e-maildirectorieskeanWISEapplymapssearchx

Department of English

Faculty

Department Directory and Office Hours:

 

x

JAN BALAKIAN
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Cornell University
Office: CAS 322
Telephone: (908) 737- 0374
Email: jbalakian@patmedica.net

Jan Balakian, Professor of English, teaches modern and contempoary dramatic literature, with a specialization in American drama. She also teaches Writing about Literature, Critical Approaches to Literature, Playwriting, American Literature Survey, World Drama, and Senior Seminar.

She has written essays on American drama published by Cambridge UP, has interviewed American playwrights, and is writing a book about Wendy Wasserstein's work, to be published by Applause.

Her prize-winning screenplay, a romantic comedy called, Everyone's Depressed (www.everyonesdepressed.com), about first generation college students discovering literature, is now available on Netflix. She is also helping to produce the screenplay adaptation of Black Dog of Fate, based on the memoir by Peter Balakian.


x

MARGOT BANKS
Professor
Ed.D., Rutgers University

Office: CAS 319
Telephone: (908) 737-0376
Email: mbanks@kean.edu






x LINDA BEST
Department Chair, Professor
Ed. D., University of Rochester

Office: CAS 329
Telephone: (908) 737-0377
Email: lbest@cougar.kean.edu

Dr. Best currently serves as Acting Chair of the Department. She teaches writing at all levels, from Composition through Professional Writing, and selected literature courses: Young Adult Literature, Children's Literature, and World Literature.

Dr. Best has written extensively on writing and learning processes; her publications include over 60 articles as well as the Journeys Near and Far Series written with colleague Dr. Jessie M. Reppy.

Dr. Best joined the Department in 1993 as Director of the ESL Program, later directed the Developmental Studies and GE Programs, and has chaired both the University Planning Council and a Middle States Interim Review. In 2003, she received a Presidental Award for Excellence in Service to the University.


KIMBERLY BURKE-COLEMAN
Secretary

Office: CAS 301
Telephone: (908) 737-0372
Email: kcoleman@kean.edu






x NANCY BRILLIANT
Assistant Professor
M.A., Boston University

Office: 332
Telephone: (908) 737- 0378
Email: nbrilliant@comcast.net





x

DEAN CASALE
Associate Professor
Ph.D., State University of N.Y. at Stony Brook

Office: CAS 333
Telephone: (908) 737-0380
Email: dcasale@cougar.kean.edu



x

SALLY CHANDLER
Assistant Professor
Ph.D.

Office: CAS 324
Telephone: (908) 737-0380
Email: schandle@cougar.kean.edu




x

ROBERT CIRASA
Professor
Ph.D., New York University
On assignment as
Executive Director of Kean University at Ocean County College

Office: CAS 223
Telephone: (908) 737-0373
Email: rcirasa@kean.edu


JAMES CONNOR
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Iowa

Office: CAS 330
Telephone: (908) 737-0381
Email: jconnor@epix.net
Website: http://www.jaconnor.com





x SARA DUCKSWORTH
Associate Professor
Ed D., Rutgers University

Office: CAS 224
Telephone: (908) 737-0382
Email: sducksworth@verizon.net




x WILLIAM EVANS
Professor
Ph.D., Columbia University

Office: CAS 326
Telephone: (908) 737-0383
Email: wreph@aol.com


xROBERT FYNE
Associate Professor
Ph.D., New York University

Office: CAS 229
Telephone: (908) 737- 0384
Email: rjfyne@aol.com





x DANIEL GOVER
Professor
Ph.D., Harvard University

Office: CAS 327
Telephone: (908) 737-0386
Email: dgover@kean.edu

I regularly teach courses in World Literature and the survey courses in English literature. I also teach electives on African literature, the Short Story, 20th century literature and Victorian literature.

My scholarly work is in the field of modern African literature. I have published articles on such major writers as Achebe, Soyinka, Mahfouz, Head, La Guma, Lessing, and Plaatje.  I have also edited a collection of essays on the Post-Colonial condition of African Literature.



RUTH GRIFFITH
Assistant Professor
Ed.D., Rutgers University
MA, Columbia University

Office: CAS 328
E-mail: rgriffit@kean.edu
Telephone: (908) 737-0387
Website: http://www.kean.edu/~rgriffit



x

JOHN CULLEN GRUESSER
Professor of English and Coordinator, M. A, in Liberal Studies Program
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin
M.A., in English, Seton Hall University
B.A., magna cum laude, University of Notre Dame

Office: CAS 227
Telephone: (908) 737-0388
Email: jgruesse@kean.edu
Website: http://www.kean.edu/~keangrad/grad_CHSS_ls.htm

Fellowships, Honors, and Awards:

  • 2002 Kean University Presidential Excellence Award for Distinguished Scholarship
  • 1999 Induction into the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, Kean University
  • 1994 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, Princeton University: Literary History in Theory and Practice
  • 1993 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for Black on Black: African American Writing about Africa
  • 1990 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, University of California, Berkeley: The Problem of Race in American and Afro-American Literature, 1860-1930
  • 1981 Election to Phi Beta Kappa, University of Notre Dame

