See the latest faculty news of publications, community service, conference publications and accomplishments by Millikin's English faculty at English Faculty News.
Purna Banerjee (Ph.D.
Texas Christian University)
Assistant Professor of English
In the summer of 2005 Dr. Banerjee successfully
defended her dissertation, "Incidental Occurences:
Exchanges Between British and Indian Women Writers (1840-1940)."
She
continues research on intellectual exchange and the Victorian
constructions of the female subject. She also has research
interest in oral and prose narratives and poems produced
by displaced women. She received several teaching awards
from Texas Christian University, and teaches courses on
international literature and CWRR at Millikin.
Carmella Braniger
(Ph.D. Oklahoma State University)
Assistant Professor of English
Coordinator of Critical Writing Reading
& Research (CWRR)
Co-advisor, Collage, Millikin's literary magazine
Dr. Carmella Braniger, a native of Ohio, is a graduate of Muskingum College, Johns Hopkins University, and Oklahoma State University. She directs the Critical Writing, Reading and Research Program, and teaches creative writing and literature courses. She also co-advises the undergraduate literary magazine, Collage. Her poems have appeared in Sycamore Review, Poems and Plays, The Dirty Napkin and MARGIE: The American Journal of Poetry. Her chapbook, No One May Follow, is forthcoming from Pudding House Publications. Dr. Braniger enjoys gardening, walking, and cooking meals with her husband and daughter.
877-2966 (home)
3720 N. Woodridge Drive
Decatur, IL 62526
Randy Brooks
(Ph.D. Purdue University)
Professor of English, Acting Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences
Dr. Randy Brooks, Professor of English and Acting Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, received his Ph.D. from Purdue University with a concentration in rhetoric and professional writing. His areas of research include: professional writing curriculum, rhetorical theory, web publishing, book publishing, and Japanese poetry. From 1990 until 2008 he was the director of the English Writing Major, and from 2003-2008 he was the Chair of the English department. He is a proponent of active learning and encourages all Millikin University students to perform their knowledge in public arenas.
He is a nationally recognized leader in curriculum design of English writing programs emphasizing the integration of active learning, community service, technology and publishing. He was the founder of the Media Arts Center at Millikin University, an infrastructure for innovative service learning projects, student computer publishing projects, community internships, publishing client consultations, and other student-centered publications. In 2006 he and Professor Ed Walker, Chair of the Art Department, started Bronze Man Books, a student-run book publishing company located in the Media Arts Center. See the Bronze Man Books web site at: <http://www.bronzemanbooks.com>.
Dr. Brooks has more than 30 years of literary editing experience and has published more than 70 books, four literary journals, and several literary web sites. In 1998 he was named the Hardy Distinguished Professor of English to conduct research on haiku as a global genre. See the resulting work of his students at the Millikin University Haiku web site: <http://www.millikin.edu/haiku> or enjoy a “Haiku of Day” by Millikin students at:
<http://www.brooksbookshaiku.com/hod>. More than 800 of his poems have been published including a book of selected haiku, School's Out. His essays, workshops and presentations on technical communication, contemporary poetry, computer aided publishing, teaching writing and service learning have been offered on a regular basis at national, regional and local levels.
Judi Crowe
(M.A., Illinois State University)
Assistant Professor of English & Professional Writing Tutor
Director of the Writing Center
English Advisor, College Readiness Program
Before joining the English department at
Millikin in 1998, Judi Crowe earned her M.A. in writing
and rhetoric at Illinois State University and was an instructor
and writing tutor at Richland Community College, Lincoln
Land, and Parkland Colleges. She teaches Critical Writing,
Reading, and Research and serves as Director of the Writing
Center. Judi also teaches literature as well as The Bahamas
Seminar course, which annually publishes The Bahamas
Index and Yearbook.
She was a 1991 English graduate of Millikin.
As an undergraduate at MU, she won the Grace Patton Conant
Writing Award two years in a row and the Grace Patton Conant
Achievement Award, and now serves as the Director of the
Conant Awards Writing Competition.
