2011-2012 New Faculty Appointments

College of Arts & Humanities welcomes new cohort of 13 faculty to campus. Updated: Tuesday, September 6, 2011

College of Arts & Humanities welcomes new cohort of 13 faculty to campus. Updated: Tuesday, September 6, 2011

American Studies | English | History | Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies | Music | SLLC | TDPS| Women's Studies

PERLA M. GUERRERO
Assistant Professor, Department of American Studies Dr. Perla Guerrero recently earned her doctorate in American studies and ethnicity from the University of Southern California. Professor Guerrero spent the last year as the Latino Studies Smithsonian Institute Postdoctoral Fellow as well as Goldman Sachs Junior Fellow at the National Museum of American History. While her dissertation traced the arrival and racialization of Vietnamese and Cuban refugees and Latina/o immigrants in Arkansas, her monograph tentatively titled Race, Labor, and Place: Asians and Latinas/os Remaking Arkansas takes a longer perspective. She co-authored Latinas/os in the U.S. South and the Erosion of the Black/White Binary, under review in the journal Latino Studies.
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JESSICA ENOCH
Associate Professor, Department of English
Dr. Jessica Enoch comes to us from the University of Pittsburgh, where she was associate professor of English and women’s studies. Her monograph, Reconfiguring Rhetorical Education: Women Teaching African American, Native American, and Chicano/a Students, 1865-1911, appeared in 2008 from Southern Illinois University Press, a notable listing in Rhetoric. Her current research, “Claiming Space: Feminist Rhetorical Investigations of Educational Geographies, ” is an outgrowth and expansion of her 2008 College English article, A Woman’s Place is in the School. She earned her doctorate from Penn State University.
       
OLIVER GAYCKEN
Assistant Professor, Department of English Also from the cluster search in cinema studies, Dr. Oliver Gaycken joins us from Temple University where he was an assistant professor of English. His monograph, Devices of Curiosity: Early Cinema and Popular Science, is soon to be published by Oxford University Press. He works on very early cinema, studying the relationship between cinema and science. Representative titles for his work include, An Intellectually Invigorating Impression: Sensual Perception and Time-Lapse Images in the Work of Ernst and Ludwig Mach and The Secret Life of Plants: Visualizing Vegetative Movement, 1880-1900. He earned his doctorate from the University of Chicago.
      
MELANIE KILL
Assistant Professor, Department of English
Dr. Melanie Kill comes to us from Texas Christian University. Her dissertation, Challenging Communication: A Genre Theory of Innovative Uptake, has employed J.L. Austin’s speech-act theory holding that language, more than merely a passive practice of describing a given reality, can also be employed to invent and affect realities. Published articles include, Acknowledging the Rough Edges of Resistance: Negotiation of Identities of First-Year Composition, in College Composition and Communication (2006) and Teaching Digital Rhetoric: Wikipedia, Collaboration and the Politics of Free Knowledge, in the volume Teaching Digital Humanities: Principles, Practices, and Politics (2011). She earned her doctorate from the University of Washington.
       
