Sadik al-Azm
Harry C. Payne Visiting Professor of Liberal Arts in Philosophy and Religion, Fall ‘09
Emeritus Professor of the history of modern European philosophy, Damascus University, Syria. Often Visiting Professor of contemporary Arab social and political thought, Princeton University. Others: American University of Beirut, Lebanon. Universities of Hamburg & Luneburg, Germany. Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. University of Antwerp, Belgium. Graduated in philosophy from the American University of Beirut 1957. M.A. & PhD. in Modern Philosophy, Yale university 1961. Published, both in Arabic and Englishon on Modern European Philosophy (Bergson, Whitehead, Heidegger, Sartre, Lukacs, Althusser Kant).
Made major interventions in the main social, political, religious, and ideological debates raging in the Arab and Islamic Worlds since the early Sixties including the Rushdie affair and the question of Orientalism. Currently working on Islamic Fundamentalism and Post-modernism.
Absorbing interest in theater, dance & film.
Quamrul Ashraf
Assistant Professor of Economics
I am a development economist of Bangladeshi origin with research interests in the areas of long-run economic growth and cross-country comparative development. My research is best described as being motivated by “big picture” issues along the lines of those proposed in Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. In particular, my work focuses on topics such as the prehistoric “out of Africa” migration of humans as a deep determinant of comparative economic development, the role of cultural heterogeneity in fostering the Industrial Revolution in Europe (and the lack thereof in delaying industrialization in advanced agricultural societies like China), and the importance of climatic volatility in paving the way for the emergence of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution. I have taught courses on macroeconomics, economic growth and development, and financial markets. Prior to joining graduate school, I worked first as a “quant” analyst at Merrill Lynch and then as a software engineer in the internet advertising industry. I am currently completing my doctoral work at Brown University. I obtained my AM degree in economics from Brown University in 2004, and my BA in economics and computer science from Trinity College (CT) in 1999. Besides research and teaching, I particularly enjoy engaging in friendly intellectual debates with my wife Lisa (who happens to be an avid anthropologist) and playing with our 5-month-old son Zamir. My hobbies include reading, hiking, and (when possible) travelling.
More information available at:
www.econ.brown.edu/students/Quamrul_Ashraf
Amanda Beeson
Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics
I went to MIT for my B.S. and then UCSD for my Ph.D. in Mathematics.
I specialized in number theory and my research is about special groups of units, but I love talking to students about a wide range of topics so feel free to stop on by! In my spare time I like to blow glass and listen to music.
Devyn Spence Benson
Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and History
Devyn Spence Benson received her Ph.D from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in the field of Latin American and Caribbean History. Her research focuses on racial politics and discourses during the first three years of the Cuban revolution. Benson is currently working on her manuscript, “Not Blacks, but Citizens: Racial Politics in Revolutionary Cuba, 1959-1961.” This project has led her to explore connections between Cubans of African descent and African Americans before and after the Cuban Revolution. Previously, Benson taught third grade in a bilingual elementary school in Houston, Texas. In that position, she discovered her scholarly and career interests of today. Benson also enjoys tennis, swimming, aerobics, and March Madness (especially North Carolina basketball).
Lillian Bertram
Gaius Charles Bolin Fellow in English
I was raised in Buffalo, New York and received my B.A. in Creative Writing and Hispanic Studies from Carnegie Mellon University, and am now completing my M.F.A in Creating Writing (Poetry) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I am currently focused on finishing a manuscript of poetry, and my work has been published in various literary journals. My poetry interests include but are not limited to: contemporary American poetry, African-American poetry, Latin American poetry, literature translation, mixed/new media poetry, literary magazine publishing, poetry in the community, and of course–teaching poetry. In my spare time I am a semi-professional photographer, I enjoy biking, the outdoors, traveling, cooking, NPR, and learning new things.
