Faculty and Staff
English Department Faculty
Dr. Laura Bates
Laura Bates enjoys teaching a wide range of courses. With a PhD (University of Chicago, 1998) in Comparative Literature, her academic training involved classic world literature alongside contemporary texts and theory. Her dissertation focused on Shakespearean reception, directed by internationally respected scholar David Bevington. She has one MA in English and another in Theatre; as a playwright with works produced in Chicago, New York, Europe, and Terre Haute, she also brings practical expertise in drama to the courses she regularly teaches: Children's Literature (280), Shakespeare on Film (239), War in Literature (338), and Crime and Punishment (486).
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Dr. Matthew Brennan
Matt Brennan, Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies, majored in English at Grinnell College and then earned an MA and a PhD at the University of Minnesota. Since 1985 he has taught a variety of courses at ISU: freshman writing, poetry writing, world and British literature surveys, literature and the visual arts, and British romanticism. He has published five books of poetry, most recently The House with the Mansard Roof, as well as critical books on Wordsworth, on the Gothic, and on Southern antebellum writer William Gilmore Simms.
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Dr. Peter Carino
Peter Carino teaches writing, rhetorical theory, and American literature. He is the editor of the series Baseball/Literature/Culture: Essays and has published on baseball literature, John Updike, Raymond Carver, and James T. Farrell. He directed the Writing Center for eighteen years, and two of his many articles on centers won the NWCA award for year's best article. He also authored two basic writing textbooks and essays on teaching writing. He won a 2009 Dreiser Award for Research and Creativity and an Educational Excellence Award in 1993. His service includes two-years as Chair of the Faculty Senate, and two years as Vice-Chair.
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Dr. Brendan Corcoran
Brendan Corcoran works on twentieth-century and contemporary Irish and British poetry, as well as trauma theory and literary representations of violence and loss. He teaches courses on modern and contemporary British literature, as well as world literature, war literature, environmental literature, and poetry writing. He is managing editor of Grasslands Review. Having written on Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, Ciaran Carson, Ted Hughes, and John Keats, he is currently writing a book that examines the elegiac poetics of Seamus Heaney.
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Dr. Thomas Derrick
Tom Derrick teaches a selection of courses in and around the Renaissance, his concentration in graduate school (Harvard 1979) and undergraduate education (Universities of Florida and Michigan). He has edited a sixteenth century rhetoric book and published a teaching guide to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Continuing interests include the literary criticism of I.A. Richards, Ann Berthoff, and the works of Robert Penn Warren, and Shakespeare. Recent courses include Freshman Writing, the sophomore world literature survey (Eng. 236), Literature and Life on the theme of Hope, junior/senior-level Renaissance literature (Eng. 451), and graduate research methods (Eng. 600).
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Dr. Raymond Dolle
With a PhD from Pennsylvania State University, Raymond Dolle joined the Department of English in 1986 as a specialist in early American literature. He teaches courses in literary analysis, American literature, and technical writing. His publications include a book, Anne Bradstreet: A Reference Guide, and articles on Captain John Smith in Early American Literature and Culture and on the early American literary canon in College Literature. His current research interest is Benjamin Franklin. He has been an undergraduate advisor since 1991 and has chaired the Hazel Tesh Pfennig Committee since 1995.
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Mr. Stanley Evans
Stan Evans is a native of southern Indiana and received his BS and MA degrees from Indiana State University, where he has taught since 1972. He was a demonstration teacher in the Laboratory (University) School for nineteen years before becoming a specialist in children's literature for the Department of English. He has served as a consultant for over twenty school corporations in Indiana. His teaching awards include an Outstanding High School Teacher Award from Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, an Intellectual Freedom Award from the National Council of Teachers of English, and the Caleb Mills Distinguished Teacher Award from ISU.
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Dr. Robert Goldbort
Robert Goldbort joined the faculty in 1990, and teaches Technical Writing (ENG 305T) regularly. His scholarship focuses on scientific writing, rhetoric of science, and literature and science. His publications include articles in English Journal and Journal of Medical Humanities; columns in Journal of Environmental Health and National Forum; entries in Encyclopedia of Literature and Science (2002); and the book Writing for Science (2006, Yale UP).
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Dr. Rosetta Haynes
Rosetta Haynes is an Associate Professor of English and Women’s Studies. She received her Ph. D. in English from Cornell University in 1996. Her research interests include African American literature, Multicultural American literature, and Women’s literature. Some of her publications include: Radical Spiritual Motherhood: Autobiography and Empowerment in Nineteenth-Century African American Women, “Zilpha Elaw’s Serial Domesticity: An Unsentimental Journey,” “Voice, Body and Collaboration: Constructions of Authority in The History of Mary Prince,” and “Intersections of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Experimentation in the Autobiographical Writings of Cherríe Moraga and Maxine Hong Kingston.” In 2002, she received the College of Arts and Sciences Educational Excellence Award for teaching.
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Mr. Charles Hoffman
Charles Hoffman, Associate Professor of English, came to ISU in 1967 after completing an MA in English, specializing in British Romantic Literature, at the University of Iowa. He has taught courses in freshman and advanced composition, technical writing, introduction to literature, literature and life, journalism, and photojournalism.
