MA Faculty

Arielle Bernstein Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Arielle Bernstein is a Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer in the Department of Literature at èßäÉçÇøapp University, where she also co-directs the MA in Literature, Culture, and Technology. She is a writ…

Ìý arielle@american.edu

Fiona Brideoake Assistant Professor CAS | Literature

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 Aus…

Ìý fbride@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2998

Edward Comstock Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Edward Comstock holds a PhD from èßäÉçÇøapp University's School of Education, Teaching, and Health, as well as an MA in Literature. At the intersection of rhetoric, writing studies, educational psycholo…

Ìý ecomst@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2975

Benjamin Djain Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Benjamin Djain is a Professorial Lecturer in the Writing Program and the Department of Literature at AU. He is a comparative early modernist who focuses on English and Spanish theatre. Professor Djain…

Ìý djain@american.edu

Erik Dussere Professor CAS | Literature

Professor Dussere's teaching and research are primarily focused on the literature, film, and culture of 20th- and 21st-century America. He has published two critical studies, Balancing the Books (a st…

Ìý dussere@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2428

Laura Ewing Professorial Lecturer CAS - Literature

Laura Ewing's research focuses on technical communication, intercultural communication, and rhetoric & technology. Before coming to AU, Laura spent five years in Japan, writing and consulting with int…

Ìý ewing@american.edu

Dustin Friedman Associate Professor CAS | Literature

Dustin Friedman's fields of research and teaching are Victorian and modern literature, aestheticism and decadence, queer theory, the history and theory of aesthetics, and global nineteenth-century wri…

Ìý dustinfr@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2963

Lindsey Green-Simms Professor and Department Chair, Literature CAS | Literature

Lindsey Green-Simms’ teaching and research focuses on film and literature from the Global South, with a particular emphasis on African cultural production. Professor Green-Simms' most recent book, Que…

Ìý lgs@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2901

Chelsea Horne Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Dr. Chelsea L. Horne's areas of research encompass communication, digital culture, information integrity, privacy, internet governance, AI policy, performance studies, and the public humanities. Recen…

Ìý horne@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2825

Despina Kakoudaki Associate Professor and Director, Humanities Lab CAS | Literature

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, apoc…

Ìý kakoudak@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2796

David Keplinger Professor CAS | Literature

A professor of Literature at AU since 2007, David Keplinger is the recipient of the 2022 èßäÉçÇøapp University Teacher/Scholar of the Year Award. He is the author of eight collections of poetry, most re…

Ìý keplinge@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2748

Keith Leonard Associate Professor CAS | Literature

Keith D Leonard is the author of Fettered Genius: The African èßäÉçÇøapp Bardic Poet from Slavery to Civil Rights. His publications, presentations, and courses have revolved around his study of…

Ìý kdl@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2961

Daisy Levy Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Dr. Levy's work focuses on embodied rhetorics, particularly how they intersect with cultural rhetorics and decolonial theory and practice. She joined AU in the fall of 2019, and has felt at home ever …

Ìý levy@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2918

Marianne Noble Professor CAS | Literature

Professor Noble's teaching and research interests include èßäÉçÇøapp literature, intimacy and the emotions, and philosophical approaches to literature. She is the author of Rethinking Sympathy and H…

Ìý mnoble@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2988

Deborah Payne 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…

Ìý dcpayne@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2997

Dolen Perkins-Valdez Associate Professor CAS | Literature

Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of two novels: Wench and Balm. *èßäÉçÇøappA Today* called Wench "deeply moving" and "beautifully written." *People* called it "a devastatingly bea…

Ìý perkinsv@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2978

David Pike Professor CAS | Literature

Professor Pike has taught in the Department of Literature since 1995. His most recent book is After the End: Cold War Culture and Apocalyptic Imaginations in the 21st Century, forthcoming fro…

Ìý dpike@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2996

Jeffrey Romero Middents Associate Professor CAS | Literature

Jeffrey Romero Middents studies and teaches film and world literature at èßäÉçÇøapp University in Washington, DC, specifically focusing on Latin èßäÉçÇøapp narratives from the 1960s to the present. His sc…

Ìý middents@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2979

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 p…

Ìý rcsha@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-6300

Anita Sherman 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…

Ìý asherm@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2988

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…

Ìý kathlees@american.edu

Sarah Trembath Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Sarah Trembath is an editor, writer, and educator. She has been teaching since 1998 and joined the AU faculty in 2014. Her written work has appeared in Radical Teacher, the Santa Fe Writer’s Project Q…

Ìý trembath@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-1456

Linda Voris Associate Professor CAS | Literature

Professor Voris’s teaching and research interests include 20th century èßäÉçÇøapp and British literature, the intellectual history of modernism and its relation to the visual arts, as well as contempora…

Ìý voris@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2930

Lily Wong Associate Professor CAS | Literature

Lily Wong is an Associate Professor in the departments of Literature (LIT) and Critical Race Gender & Culture Studies (CRGC) at èßäÉçÇøapp University. She also serves as an Associate Director of Faculty…

Ìý wong@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2987

Lacey Wootton Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Lacey Wootton has taught in the Writing Studies Program since 1999. She holds a PhD in Writing and Rhetoric from George Mason University and an MA in Literature from AU. Prior to her time at AU, she e…

Ìý lwoott@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2982