Faculty & Staff
As an interdisciplinary program, the American Culture Studies Program works with affiliated graduate faculty from all across campus, while maintaining a strong number of core faculty. The ACS faculty is also assisted by the MA Executive Committee and the PhD Executive Committee.
College of Arts and Sciences
English Department
Research Interests:
Contagion, illness, and disability studies; queer theory, gender studies, and sexuality; cultural studies.
Contact: woalber@bgsu.edu
Research Interests: Post-World War II and Contemporary American and Global Literatures, Neoliberalism, Comparative Histories of Race and Resistance, Global Migration
Current Projects: Queer Poetics of the Kunstlerromane in Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and James Baldwin's Go Tell It On the Mountain (article and book chapter)
Recent Courses: ENG. 2750 American Literature (1865-1945), ENG. 6070: Theory and Methods of Criticism, ENG. 3110: Multiethnic Literatures of the U.S., ENG. 6800: Trespassing Borders: Coalitional Archives of Race and Resistance, ENG. 4340: The Fires of These Times: From James Baldwin to BLM
Contact: walshr@bgsu.edu
Department: EnglishResearch Interests: Linguistics, Disability Studies, Astrobiology/Human Factors in Space Exploration, Braille
Current Projects: Major current project is a book about AstroAccess Zero G flight one, I am also Flight Operations co-lead and working on publications of our findings
Recent Courses: All Linguistics: Intro to Linguistics, Applied Phonology, applied Syntax, Grammar and Writing, a one credit HNRES course on Disability and Space Flight
Contact: swellsj@bgsu.edu
Department of Ethnic Studies
Research Interests:
Migration, Gender
Current Projects:
Working on a manuscript, American Dreams: Gender and Migration from India; in addition working on a survey of Indian physicians migration in Michigan and Ohio.
Recent Courses:
ETHN 6200, Theories of Race, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism; ETHN 1300, Intro to Asian American Studies
Contact: vibhab@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
African American history; the long Civil Rights Movement; anti-Black violence; post-racial rhetoric; race and education
Current Projects:
Currently, I am working on an analysis of the burial practices for lynching victims. I hope to expand a discussion that often ends with the lynching itself, or that dismisses the variety of ways that Black communities reacted. In addition, I am also working on revising my dissertation on Mordecai Johnson, the first Black president of Howard University, and writing an article on Reginald Berry, a/k/a Regis Siki, one of the early Black stars of professional wrestling in the 20th century.
Recent Courses:
Undergraduate level courses: Introduction to Ethnic Studies; Introduction to African American Studies; Ethnicity and Social Movements; The Civil Rights Movement (topics course) The Afro-American Cinematic Experience; Race and Urban Housing; History of American Racism; and BGSU 1910 courses on both the Black Lives Matter movement and the politics of Black athletes
Contact: tjedge@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Latinx Studies, Gender & Sexuality, Race & Ethnicity
Current Projects:
Desiring Gaze: Race, Sexuality, and U.S.-Cuba Relations
Recent Courses:
ACS 7450 Publication and Professional Development
Contact: susanap@bgsu.edu
Department of Popular Culture
Research Interests:
Gender and body issues in film, corporate media culture, the role of vision in popular culture, urban ethnography and comic book studies
Contact: jabrown@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Feminist cultural studies, television studies, queer studies
Current Projects:
Queer representation in the sitcom, sitcom reboots, Orange is the New Black
Recent Courses:
POPC 6800/WS 6800: TV Comedy & Gender, WS 6100: Foundations of Feminist Theory
Contact: bcragin@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Popular culture, African American studies, religion, music
Current Projects:
Gift Economy, Gospel Music, and Black Female Gospel Singers; Black Female Gospel Singers and Spiritual Autobiography
Recent Courses:
POPC 6800 Black Popular Music, POPC 6750 Popular Culture Theory and Methodology
Contact: anelson@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Asia, national identity, performing arts (particularly theater and dance), romance novels
Current Projects:
Honeymoon Couples, Jurassic Babies: Identity and Play in Chennai’s Post-Independence Sabha Theater. Book manuscript. Under contract with SUNY Press.