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Dr. Harriet Hudson
Professor Harriet Hudson joined the English Department in 1985 after receiving her Ph.D. in English from Ohio State University. She specializes in medieval literature, but has wide-ranging interests which include folklore, and 19th and 20th century literature. She teaches classes on Chaucer, the Arthurian legend (medieval and modern), surveys of medieval literature, and surveys of English and early western European literature. Her research focuses on Middle English popular romances: she's edited Four Middle English Romances: Sir Isumbras, Octavian, Sir Eglamour of Artois, Sir Tryamour and published numerous articles on the topic. Currently she serves as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
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Dr. Susan Latta
Susan Latta (PhD, English: Rhetoric and Composition/Literary Theory, Purdue, 1995) is an Associate Professor in the department and currently serves as Director of Writing Programs. She regularly teaches classes on grammar, the history of English, composition theory, and literary criticism; she also designed and taught the department’s online technical writing class. She has had articles on composition, language, and media appear in scholarly publications including English Journal, Teaching English in the Two Year College, and English Leadership Quarterly and in book collections published both in the United States and Europe. She is also a copy editor for Journal of Community Engagement in Higher Education.
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Dr. Katherine Lee
Katherine Lee earned her BA in English at Indiana University, and her MA and PhD at the University of Missouri-Columbia. An Assistant Professor with research interests in American literature and popular culture, gender studies, and race studies, she has published essays on Asian American literature, women's autobiography, Chappelle's Show, The Sopranos, and Sex and the City. Her current projects include an analysis of sequels in popular culture inspired by "canonical" literature.
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Mr. Mark Lewandowski
Mark Lewandowski is the author of the short story collection, Halibut Rodeo released by All Things That Matter Press. His stories and essays have appeared in many journals, and have been listed as Notable in The Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Best American Travel Writing, and twice in The Best American Essays. He's also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. “Positioning,” a short film based on his script, was produced by Cinemantrix in 2009. It premiered at the Short Film Corner of the Cannes Film Festival, and has since screened at eight other festivals. After graduating from Wichita State University with an MFA in Creative Writing, he joined the Peace Corps and taught English in Poland. In 1999, he received a Fulbright Grant to teach American Studies and Creative Writing at Siauliai University in Lithuania. Follow his blog at Halibut Rodeo.
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Dr. Nancy McEntire
Nancy Cassell McEntire (PhD, Indiana University) is Associate Professor of English and Women's Studies at Indiana State University, where she edits The Folklore Historian and directs the ISU Folklore Archives. She teaches courses in folklore and folk literature. Dr. McEntire was the principal editor of The Lotus Dickey Songbook (Indiana University Press) and the producer of Orkney: Land, Sea, and Community (University of Edinburgh). She will spend the spring of 2010 at the University of Limerick, Ireland, as a Fulbright Scholar..
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Mr. Aaron Michael Morales
Aaron Michael Morales, Associate Professor of English and Women's Studies, holds an MFA from Purdue University (2003). He primarily teaches Fiction Writing, Introduction to Creative Writing, and Contemporary Literature courses. His first novel, Drowning Tucson, has been released by Coffee House Press. Professor Morales is the fiction editor for Grasslands Review and is currently at work on his second novel, Eat Your Children. His work has appeared in Passages North, MAKE Magazine, Another Chicago Magazine, PALABRA, and other places.
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Dr. Robert Perrin
Robert Perrin (PhD, University of Illinois) is Professor of English and Chairperson of the Department. While at ISU, he has taught rhetoric and composition courses (from freshman to graduate levels), as well as British drama; he currently teaches Writing for Teachers and English Teaching Methods. He is the author of six college textbooks on writing and research and has received the Caleb Mills Distinguished Teaching Award (1991), the College's Distinguished Professor Award (1992), the Theodore Dreiser Distinguished Research and Creativity Award (2008), and the ICEA Scholar/Teacher Award (2008).
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Dr. Thomas Sauer
Tom Sauer, the former Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Associate Professor of English, retired on June 30, 2010. Having earned a BA in English at the University of Notre Dame (1967) and an MA and a PhD in Comparative Literature at Indiana University (1972, 1979), Sauer taught in New York and Virginia. At ISU, he served as an Associate Dean from 1990 to 2005, with an interlude as Interim Dean from 2001 to 2002. He served again as Interim Dean from 2005 to 2007 and finally as Dean from 2007 until his retirement in June of 2010. During his twenty years as a member of the Department of English, Sauer taught world literature and Shakespeare.
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Dr. Michael Shelden
Michael Shelden (PhD, Indiana University) is the author of four literary biographies, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist, Orwell: The Authorized Biography, which was also a New York Times Notable Book. For fifteen years, he was a features writer for the London Daily Telegraph, and for ten years he served as a fiction critic for the Baltimore Sun. His work has also appeared in The Shakespeare Quarterly, Victorian Studies, and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. His latest book Mark Twain: Man in White was published by Random House early in 2010.
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Dr. James Wurtz
James F. Wurtz received his Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame, where he wrote his dissertation on Irish modernism and the Gothic. He teaches courses on 19th and 20th century British and Irish writing as well as rhetoric and composition. He has published articles on James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, and World War I and graphic narrative. He has also edited a new critical edition of the Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s first novel, The Cock and Anchor: Being a Chronicle of Old Dublin City, published by Valancourt Books. His current research project examines the ways that graphic narrative re-interprets earlier literary texts in order to explore the potential of comic form.
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- Kathy Edwards, Administrative Assistant, Root Hall, A-265
812-237-3161 or kathy.edwards@indstate.edu - Department of English, Root Hall, 400 N. 7th Street Terre Haute, IN 47809
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