Courses Taught:

  • Advanced Interdisciplinary Seminar II: Liberal Studies
  • African American Literature
  • African American Women Writers
  • American Autobiography
  • American Literature from 1860
  • American Literature to 1860
  • American Novel 1920 to the Present
  • Aspects of the Novel
  • Colonial and Postcolonial Literature and Theory
  • Composition
  • Contemporary Literature
  • Critical Approaches to Literature
  • Detective Fiction
  • Honors American Autobiography
  • Senior English Seminar
  • World Literature
  • Writing about Literature

Continue reading Dr. Gruesser's biography...



x NIRA GUPTA-CASALE
Associate Professor;
Director, Women's Studies Program
Ph.D., State University of N.Y. at Stony Brook

Office: CAS 323
Telephone: (908) 737-0389
Email: ncasale@kean.edu




xRICHARD KATZ
Ph.d. University of Washngton
M.A. University of Washington
B.A. Kenyon College

Office: CAS 228
Telephone: (908) 737-0390
Email: r256@erols.com

Courses taught:

  • World Literature
  • Analytical Writing About Literature
  • Writing About Literature
  • American Literature II Survey
  • British Literature Survey II
  • Modern British and American Poetry
  • Modern American Poetry
  • Contemporary Literature
  • Poetry
  • Literary Theory and Criticism
  • Victorian Literature
  • Senior Seminar
  • MALS Seminar

In my teaching I seek to enhance students' respect for their own and others' ideas and to demonstrate how critical reading, thinking, and writing are the essential life long benefits of higher education. The questions that literature, like life itself, raises are never those one finally answers. But literature can help us learn to consider more fully and thoughtfully life's questions and our responses to them

My areas of literary specialization are 19th and 20th century British and American Poetry and Critical Theory.



CHARLES NELSON
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin, Foreign Language Education
M.A., The University of Texas at Austin, Teaching English as a Second Language
B.A., The University of Texas at Austin, Classics, Greek
B.S., North Texas State University, Secondary Education in Science and Biology

Office: CAS 226
Telephone: (908) 737-0393
Email: cnelson@kean.edu
Website: http://www.kean.edu/~cnelson/
Weblog: http://secondlanguagewriting.com/explorations/

Courses taught:

  • Composition for Nonnative Speakers of English I & II
  • Composition
  • Research & Technology
  • Writing for Cyberspace

Dr. Nelson has published articles on how students learn to write in a second language, using a multiple theoretical framework of radical constructivism, activity theory, and complexity theory. He is also interested in how technology affects the writing process.

DANIEL O'DAY
Professor
Ph.D., Columbia University

Office: CAS 318
Telephone: (908) 737-0394
Email: doday@kean.edu




BETSEY RODRIGUEZ-BACHILLER
Professor
Coordinator, Graduate and Post-Baccalaureate TESL
Ed.D. Language Education, Rutgers
M.A. Spanish Literature, NYU (NYC & Madrid)
B.A. Political Science, Swarthmore College

Office: CAS 331
Telephone: 908-737-0397
Email: b.r.bachiller@gmail.com

Courses taught:

  • General Linguistics
  • Language Acquisition
  • Contemporary Research in Applied Linguistics
  • Communicative Grammar
  • Structure and Origins of the English Language
  • Introduction to Linguistics
  • English as a Second Language
  • Introduction to ESL Assessment




SUSANNA RICH
Professor
Ph.D. with Distinction in Communications, Specializing in the Teaching of Writing. New York University, 1987.
M.A. in Philosophy, Specializing in Language and Aesthetics. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1978.
B.A. Cum Laude in English, with minors in Theater and in Education. Montclair State College, 1974.

Office: CAS 325
Telephone: (908) 737-0395
E-mail: srich@kean.edu
Websites:
http://www.susannarich.com
http://www.poetsonair.org

Courses Taught:

  • Writing Poetry, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Aspects of the Novel,
  • Biography, 20th Autobiography by Women, 20th American Women Poets,
  • Senior Writing Seminar, Senior Seminar, Critical Approaches, Creative Writing, Advanced Composition

Select Honors:

  • Fulbright Fellowship in Creative Writing (Hungary), 2004-5
  • Collegium Budapest Fellowship in Creative Writing, 2005
  • Presidential Excellence Award for Distinguished Teaching, 2001
  • Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellowship, 1994
  • Atlantic Center for the Creative Arts Fellowship, 1994

Select Publications:

Four editions of The Flexible Writer, and Instructor’s Manual Longman/Allyn & Bacon; five chapters from Still Hungary: A Memoir, which includes the award-winning essay “Lullaby” mentioned in The Best American Essays, 2004; and dozens of poems and short stories. While currently marketing Her Father’s Daughter: A Novel, Surfing for Jesus: A Volume of Poetry, and Still Hungary: A Memoir, I am working on the next novel, Mind Fields, creative nonfiction essays for Freedom Fighters, and poetry for the next volume, Requiem for a Terrorist’s Hands. As founding producer and broadcaster of Poets on Air, I’ve interviewed some of our most brilliant contemporary poets.


