Welcome statement (teaching/research/personal interests): As my dog Vestar (named after Vesta, the Roman Goddess of Home and Hearth) knows, I enthusiastically support the active presence of our English majors and encourage you all to participate in the multiplicity of activities we offer, including the Lit Society, Lambda Iota Tau, Internship opportunities, Study Abroad opportunities, Reading Groups, Career Nights, and more. There is nothing like being an English major, both on campus and off-campus (now and long into your future beyond Seattle University). Our unilateral goal as your English Department faculty is to cultivate the life-long habit of being engaged in and with literature, theatre-going, film viewing, attending the opera, establishing reading groups, etc. and I hope that I can serve as a supportive role model in this process for all of our English majors.

Interests: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century British Literature; African-American Literature; Cultural Pluralism in Literature and Film; Internships and Independent Study Courses; Race/Class/Gender Studies

Current and Recent Courses: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature; Readings in British Literature II; African-American Literature and Society; Cultural Pluralism in Literature and Film; Internships

Film Courses: African-American Film Themes

New or Dream Courses: Rosa Parks and the women of the Civil Rights Movement--Before, During, After; Jane Austen’s Knock-Offs; Women Writers of the Uganda Come of Age in the Twenty-First Century.