New book project on Tamil Identity and Dance Competitions
Recent Courses:
POPC 6610 International Popular Culture, POPC Seminars: Women and Bollywood; Romance Novels; Global Women's Narrative
Contact: rudisik@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Popular Music, Ethnomusicology, Cultural Theory, Semiotics, Aesthetics, Phenomenology, Postcolonialism, Monster Theory
Current Projects:
Recording Studios, Heavy Metal as Protest Music, Rock and Postcoloniality, Popular Music Ethnography, Indonesian Popular Music in Historical Perspective, Love Songs
Recent Courses:
POPC 6750 Popular Culture Theory and Methodology, POPC Seminars: Music as Popular Culture; Genre and Authenticity in World Popular Music Studies; Music Ethnography
Contact: jeremyw@bgsu.edu
School of Media and Communication
Research Interests:
Media Ecology, Philosophy of Communication, Rhetoric & Social Theory
Current Projects:
I'm currently creating a model of biases inherent to our contemporary digital environments, and exploring their consequences in everyday life.
Recent Courses:
Rhetorical Criticism, Introduction to Media and Communication, Seminar in Media Ecology
Contact: jpdowd@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Stigmatized identities; sexualities in close relationships; feminist theory and pedagogy; arts-based research, in particular, Poetic Inquiry
Current Projects:
Feminist Memoir; White Middle-Class Motherhood
Recent Courses:
Interpersonal Communication
Humanistic Methods
Relational Communication
Contact: sandraf@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Critical Intercultural Communication
Critical Rhetorical Theory & Criticism
Current Projects:
Affective Rhetoric at the Demilitarized Zone, South Korea Border Rhetorics in Hollywood Action Movies; Latinidad in Fear The Walking Dead
Recent Courses:
Rhetoric of Popular Music
Intercultural Communication
Contact: agonzal@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Rhetorical Theory/Criticism; Critical/Cultural Studies; Social/Environmental Justice Rhetoric; Nonviolence/Peace & Conflict Studies
Current Projects:
Working with coauthors on trying to get a piece published (it won a Top Paper award at 2018's NCA) on Nelson Mandela's rhetoric regarding Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK); trying to find time to finish a book proposal on environmental humanimal rhetorics
Recent Courses:
ACS 6820/MC 7150 - Social Movement Communication; Comm 3040/Comm & Leadership; MC 5100 Philosophical Foundations of Comm.; Comm 4040/Communication & Conflict
Contact: elleng@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Communicating social biases, shattering stigma, and responding to discrimination
Current Projects:
I am a Co-PI of a nearly million dollar NSF ADVANCE grant that focuses on gender equity, faculty development, allyship, and institutional change. Specifically, this project aims to advance the careers of women faculty, nonbinary faculty, and faculty of color-- especially those in STEM disciplines and the social behavioral sciences.
Recent Courses:
MC 7610: Race and Communication
COMM 3030: Persuasion
COMM 2010: Communication Theory
MC 6530: Interpersonal Communication
MC 6300: Social Scientific Research Methods MC
Contact: lisakh@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Political communication on social media, Media effects, Public opinion
Current Projects:
News media coverage and social media discussion on the trade conflict between China and the U.S.;
Exposure to political disagreement on social media
Recent Courses:
Social Media and Society, Seminar in New Media Research, Introduction to Interactive Advertising on Social Media, Social Scientific Research Methods
Contact: ylu@bgsu.edu
Department of History
Research Interests:
African diaspora; African-American History; Modern U.S. History
Contact: nmjacks@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Canadian history, migration, public history
Current Projects:
Legend and History: Roche de Boeuf of the Maumee Valley The Ethics of Ghost Tours
Recent Courses:
HIST 6100: Local History
Hist 4140: History of Canada
HIST 1910 (3 credit 1st course in the major): The Historian's Craft
CAST 2010: Introduction to Canadian Studies
Contact: rmancus@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Environmental history, American and Latin American; Economic and social history (inequality, living standards, markets); Latin American History.