MARSHA ROBINSON
Professor
Ph.D. English, University of Pennsylvania
M.A. English, Villanova University
A.B. English, University of California at Berkeley

Office: CAS 321
Telephone: (908) 737-0396
Email: mrobinso@kean.edu

Teaching Specialties: Shakespeare, English Renaissance Drama, English Renaissance Poetry and Prose

Publications and Research: Dr. Robinson’s research interests include Shakespeare and historiography, Shakespeare and Christianity, feminist criticism of Renaissance Drama, and the work of John Foxe. She has published a number of articles on Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama. Her book, Writing the Reformation: Actes and Monuments and the Jacobean History Play, was published by Ashgate in 2002. She is currently working on a book on Shakespeare and the Female Voice.




x SHARON SNYDER
Associate Professor; Director, ESL Program
Ph.D. Indiana University, Reading (emphasis Adult Literacy, Semiotics)
M.A. University of Pennsylvania, Linguistics (emphasis Socio-Linguistics)
B.A. Bluffton College, German

Office: CAS 317
Telephone: (908) -737-0424
Email: ssnyder@kean.edu
Website: http://www.kean.edu/~ssnyder

Administrative Background in Education: Program Officer for Instruction in the Bataan Philippine Refugee Processing Center, serving Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugees; ESL Program Director and Learning Center Associate Dean at Northcental Technical College in Wausau, Wisconsin, serving Hmong refugees and others; ESL Program Director at Kean University

Teaching Specialities: Beginning through Advanced ESL, Second Language Reading, Research and Technology

Publication and Research Interests: Adult second language literacy, phonological maintenance and change over time, professional development models




MARK SUTTON
Assistant Professor
Ph.D. English (emphasis Composition and Rhetoric), University of South Carolina
M.A. English (emphasis American Literature), University of South Carolina
B.A. English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Office: CAS 320
Telephone: (908) 737-0398
Email: suttonwriter@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.kean.edu/~complink/

Courses Taught:

  • College Composition
  • Writing Arguments
  • Writing about Literature
  • Writing in the Humanities
  • Creative Nonfiction
  • Business and Professional Writing
  • Technical Writing
  • Collaborative Writing at Work
  • Structure and Origins of the English Language

Dr. Sutton’s research interests include first-year composition, the assessment of collaborative writing, pedagogy for the writing classroom, and professional development. He has published articles in Issues in Writing, Lore, and Journal of Student-Centered Learning. He serves as advisor for Creation Space, Kean’s student literary magazine and maintains a website of links for use in the writing classroom and for professional development.




x BERNARD WEINSTEIN
Professor
Ph.D, New York University, English
M.A., New York University, English
B.A., City College of New York

Office: CAS 334
Telephone: (908) 737-0399
Email: bweinste@kean.edu
Website: http://www.kean.edu/~keangrad/ann_mahgs.htm

Courses taught:

  • Landmarks of World Literature
  • World Drama, American Literature to 1860
  • American Literature 1860 to Present
  • American Literature Between the Wars
  • History of the Holocaust
  • The Holocaust in Literature and Film

A Professor at Kean since 1965, Dr. Weinstein is a distinguished member of the English Department Faculty and the Coordinator of the Mater of Arts in Holocaust/Genocide Studies. Recent publications have been Margit: A Teenager’s Journey Through the Holocaust and Beyond, “The Dilemma or Forgiveness and Reconciliation; Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower, A Jewish Perspective,” and “Stephen Crane and New Jersey” in William Carlos Williams, Stephen Crane, and Philip Freneau, Papers Celebrating New Jersey’s Literary Heritage. From 1987 to 1994, Dr. Weinstein interviewed approximately 120 persons, mostly Holocaust survivors for the Kean Oral Histories Project. He is currently collecting material for a college anthology of writings on Holocaust and genocide narrative.

x

MARIA (Mia) Christine ZAMORA
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
World Literature, Postcolonial Literatures, Asian American Literatures, Ethnic American Literatures

Office: CAS Room 225
Telephone: 908-737-0385
E-Mail: mzamora@kean.edu
Website: http://www.kean.edu/~mzamora

Courses taught:

  • English Composition
  • World Literature
  • Writing About Literature
  • Postcolonial Literature
  • Ethnic American Literature


Biography: Dr. Maria C. Zamora is Assistant Professor of English at Kean University in Union, NJ. She is also Vice President of the New Jersey College English Association.

Credentials: Dr. Zamora completed her M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was a fellow of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies. She is a Fulbright scholar who has traveled and researched extensively in Asia. Her doctoral dissertation is entitled Re-membering the Body: Narrative and Representation in Asian American Literature. Dr. Zamora earned her B.A. in Comparative Literature from Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y with honorary distinction.

Areas of Study: Dr. Zamora’s research interests include comparative literature, U.S. Postcolonial Literatures (e.g. Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii), nationalism, cultural studies, postcolonial theory, narrative, and literary theory.
 

News & Media | Athletics | On Stage | Library | Employment
Board of Trustees | Fiscal Year 2008 Budget | Giving to Kean | Intranet