Literature Faculty and Staff (M-Z)

Last name starts with M

Jocelyn McCarthy Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Jocelyn McCarthy teaches in the Writing Studies Program, and writes fiction and nonfiction. She received her BA in English from Cornell University and her MFA in Creative Writing from American Univers…

Ìý jocelyn.mccarthy@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-8942

Heather McDonald Sr Professorial Lecturer CAS - Literature

Heather A. McDonald has taught in the Writing Studies Program since 2006. She's interested in the overlap of creative writing and composition pedagogies; empathy and gratitude in pedagogy; craft/DIY p…

Ìý heather.mcdonald@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-8930

Glenn Moomau Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Glenn Moomau is the author of Ted Nugent Condominium: From Boston to Austin with the Glenmont Popes (AP Press, 2001). His fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in storySouth, Memoir Journal, Art …

Ìý gmoomau@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2924

Last name starts with N

Marianne Noble Professor CAS | Literature

Professor Noble's teaching and research interests include American 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

Last name starts with O

Stina Oakes Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer (Continuing) CAS | Literature

Kristina Kasik Oakes earned her MA from Boston College and her BA from the University of New Hampshire. Prior to teaching at AU she taught high school English in Central Virginia and writing at Centra…

Ìý oakes@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-6364

Last name starts with P

Patricia Park Associate Professor CAS | Literature

Patricia Park is the author of the novel Re Jane (Viking/Penguin Random House, 2015), winner of an American Library Association award, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, N…

Ìý ppark@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-3911

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. *USA 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

Last name starts with R

Trisha Reichler Adjunct Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Trisha Reichler joined the College Writing faculty in 2003. Her primary areas of interest are post-modernist literature and the writings of emerging, intersectional resistance movements.

Ìý treich@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2910

Jeffrey Romero Middents Associate Professor CAS | Literature

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

Ìý middents@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2979

Roberta Rubenstein Prof Emerita

Professor Rubenstein's primary teaching interests include literary Modernism (fiction), women writers (specialties: Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison), 19th century Russian…

Ìý (202) 885-2993

Last name starts with S

Melissa Scholes Young Professor CAS | Literature

Melissa Scholes Young is the author of the award-winning novels Flood and The Hive. She received the Shelf Unbound Best Book Award in 2021 and the Next Generation Indie Book Award in 2023. She’s publi…

Ìý msyoung@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-6523

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

Rachel Snyder Professor CAS | Literature

Rachel Louise Snyder is the author of the nonfiction books Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade and No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About D…

Ìý (202) 885-8955

Peter Starr Professor CAS | Literature

Peter Starr recently stepped down as provost and chief academic officer at American University. In that role, he worked to advance inclusive excellence, create opportunities for dynamic and flexible t…

Ìý pstarr@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2127

Mary Switalski Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Mary Switalski began teaching at AU in 2007 while completing her MFA. She earned her BA in English Literature with a Creative Writing Subconcentration from the University of Michigan. She has also tau…

Ìý switalsk@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-3638

Last name starts with T

Adam Tamashasky Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Adam has been with the College Writing Program since 2004. He graduated from the University of Dayton in 1999 with a BA in English, then came to AU's MFA Program. His poetry recently appeared in the a…

Ìý tamashas@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-8933

Alison Thomas Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Alison Thomas has taught at AU since 2005, and has offered courses in the Department of Literature and in the American Studies Program. Her research focuses on information literacy and the teaching of…

Ìý athomas@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-8945

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

Last name starts with V

David Vazquez Associate Professor Literature and CRGC, Program Director of Latinx Studies CAS | Critical RGC Studies

David J. Vázquez is Associate Professor of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies and Director of the Latina/o/x Studies Program. He teaches courses on comparative Latina/o/x literature and cultur…

Ìý dvazquez@american.edu

Linda Voris Associate Professor CAS | Literature

Professor Voris’s teaching and research interests include 20th century American 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

Last name starts with W

Sara Wilson Adjunct Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Sara Wilson is a scholar of twentieth-century American poetry and poetics. Her work focuses on the transpacific poetics of Asian American and Beat writers. Her current research project examines how wh…

Ìý saraw@american.edu

Kate Wilson Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer (Continuing) CAS | Literature

Kate Wilson double-majored in music and English at Stanford University and holds an MA in Medieval Studies and PhD in English from The Catholic University of America. Her research interests include me…

Ìý kwilson@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2979

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 American 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

Last name starts with Z

Shannon Zellars-Strohl Adjunct Instructor CAS | Literature

Shannon's work focuses on religion, science, and horror in 19th-century literature. She has presented at a variety of conferences and is currently working on articles on Bram Stoker and Richard Marsh.…

Ìý szellars@american.edu

Rhonda Zimlich Professorial Lecturer CAS | Literature

Rhonda Zimlich is the author of an award-winning novel, Raising Panic, coming from Steel Toe Books in 2024. She teaches writing at American University in Washington D.C. She writes about intergenerati…

Ìý zimlich@american.edu