Current Projects:
Local environmental history of the Great Black Swamp (see https://blogs.bgsu.edu/storiesinthewoods); living standards in Mexico, 1800-1930; comparative living standards; cultural and environmental history of climate in Mexico, 19th and 20th century.
Recent Courses:
At the graduate level: Environmental History, Environmental storytelling, History of Capitalism
Undergraduate: American environmental history, methodology, modern Latin America
Contact: achallu@bgsu.edu
Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program
Research Interests:
My work is interdisciplinary and traverses the fields of Women’s Studies, Disability Studies, and Sexuality Studies.
Contact: sasarah@bgsu.edu
Department of Political Science
Research Interests:
Gender, campaigns, elections, media, women's rights
Current Projects:
Moms on the Run: Maternal Stereotypes on the Campaign Trail Study of mothers running for elective office in the United States, including their treatment by voters and the press, and the strategies mother-candidates used to address culturally-engrained stereotypes. Participant observation, in-depth interviews and content coding of media coverage employed. Awarded fellowship by Bowling Green State University’s Institute for the Study of Culture & Society.
The “Pink Wave” Fails to Come Ashore in Ohio: Press Coverage of the Governor’s Race in the State’s Top Newspapers Study of press coverage of the 2018 Ohio governor’s race to assess whether gendered coverage hampered the campaigns of those four women who ran for governor in the two major parties. Utilizes content-coding and qualitative analysis of over 500 newspaper articles about the campaign compiled from Ohio’s top five-circulating newspapers. With Hannah Cubberley, Rachel Martin, and Max Seeley.
Trailblazing Women in Ohio Politics
Study of women who have broken barriers in Ohio’s electoral politics through the collection of oral histories and production of a public television documentary in collaboration with WBGU-TV and Bowling Green State University’s Center for Archival Collections.
The Curious Case of CEDAW
Empirical study of the legal and institutional factors promoting compliance with the United Nations’ CEDAW Treaty (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women). With Neil Englehart.
Recent Courses:
POLS 1100: American Government: Structures and Processes
POLS 2900: Statistics and Research Methods
POLS 3410: Public Opinion and Voter Behavior POLS 4400: Political Parties and Voter Behavior POLS 4420 / WS 4420: Women in American Politics POLS 6750: Research Methods
Contact: melissm@bgsu.edu
Department of Theatre and Film
Research Interests:
Race and Performance, Asian American Performance, Dance History and Theory, Queer Theory, Gender Studies, Performance Ethnography
Current Projects:
Choreographic Tendencies: Asian Aesthetics, Modern Dance, and the Politics of Race (an archival project) Places, Please: Stage Management, Gender Performance, and Invisible Labor (an ethnographic project)
Recent Courses:
THFM 7680: Dance, Movement, and Politics THFM 6680: Queer Performance and Theory THFM 6590: Research Methods in Theatre and Performance Studies THFM 6700: Women and Performance in the Americas THFM 6630: Introduction to Performance Studies THFM 6680: Performance and Mourning THFM 7670: Staging Race in the 19th-21st c.
Contact: akahlgr@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Modern and Contemporary Theatre; The Avant-Garde and Experimental Performance; Marxist and Materialist methods; Higher Education; Acting Practice and Theory
Current Projects:
I am editing a volume of essays entitled The Director in the Company, which is part of an 8 volume series focused on North American Stage Directors. I am also working on a book length study of contemporary American theatre artist, Rinde Eckert.
Recent Courses:
Directing and Staging Theory; Pedagogy and Professional Development in Theatre and Performance Studies; Postmodern Theatre/Postmodern Theory; Staging Image and Text; Devising Theatre; Acting Principles; Brecht and the Brechtian Legacy; Performance Criticism.