Devon Fitzgerald (Ph. D. Illinois State University)
Assistant Professor of English
Director of Professional Writing Internships
Technical Advisor Decaturian Online
Dr. Devon Fitzgerald received her Ph.D. at Illinois State University with a concentration in Rhetoric and Composition, specializing in computers and writing and media rhetorics. Her dissertation, "Intersections of the Self:Identity in the Boom of Social Media" works to reconceptualize identity by locating sites both in social media and geophysical areas where identities overlap and intersect and argues that such locations are areas of strength. Her research interests are diverse, typically focusing on place, narrative and identity whether she explores Southern Literature, American folklore and urban legends, horror films, digital storytelling or social media. She is currently working on a project which examines the trend of hyperlocal content, content that emerges from a focus on geographic locations, as a form of place narrative as well as way to build community as many of this content is user-generated on newspaper's online sites, and social media sites as outside.in and review sites. Devon is also Technical Editor of the international cultural studies journal Reconstruction as well as Technical Advisor to the online Decaturian.
Devon collects robot kitsch, Frankenstein paraphernalia and vintage film posters. She is almost always behind a computer screen. You can find her virtually at http://faculty.millikin.edu/~dfitzgerald.
Stephen Frech
(Ph.D. University of Cincinnati)
Associate Professor of English
Co-advisor, Collage, Millikin's literary
magazine
Stephen Frech has earned a BA from Northwestern
University, MFA from Washington University in St. Louis,
and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati. He has published
two volumes of poetry: Toward Evening and the Day Far
Spent (Kent State University Press) won the 1995 Wick
Poetry Chapbook Contest and If Not For These Wrinkles
of Darkness won the White Pine Press Poetry Prize, published
in 2001. His poems have appeared in the Georgia Review,
Pleiades, Florida Review, The Literary Review, and others.
He has been the recipient of the Elliston Poetry Writing
Fellowship, the Milton Center Post-Graduate Writing Fellowship,
and grants from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation and the
Illinois Arts Council.
With a love of literature and the visual
arts, Dr. Frech founded Oneiros Press to print limited edition,
letter press poetry broadsides, combining poetry and visual
image. Poets printed in the series include Albert Goldbarth,
Jane Mead, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Ai (available winter
2003). Oneiros Press broadsides have been purchased by special
collections libraries at the Newberry Library (Chicago),
Valparaiso University Library, and others. The Goldbarth
and Mead broadsides won inclusion in Print Magazine’s
2002 Award Annual.
Michael George
(Ph.D. Michigan State University)
Associate Professor of English
Mike George is a medievalist by training.
His dissertation, "'Thou shalt laughen al thy fille': The
Comic Body in Medieval English and Scottish Literature and
Culture," examines the uses of bodily humor in parodic literature,
Piers Plowman, medieval drama, and the poetry of William
Dunbar. His research interests are eclectic, ranging from
medieval humorous literature to professional writing. He
is currently working on projects on medieval letter rhetoric
and modern business letters, a Marxist look at Chaucer's
Wife of Bath, an ongoing Web project on popular culture
in the Middle Ages, and a volume on teaching Anthony Burgess's
Clockwork Orange.
He is also a librarian for the World Wide
Web Virtual Library History Section, where he administers
the medieval history
page. He comes to Millikin from an assistant professor
position at Ohio Northern University, where in addition
to Writing 1, Writing 2, and Great Works, he taught ONU's
early literature courses (British Literature 1, Chaucer),
grammar, science fiction, and European Literature. His teaching
interests include early British literature, science fiction,
humor, critical theory, freshman writing, and professional
writing. When not pursuing academic pursuits, Mike likes
to fish, listen to music, play guitar, practice martial
arts, and fiddle with his computer.
Lisa Klotz (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Assistant Professor of English
Lisa Klotz completed her Ph.D. in Renaissance literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation, "Suspicion is No Proof: Legal Proof and Probability in Practice and Fiction in Early Modern England," examines the ways in which legal proof comes under scrutiny in theatrical criminal trials in early seventeenth-century England.
Dr. Klotz also has a B.A. in international relations from the University of California at Davis, a J.D. from the University of San Diego School of Law, and an M.A. in English from California State University, Northridge. After practicing law for several years, she returned to school to earn a Ph.D. and build a new career as a scholar and teacher of Renaissance literature. Her works-in-progress include essays on Ben Jonson's "Volpone," and John Webster's "The White Devil." She is also writing a novel. A future project will be a study of the life and works of John Florio.
At Millikin, Dr. Klotz teaches courses in Shakespeare, Renaissance literature, drama, and critical writing.
Anne Matthews (Ph.D. Indiana University)
Associate Professor of English & Professional Writing Tutor
Dean of Teaching and Learning
Dr. Matthews teaches Critical Writing, Reading, and Research and British literature courses for Millikin. She brings expertise in science and literature, developmental writing, African American literature and writing centers.
