on applications of the philosophy of Michel Foucault to education, specifically looking ... [More]

Writing Instructor

Chuck Cox received his MA in Literature from AU and his BA in English from Temple University in Philadelphia, not far from his Pennsylvania hometown. His academic interests include composition, drama, and the cultural roles of popular genres (e.g. my... [More]

Lecturer

As the International Student Coordinator for the Department of Literature, Angela Dadak works mainly in both the College Writing Program and the Writing Center. In the CWP she primarily works with students adjusting to US academic work and with the C... [More]

Assistant Professor

Kyle G. Dargan the author of two collections of poetry. His debut, The Listening (UGA 2004), won the 2003 Cave Canem Prize, and his second, Bouquet of Hungers (UGA 2007), was awarded the 2008 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in poetry. Dargan’s poems and ... [More]

Writing Instructor

Rob Drummond earned his MFA from George Mason University, where he also taught expository and creative writing. Before that, he worked as a technical editor in Los Angeles and a high school teacher in New Orleans. He is a voracious reader of twentiet... [More]

Assistant Professor

Professor Dussere's teaching and research are primarily focused on the literature, film, and culture of twentieth-century America, although he is also interested in topics such as French film, the postcolonial novel, and cultural studies. His first b... [More]

Assistant Professor

Danielle Evans’ short fiction and reviews have appeared in The Paris Review, American Book Review, Phoebe, Black Renaissance Noire, and The L Magazine. Her work has been included in Best American Short Stories 2008, and nominated for several Pushcart... [More]

Writing Instructor

Lydia Morris Fettig holds a BS in Social Science from Portland State University (in Oregon, not Maine!) and an MFA in Creative Writing from American University. Prior to teaching at AU, she taught writing and literature courses at University of Maryl... [More]

Associate Professor

Professor Fisk teaches in the Theatre Program at AU, as well as in Literature. An expert on theatre history, she has written extensively on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century drama and performance. In 2005, Professor Fisk published Four Restoration ... [More]

Writing Instructor

Caimeen Garrett has an MFA in Fiction from Syracuse University, and is ABD in the doctoral program at Florida State University. She is currently working on her dissertation, a collection of linked stories about the Lindbergh kidnapping. Her academic ... [More]

Assistant Professor

Lecturer

John Hyman began teaching at American University in 1986. He has won several teaching awards and was recognized for outstanding service to the university community in 2000. He has directed the Writing Center since 1993, and in 2000 became the directo... [More]

Writing Instructor

Leah Johnson holds an MA in Literature from American University and an MA in Music from The University of Connecticut. She has been teaching in the Department of Literature since 1996. In previous incarnations, Professor Johnson has been a staff repo... [More]

Writing Instructor

Writing Instructor

Kelly Joyner began teaching at American University in 2000. His courses have thematic links to psychology, sports, and history. Lately, he’s most interested in the psychology of deceit in politics, sports, academia, and the entertainment industry. He... [More]

Assistant Professor

Professor Kakoudaki teaches interdisciplinary courses in literature and film, visual culture, and the history of technology and new media. Her interests include cultural studies, science fiction, apocalyptic narratives, and the representation of race... [More]

Associate Professor

David Keplinger is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently The Prayers of Others (2006) , which won the Colorado Book Award, and The Clearing (2005). His first collection, The Rose Inside, won the 1999 T.S. Eliot Prize. David has rec... [More]

Professor

Professor Larson is the author of works of literary criticism and fiction. His critical works include The Emergence of African Fiction, American Indian Fiction, The Novel in the Third World, and a biography, Invisible Darkness: Jean Toomer and Nella ... [More]

Department Chair, Literature

Author of Fettered Genius: The African American Bardic Poet from Slavery to Civil Rights, Keith D Leonard did his master's in English at UNC Chapel and his PhD at Stanford.His publications, presentations, and courses have revolved around his study of... [More]

Professor

Professor Loesberg has written three books, Fictions of Consciousness: Mill, Newman and the Reading of Victorian Prose; Aestheticism and Deconstruction: Pater, Derrida, and De Man; and A Return to Aesthetics: Autonomy, Indifference, and Postmodernism... [More]

Writing Instructor

A native Californian, Caron Martinez earned her BA in English from Williams College before joining the United States Information Agency as a Foreign Service Officer assigned to the US Embassies in Quito, Ecuador, and Mexico City. While living in plac... [More]

Professor

Professor McCann is the author, most recently, of Mother of Sorrows (Vintage, 2006), a collection of linked stories that Michael Cunningham has described as 'almost unbearably beautiful'; He is also the author of Ghost Letters (1994 Beatrice Hawley A... [More]

Writing Instructor

Jocelyn McCarthy received her BA in English from Cornell University and her MFA in Creative Writing from American University. She writes fiction and nonfiction, and is currently at work on several projects. She has lived and worked in Thailand, and t... [More]

