Faculty

Office Hours - Spring 2008

ECLS Visiting Faculty 2008-09

 We’re fortunate to have a distinguished group of visiting faculty on special appointment next year:

 Denise Burgher will teach ECLS 341 (Race and Literature:  Slavery in the Americas) in spring 2009.  Professor Burgher last taught this course in the fall at Occidental in the fall of 2006.  She holds an M.A. in African American studies from UCLA, and is a scholar of American history with specific research interests in African American and Caribbean studies, Black feminism, and the literature of slavery.   She is also a community activist in Los Angeles.  In addition to ECLS 341, Professor Burgher will teach AMST 246, African American fiction, in the fall in American Studies.

 Melissa Daniels will teach ECLS 241, Race, Law, and Literature, in fall 2008.  Professor Daniels is currently completing her Ph.D. in English at Northwestern University.  Her current research is on representations of Blackness, Whiteness, and “mixed race” in the American South in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, but she has a broad range of interests including film studies and critical race theory.  Professor Daniels has taught as a graduate student at Northwestern and at the Claremont Graduate University, where she received an M.A. in literature in 2005. 

Dennis Phillips will teach one of two sections of ECLS 380, Creative Writing, in the spring of 2009.  Professor Phillips teaches at the Art Center College of Design and Otis College of Art and Design, and he has taught writing frequently at Occidental as a visiting professor.  He has published ten books of poetry and a novel, Hope (2007); his work is widely anthologized and published in magazines, and he has presented readings nationally and internationally. 

Julie Prebel has also been a frequent visiting professor at Occidental; in 2008-09 she will teach ECLS 289 (American Experiences, fall) and ECLS 255 (U. S. Literature in the Modern World, spring), as well as courses in the English Writing Department and the Cultural Studies Program.  Professor Prebel has her Ph.D. from the University of Washington, and she has published on American women writers of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.  Her current research involves the intersections of American scientific discourse and literary practices, with particular reference to issues of gender and race. 

Danzy Senna is the Remsen Bird Visiting Artist for 2008-09.  She will teach ECLS 382 (Advanced Creative Writing:  Fiction) in the fall of 2008.  Professor Senna has published two novels, Caucasia (1998, and a winner of the Book-of-the-Month Club’s Stephen Crane First Fiction Award) and Symptomatic (2004); her third novel, Where Did You Sleep Last Night? is forthcoming.  She has also published a number of short stories, articles, and essays on writing and identity, and has served as a visiting artist or faculty member at many institutions, most recently at the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference in Vermont. 

Alison Tymoczko will teach ECLS 287, Early British Literary Traditions, in the spring of 2009.  Professor Tymoczko graduated from Occidental as an ECLS major in 1998; she is currently completing her Ph.D. at the University of Southern California.  Her research and scholarly interests span British and European Renaissance literatures, critical theory, and gender studies;  and her dissertation is entitled Writing Under the Auspices of Eros:  Female Encounters with Cupid from Ovid to Spenser.  She has taught widely, at USC and other institutions in Southern California as a visiting  faculty member.