Sandra McKenna (M.A. University of Illinois - Springfield)
Instructor of English
Advisor, Sigma Tau Delta, English Honorary
Sandra Kuizin McKenna is an instructor of English at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. Sandra teaches courses in writing, literature, US studies, global studies and PACE. She holds a Master’s degree in English literature from the University of Illinois at Springfield.
Sandra’s passion for reading and writing began when she was a child, and she has been writing ever since. Sandra has published several short stories and poems in the last fifteen years and is currently working on a poetry collection entitled “The Box of 64” and a memoir about her 16 years as a massage therapist with the working title: “Tales from the Table: Memoirs of a Massage Therapist.” In the summer of 2005 Sandra won two “excellence in writing” awards at the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference in the areas of Humor and Poetry/Memoir.
Assistant Professor of English & Advisor to the Decaturian
Hardy Distinguished Professor of English
Dr. Meddaugh teaches Critical Writing, Reading,
and Research courses and serves as adviser to the Decaturian
for Millikin. She brings expertise in journalism and social
movements. Ask her about the role of ethnography in journalism.
Jim Meyer
(Doctor of Arts, Illinois State University)
Associate Professor of English
After finishing a bachelor's and a master's in linguistics, Jim Meyer spent six years overseas, first in language study and then in linguistic research in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There he rediscovered his calling as a teacher. His doctorate from Illinois State University focused on teaching composition at the college level, and he later taught at Parkland Community College, Gordon College in Massachusetts, and Illinois State University. Along the way he completed requirements for teacher certification and taught sixth grade for four years in the Boston Public Schools.
Currently Jim is involved in a research project funded by the National Writing Project. With a colleague at Illinois State, he co-leads a team of researchers looking at school-based teacher inquiry groups and their effect on student writing. The project keeps him in contact with teachers and students in grades K-12, something he deems crucial to his mental health and professional growth. At Millikin he uses these experiences in his responsibilities with the English education program and hopes to draw undergraduates into a love for teaching and learning. He likes to bake bread, travel to places where English is not spoken, and spend time with nieces and nephews. He dislikes smugness, being bored, and writing about himself in the third person.
Michael O'Conner
(Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia)
Chair,
Associate Professor of English, Learning and Technology
Director of the Honors Program
Coordinator of English Education
Michael O'Conner earned his Ph.D. in English
from the University of Missouri in Columbia. He also earned
his Masters degree in Rhetoric and Composition from UMC
and his B.A. in English from Central Methodist College.
He taught courses in English at Washington High School in
Washington, Missouri for eight years. He has also taught
English at the University of Missouri, Central Methodist
College, and Columbia College. His interests include American
literature, hypertextual theory and writing, composition
and rhetoric and popular culture, along with business, technical
and professional writing.
He is the Director of the James Millikin Honors Program at Millikin. He is an avid reader of
ecological science fiction, a jogger and an author of numerous
web pages across the internet, including American Literature
On-line. He is also the creator and facilitator of the electronic
discussion list, Amlit-L.
Peiling
Zhao (Ph.D.
University of South Florida)
Assistant Professor of English
Dr. Peiling Zhao has taught
a wide range of English courses ranging from American literature
to rhetoric and English as a Second Language. She has a
B.A. in English and a master’s degree in American Literature
from Central China Normal University where she taught English
language skills, English literature, and translation courses
to EFL students at Hubei University, China.
While pursuing her doctoral
degree in Rhetoric and Composition at University of South
Florida, she taught Freshmen Writing, Technical Writing,
and Professional Writing. Besides teaching Critical Reading,
Writing, and Research, Applying Writing Theory, and the Senior Writing Portfolio,
she is also teaching ESL at Millikin. She enjoys
teaching with the Blackboard course management learning
system.
Dr. Zhao has a diverse interest
in research. Her research covers modern American and British
fiction, rhetorical theories, international rhetoric, ESL/EFL
writing and teaching, composition theories and pedagogy,
learning theories, feminisms, cultural studies, postcolonial
theories, and teacher training. She successfully defended
her dissertation, “Reconstructing Writer Identities,
Student Identities, Teacher Identities, and Gender Identities”
in the summer of 2005. Currently she is working to turn
her dissertation into a book.
Cindie Zelhart started at Millikin in August
1995 in the Fine Arts Department and spent time in all three
of the fine arts areas (Theatre/Dance, Music, Art). She
moved to the English Department in August 1996. She is married
and has a son and daughter. In her spare time she enjoys
reading and spending time in outdoor activities. She is
currently working on a B.A. in English literature.