Writing Instructor

Prior to teaching, Heather McDonald wrote and edited website content for a national nonprofit organization. Her academic interests include classical rhetorical strategies, strengthening individual writers' voices, graphic novels and memoirs, and the ... [More]

Associate Professor

Madhavi Menon is interested in desire. She is the author of Wanton Words: Rhetoric and Sexuality in English Renaissance Drama (University of Toronto Press, 2004), which explores how Renaissance rhetoric manuals encounter and present desire; and of Un... [More]

Associate Professor

Professor Middents studies and teaches film and world literature, specifically focusing on Latin American narratives from the 1960s to the 1980s, and serves as the advisor to the Cinema Studies minor. His film-oriented courses cover a wide range of c... [More]

Writing Instructor

Glenn Moomau is the author of Ted Nugent Condominium: From Boston to Austin with the Glenmont Popes (AP Press, 2001). His fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in Link, Bomb, The Little Patuxent Review, Gargoyle, and The Washington Post, among o... [More]

Associate Professor

Professor Noble's teaching and research interests include American literature, culture studies, and gender studies, with a particular emphasis on the construction of sexuality in nineteenth-century American women's literature. She is the author of Th... [More]

Writing Instructor

Kristina Kasik Oakes earned her MA from Boston College and her BA from the University of New Hampshire. Prior to teaching at AU she taught high school English in Central Virginia and writing at Central Virginia Community College. Her academic interes... [More]

Professor

Professor Pike is the author of Metropolis on the Styx: The Underworlds of Modern Urban Culture, 1800–2001 (Cornell UP, 2007); Subterranean Cities: The World beneath Paris and London 1800–1945 (Cornell UP), shortlisted for the 2006 Modernist Studies ... [More]

Assistant Professor

Professor Ratekin teaches courses in twentieth-century literature and film. His interests include modern British, American, and world literature, postmodernism, literary theory, psychoanalysis, genre studies and the memoir. His book, Final Acts: Trav... [More]

Writing Instructor

Trisha Reichler joined the College Writing faculty as an adjunct in 2000 and became a full-time instructor in 2003. Her primary area of interest is the tradition and language of nonviolent resistance movements. Prior to teaching at AU, she worked in ... [More]

Professor

Professor Rubenstein's primary teaching interests include Modernist fiction, literature by Modernist and contemporary women writers, and feminist literary theory. She has published more than thirty articles and book chapters, as well as five books an... [More]

Professor

Professor Sha teaches courses in Nineteenth-Century Literature, especially British Romanticism, and in Asian American Literature. He is the author of Perverse Romanticism: Aesthetics and Sexuality in Britain, 1750-1832 (Johns Hopkins UP, 2009) and Th... [More]

Associate Professor

Professor Sherman's most recent publication, Skepticism and Memory in Shakespeare and Donne (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), explores the impact of skepticism on the development of modern memory. She has published articles on Garcilaso de la Vega, Thomas ... [More]

Assistant Professor

Rachel Louise Snyder is an author, journalist and public radio contributor. Her first book, “Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade” was published by WW Norton and came out in paperback in April 200... [More]

Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

Peter Starr joined American University as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in July 2009. In this role, he bears principal responsibility for 279 full-time faculty in 17 departments, 1650 undergraduate majors, 1150 graduate students, and an an... [More]

Assistant Professor

Marcela Sulak teaches courses in translation, poetics, world poetry, and world literature. Her collections of poetry include "Immigrant" (forthcoming) and the chapbook "Of All The Things That Don't Exist, I Love... [More]

Writing Instructor

Adam has been with the College Writing Program since 2004. He graduated from the University of Dayton in 1999 with a BA in English, then came to AU's MFA Program. His most recent short story appeared in "The University of Dayton Quarterly."... [More]

Writing Instructor

Alison Thomas earned a BA in English and Spanish from Cornell University. She completed her MFA in creative writing at American University. Currently she is at work on revising her first book, a collection of linked short stories called “Our People.”... [More]

Assistant Professor

Professor Voris’s teaching and research interests include twentieth-century American and British literature, the intellectual history of modernism and its relation to the visual arts, as well as contemporary lyrical and experimental poetry. Her book ... [More]

Assistant Professor

Michael Wenthe was trained in medieval literature at Duke, Harvard, Oxford, and Yale. His primary research interest involves the staging of othering and difference as expressed in the polyglot, international literature of King Arthur, and his current... [More]

Writing Instructor

Kate holds Master’s degrees in English and Medieval Studies from the Catholic University of America, and a BA in English and Music from Stanford University.  Her academic interests include medieval literature, 15th century British dr... [More]

Writing Instructor

Lacey Wootton-Don completed her MA in Literature at AU in 1999 and has taught in the College Writing Program since then. Prior to her time at AU, she earned a BA in English from U.C. Berkeley, worked in publishing, and returned to Berkeley to earn he... [More]