Contact: jonathc@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Theatre History & Historiography, Directing, Native American drama, Outdoor Historical dramas, representations of American frontier mythology in performance
Current Projects:
Book project: Looking at representations of Native American cultures, figures, and histories in outdoor historical dramas.
Recent Courses:
THFM 6620: Theories of Theatre and Performance (focus: Theatre & Performance Historiography, THFM 6820: Performance Theory and Practice (focus: Native American Drama and Performance), THFM 6840: Directed Readings (focus: Performing the Past)
Contact: hlnees@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Postwar American Cinema, Cinema and Urbanism and Architecture, War and Media Studies, Memory Studies
Current Projects:
Dr. Rankin’s research focuses on cinematic representations of urbanism and architecture and war cinema and media. He is currently working on a monograph on representations of urban decline and renewal in New York City films of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s across Hollywood, independent, documentary and experimental films. Dr. Rankin is also developing projects on online war memorials and the role of film and television in shaping the Korean War in American collective memory.
Recent Courses:
THFM 2620: History of Film, THFM 2900: American Film Comedy, THFM 1610: Introduction to Film, THFM 2900: War Film
Contact: rankicw@bgsu.edu
Department of World Languages and Cultures
Research Interests:
Mexico, literature and culture in the 19th-21st centuries
Current Projects:
- Ecocriticism -- 3 interrelated projects all on representations of land/society in different historical novels
- Mexican rebels/criminals in literature and popular culture/cultural imaginary -- a long-term, on-going project
Recent Courses:
Fall 2020: SPAN 2120 / SPAN 3510 / SPAN 4890 combined with 5800 "Hispanic Theater"
Spring 2021: SPAN 2120 / SPAN 3660 / course release for Grad Coordinator
Mentor Teaching: Available; courses offered in Spanish.
Contact: arobins@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Improvisation; posthumanism, systems theory, cybernetics, theories of play; continental philosophy (Kant, Nietzsche, et al.), aesthetic theories, German literature and culture.
Current Projects:
Critical Improvisation Studies. "Posthumanism in the Age of Humanism: Mind, Matter, and the Life Sciences Since Kant." (2018). "Play in the Age of Goethe and Today . (Forthcoming essay collection). Nietzsche's Posthumanism.
Recent Courses:
Graduate Seminars: GERM & PHIL 6800: Posthumanism after Kant / Nietzsche's Posthumanism / GERM 6800 & ACS 6820: Philosophies of Technology (Spring 2020).
Advanced ug courses: GERM & Phil 4800: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud / GERM 4800: Great Critics of Modernity Ug courses: Honors 2020: Great Ideas (Spring 2020). GERM 2150: German Culture and Civilization. GERM 2150: Contemporary Germany.
Contact: elandgr@bgsu.edu
School of Art
Research Interests:
History of Photography
Theory of Photography
History of Modern and Contemporary Art
Current Projects:
Book on theories of photography for Wiley-Blackwell
Recent Courses:
ARTH 6060 "Contemporary Art Theory and Criticism"
ARTH 5690 "Critical Issues in Modern and Contemporary Art"
ARTH 5650 "Critical Issues in Art and Technologies"
Contact: aehersh@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Italian Renaissance art and culture; medieval and early modern history; somaesthetics; ritual theory and practice; patronage and politics; performance studies; viewers and vision; body studies; material culture; visuality
Current Projects:
My book on "Somaesthetic Experience and the Viewer in Medicean Florence: Renaissance Art and Political Persuasion, 1450-1580" is forthcoming in late 2019/early 2020. I have another book on "Cosimo de'Medici, Fra Angelico, and the Public Library" that will be completed by Spring 2020. Several articles are forthcoming-- one on "Franciscan Art and Somaesthetic Devotion in the Italian Renaissance Holy Lands: Simming and the Production of Empathy at Varallo and San Vivaldo"; another on "
Recent Courses:
The Performative Viewer (cross-listed with WGSS); The Toledo (Ohio) Renaissance; Art, Performance, Ritual in Renaissance Florence (cross-listed with WGSS); Material Art History; Art History Methods and Theory; Italian Renaissance Art; Northern Renaissance Art; Baroque Art
Contact: alterry@bgsu.edu
School of Earth, Environment, and Society
Research Interest:
Sustainability education, the environmental humanities, sustainability studies, place-based education, curriculum studies, outdoor education, autoethnography and personal narrative
Current Projects:
I am currently working on a collaborative autoethnography project called "Lessons from a Collaborative Autoethnography in the Anthropocene" which explores the educational dimensions of lived experience while asking "does it make sense to think and act ecologically when it is already, in some sense, too late?"
