Literature Faculty and Staff (M-Z)
Last name starts with M
Sarah Marsh Professorial Lecturer CAS - Literature
Sarah Marsh is a medical humanist who joined AU’s faculty in Writing Studies and Literature in 2015. Dr. Marsh holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Pittsburgh, and an MA and PhD in literature…
Richard McCann Prof Emeritus
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 t…
Jocelyn McCarthy Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS - Literature
Jocelyn McCarthy teaches in the Writing Studies Program, and writes fiction and nonfiction. She received her BA in English from Cornell University and her MFA in Creative Writing from American Univers…
Heather McDonald Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS - Literature
Heather McDonald earned her MFA from American University and her BA from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. Prior to teaching, she was a web writer and editor. She is interested in transf…
Jeffrey Middents Associate Professor CAS - Literature
• Jeffrey Middents studies and teaches film and world literature at American University in Washington, DC, specifically focusing on Latin American narratives from the 1960s to the present. He received…
Glenn Moomau Hurst Sr Professorial Lecturer CAS - Literature
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 storySouth, Memoir Journal, Art …
Last name starts with N
Marianne Noble Associate Professor CAS - Literature
Professor Noble's teaching and research interests include American literature, intimacy and the emotions, and philosophical approaches to literature. She is the author of Rethinking Sympathy and Human…
Last name starts with O
Kristina Oakes Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS - Literature
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 Centra…
Last name starts with P
Patricia Park Assistant Professor CAS - Literature
Patricia Park is the author of the novel Re Jane (Viking/Penguin, 2015), named The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and American Library Association’s Best Books of 2015. Her nonfiction has …
Deborah C. Payne Associate Professor CAS - Literature
An expert on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theatre, Professor Payne has published on topics ranging from the Restoration actress to baroque opera. She is the editor of “The Cambridge Companion t…
Miranda Pennington Professorial Lecturer CAS - Literature
Dolen Perkins-Valdez Assistant Professor CAS - Literature
Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Wench. *USA Today* called the book "deeply moving" and "beautifully written." *People* called it "a devastatingly beautiful a…
David Pike Department Chair, Literature CAS - Literature
Professor Pike is Chair of the Department of Literature (June 2016-May 2019). His most recent book is Canadian Cinema since the 1980s: At the Heart of the World (U of Toronto P, 2012). He is the autho…
Last name starts with R
Tom Ratekin Assistant Professor CAS - Literature
Tom Ratekin is Assistant Professor in the literature department, where he teaches film, 20th-century British literature, the memoir, and writing. He came to American in 2008, after having taught at Ba…
Roberta Rubenstein Professor CAS - Literature
Professor Rubenstein's primary teaching interests include literary Modernism (fiction), women writers (specialties: Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison), 19th century Russian…
Last name starts with S
Richard C. Sha Professor CAS - Literature
Professor Sha is the author of three books, the latest of which is Imagination and Science in Romanticism (Johns Hopkins, 2018). This book won the 2018 Jean-Pierre Barricelli Prize for the best book …
Anita Sherman Associate Professor CAS - Literature
Anita Gilman Sherman studies 16th and 17th century literature, specializing in works that have problems of knowledge and interpretation at their thematic center. Her book, Skepticism and Memory in Sha…
Kathleen Smith Assistant Professor CAS - Literature
Kathleen Smith’s teaching and research focus on the later Middle Ages. Her current book project draws together legal, literary, religious, and social history and examines the concept of intention as a…
Rachel Louise Snyder Associate Professor CAS - Literature
Rachel Louise Snyder is a writer, professor and public radio commentator. Her first book Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade was published in 200…
Allison Sparks Professorial Lecturer CAS - Literature
Allison Sparks lives in the District with her husband, son and shepherd mix.
Peter Starr Dean, College of Arts and Sciences CAS - Dean's Office
Peter Starr joined American University as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in July 2009. In this role, he is responsible for 324 full-time faculty in 17 departments, 1820 undergraduate majors,…
Mary Switalski Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS - Literature
Mary Switalski began teaching at AU in 2007 while completing her MFA. She earned her BA in English Literature with a Creative Writing Subconcentration from the University of Michigan. She has also tau…
Last name starts with T
Adam Tamashasky Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS - Literature
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 poetry recently appeared in The D…
Alison Thomas Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS - Literature
Alison Thomas earned a BA in English and Spanish from Cornell University. She completed her MFA in creative writing at American University and writes short fiction and non-fiction essays. She has taug…
Margaret Twigg Professorial Lecturer CAS - Literature
Last name starts with U
Last name starts with V
Linda Voris Associate Professor CAS - Literature
Professor Voris’s teaching and research interests include 20th century American and British literature, the intellectual history of modernism and its relation to the visual arts, as well as contempora…
Last name starts with W
Katherine Wilson Associate Chair, Literature CAS - Literature
Kate Wilson double-majored in music and English at Stanford University and holds an MA in Medieval Studies and PhD in English from The Catholic University of America. Her research interests include me…
Li (Lily) Wong Assistant Professor CAS - Literature
Lily Wong received her PhD in Comparative Literature at University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on the politics of affect/emotion, gender/sexuality, comparative race, as well as …
Lacey Wootton Director, Writing Studies Program CAS - Literature
Lacey Wootton completed her MA in Literature at AU in 1999 and has taught in the Writing Studies Program since then. Prior to her time at AU, she earned a BA in English from U.C. Berkeley, worked in p…
Last name starts with Y
Melissa Young Associate Professor CAS - Literature
Melissa Scholes Young is the author of the novel Flood, winner of the Literary Fiction Category for the 2017 Best Book Award. Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, Washington Post, Huffington Post…
Last name starts with Z