SCOTT WIBLE
Associate Professor, Department of English
Dr. Scott Wible, comes to us from West Virginia University. His manuscript, Language Policy in Professional Practice, is currently at press. This book addresses three language policies to have emerged in the past 35 years: the 1974 Executive Committee of the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s (CCCC) “Students’ Right to their Own Language Resolution;” the 1988 CCCC “National Language Policy,” and the U.S. Defense Department’s 2005 “National Language Agenda.” Wible’s study examines the political, economic, and cultural contexts within which each policy emerged, the arguments each policy makes in support of linguistic diversity and the vision each policy creates for education in general and language instruction in particular. He earned his doctorate from Penn State University.
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MIKHAIL DOLBILOV
Assistant Professor, Department of History
Dr. Mikhail Dolbilov studies the tsarist bureaucracy, interconnections between state reforms and symbolic representations of the Russian autocracy; and ethnic and confessional politics on the empire’s western periphery in the age of rising nationalism. His articles address complex issues of the Russo-Polish rivalry in a broader imperial context and argue that the rule over these borderlands was an essential part of how the empire functioned. His 2010 book, Russian Land, Foreign Faith: Ethno-religious Policy of Empire in Lithuania and Belarus under Alexander II, focuses on imperial dialectics of religious tolerance and discrimination against non-Orthodox faiths. He earned his doctorate from Voronezh State University in Russia.
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MATTHEW SURIANO
Assistant Professor, Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies
A specialist in Bible studies, Dr. Matthew Suriano earned his doctorate from UCLA. He comes to us from a visiting appointment at Indiana University. His 2010 book, The Politics of Dead Kings: Dynastic Ancestors in the Book of Kings and Ancient Israel, appeared in the distinguished series from Mohr Siebeck. His current research is focused on two projects, Sheol and Beyond: The Afterlife as Concept and Practice and The Mountain of the Lord’s House: Understanding the Jerusalem Temple as Sacred Space.
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KENNETH ELPUS
Assistant Professor, School of Music
Dr. Kenneth Elpus recently earned his doctorate in music education from Northwestern University. Prior to his doctoral study, he taught and served as director of choral music education at Hopewell Valley Central High School in New Jersey. As a specialist in choral music education (MUED), Elpus examines various policy issues as well as the role of MUED in providing a context for adolescent development. His refereed publications examine questions such as the sociological issues confronting MUED in North America and the role of MUED in urban charter schools.
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LUKA ARSENJUK
Assistant Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Dr. Luka Arsenjuk emerged from the college’s film “cluster search,” specializing in political cinema. After earning a bachelor of arts in cultural studies at the University of Ljubljana in his native Slovenia, Arsenjuk earned his doctorate in literature from Duke University. He has produced articles and conference presentations with titles such as How to Film Marx’s Capital, On the Figure of the Worker in Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, and What is Political Cinema?: A Few Propositions.
 
PETER GLANVILLE
Assistant Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Dr. Peter Glanville recently earned his doctorate in Arabic language from the University of Texas at Austin. An applied linguist, he presents on topics such as “A Lexical Functional Grammar Analysis of Arabic Pronoun Placement,” “The Social Function of Arabic Language Register,” and “The Function of Awzaan in Modern Standard Arabic.” He has extensive teaching experience both at University of Texas and the Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. In addition to duties as assistant professor, he will lead a long-term learning outcomes project for Arabic Flagship.

     
RUDOLPH MATTHEE
Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute Chair in Persian Studies and Professor Department of History and School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Dr. Rudolph Matthee has published 22 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies and the Journal of the Economic & Social history of the Orient, as well as a score of book chapters on Iranian and Middle Eastern history. A co-editor of three books, he has written two prize-winning monographs, The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600-1730 and The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500-1900. The former was awarded best foreign-language book on Iran by the Iranian Ministry of Culture and the latter won both the Albert Hourani Prize for best book on the Middle East by the Middle East Studies Association and the Saidi Sirjani Prize for best book on Iran by the International Society for Iranian Studies. He earned his doctorate from UCLA.
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ASHLEY SMITH
Assistant Professor, School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Professor Ashley Smith joins us from Southern Methodist University where he taught voice and acting. His voice coaching credentials include venues such as the American Players Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, Victory Gardens Theatre and PBS. Among his acting credits are performances at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Idaho Shakespeare Festival and venues in Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Pittsburgh, and New York. He earned his master of fine arts in acting from the University of Delaware and is a certified Roy Hart voice teacher.  
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ASHWINI TAMBE
Associate Professor, Department of Women’s Studies
Dr. Ashwini Tambe earned her doctorate in international studies with specializations in gender studies and social theory from American University. She has taught at Temple University, Georgetown University, and most recently, at University of Toronto. Her scholarship includes transnational feminist theory, sexuality studies, South Asian history and global political economy. Her monograph, Codes of Misconduct: Regulating Prostitution in Late Colonial Bombay, examines the moral panics and racialized logics that surrounded 19th- and early 20th-century campaigns to curb brothels, sexually transmitted disease and trafficking. Her work has appeared in journals such as Theory, Culture and Society and the International Feminist Journal of Politics. She will take over as editorial director of the flagship journal Feminist Studies.
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