Recent Courses:
ACS 6820/HIST 6800/SEES 6810 - Sustainability & You
ACS 6820/SEES 6810 - Sustainability: Place & Education
Contact: nhensle@bgsu.edu
College of Music
Research Interests:
Popular music (U.S. and global), voice, disability studies
Current Projects:
Co-edited the Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies (released this summer), and also have a monograph in production with Oxford titled Multivocality: Singing on the Borders of Identity. The former is a transdisciplinary inquiry into the study and meanings of voice, from multiple humanistic and scientific perspectives. The latter focuses on singers' experiences of crossing "borders," and includes research in neoliberalism and voice, voice and disability, the experiences of d/Deaf singers, the experiences of transgender singers, voice and (im)migration, voice and religious conversion, singing impersonation, and the sale of human voices to digital sampling libraries.
Recent Courses:
MUCT 6280 (Problems and Techniques in Ethnomusicology); MUCT 6290 (Seminar in Ethnomusicology: Music and Disability Studies)
Contact: kmeizel@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
American opera, post-1945 American classical, experimental, & avant-garde music (especially minimalism) music & multimedia (film, video games) arts institutions
Current Projects:
Book project: Making American Opera after Einstein; article on American composer/singer/choreographer Meredith Monk
Recent Courses:
American Opera after Einstein (on American opera post-1975) Music & Minimalism: Theory, Culture, Praxis Music in Video Games
Contact: eryan@bgsu.edu
College of Education and Human Development
Research Interests:
Social justice issues on college campuses; development and experiences of students with disabilities, socially just disability research; experiences of classified, administrative, and faculty women; gendered aspects of faculty service; diversity education; ally development; development and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual college students; qualitative research methodologies.
Current Projects:
- gendered aspects of faculty service
- co-curricular involvement of undergraduate students with disability
- influence of residential experiences on undergraduate students with disabilities success in college
- paradigmatic and theoretical differences in disability research; Universal research design
- socially just and inclusive approaches to campus assessment efforts
- roles and experiences of classified (hourly) women staff in higher education
- career development patterns in women with long-term careers in higher education
Recent Courses:
CSP 6020 - Theory and Assessment of College Student Development CSP 6050 - Capstone Seminar CSP 6500 - Social Justice Education and Training CSP 6800 - UK Study Tour HIED 7000 - Professional Seminar in Higher Education HIED 7510 - Qualitative Problems & Methods in Higher Education HIED 7530 - Advanced Qualitative Problems & Methods in Higher Education II
Contact: ebroido@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Feminist sport psychology
Gender, sexuality & sport
Current Projects:
Recent Courses:
Social Psychology of Sport; Applied Sport Psychology; Sport and Gender; Women's Studies; Qualitative Research; Research Methods
Contact: vkrane@bgsu.edu
Research Interests:
Sociocultural aspects of built environment; sociology of space; building users' needs, culture, and activities; social design, organizational design; qualitative research methods.
Current Projects:
Sociocultural issues of facilities planning; the social production of interiority; architects as social designers, the social design process, etc.
Recent Courses:
Contact: lspopov@bgsu.edu
Updated: 09/27/2024 09:08AM