William Burns
Class of 1946 Visiting Professor of Environmental Studies
law.scu.edu/faculty/profile/burns-william.cfm
Paul Chamberlin
Stanley Kaplan Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History and Leadership Studies Program
Paul Chamberlin received a Ph.D. in diplomatic history from The Ohio State University. He has been a fellow in the International Security Studies program at Yale University and has studied Arabic at Damascus University and the American University in Cairo. He is currently working on an international history of the United States and the Palestinian liberation struggle in the 1960s and 1970s.
Jay Clarke
Visiting Lecturer in the Graduate Program in Art History, Spring ‘10
Jay A. Clarke is Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Clark Art Institute. She received her Ph.D. from Brown University in 1999 and served as a curator at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1997 through 2009. Author of Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety, and Myth (2009) she has also published on the critical reception of Kaethe Kollwitz and Max Beckmann, Munch’s use of repetition, and Julius Meier-Graefe as an art dealer. Clarke’s research and teaching focus on late-nineteenth century reception theory, market forces, historiography, and the social significance of printmaking processes and their matrices. She taught graduate courses at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 2001 through 2008 on critical theory, methodology, and the history of art history.
Education: B.A. College of the Holy Cross; Ph.D. Brown University
Michael Cole
Robert Sterling Clark Visiting Professor of Art History
Mea Cook
Assistant Professor of Geosciences
I am a geologist and oceanographer who studies the influence of ocean circulation on climate change. I grew up in northern Virginia, studied Geosciences at Princeton University, and received a PhD in Oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program. I spent a year as a postdoc and lecturer in the Ocean Sciences department at University of California, Santa Cruz, and was a visiting professor in the Geosciences Department at Williams for a year before becoming an assistant professor. I love camping and hiking, cooking and eating, and watching old movies. I play cello in the Berkshire Symphony, and enjoy playing chamber music.
Justin Crowe
Assistant Professor of Political Science
After graduating from Williams in 2003 with a degree in political science and English, I did my graduate work at Princeton, earning a Ph.D. in politics in 2007, and have spent the last two years teaching at Pomona College in Claremont, CA. My teaching and research interests include constitutional law and theory, American political and constitutional development, American political thought and culture, and American political institutions. Most of my work has focused on the role of the Supreme Court in American political development, with published articles on the augmentation of judicial authority during the 1920s and historical trends in the tenure of Supreme Court justices and a soon-to-be-finished book manuscript on the institutional development of the federal judiciary, especially, but not exclusively, the Supreme Court, from the Founding to the present. Outside the classroom and the office, I’m an unabashed sports junkie: I enjoy playing basketball, golf, tennis, and squash (the last of which I picked up during my time at Williams) and watching anything except auto-racing. My wife (also a 2003 Williams alum) and I are thrilled to return to the Purple Valley, this time to settle down and introduce our eight-month old son to our favorite places in Williamstown specifically and the Berkshires more generally.
Sara Dubow
Assistant Professor of History
Sara Dubow graduated from Williams College in 1991, and received her Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 2003. Her dissertation, titled “Ourselves Unborn: Fetal Meanings in Modern America,” examines how, from the 1870s to the 1990s, Americans with disparate experiences, beliefs, values, and interests participated in arguments about the legal identity, physiological condition, social value, cultural significance, and political status of the human fetus. which will be published by Oxford University Press in 2010. She taught at Hunter College in New York City, and was a visiting professor at Williams College from 2007-2009. Her research and teaching interests examine the intersections of gender, law, and politics in 20th century U.S. history.
Peter Filkins
Margaret Bundy Scott Visiting Professor of English, Spring ‘10
Peter Filkins is a poet and translator. His books of poems are What She Knew (Orchises 1998) and After Homer (Braziller 2002). In addition, he has also translated Ingeborg Bachmann’s collected poems, Darkness Spoken (Zephyr Press 2006) and H.G. Adler’s novel The Journey (Random House 2008). He is the recipient of a Berlin Prize, a Fulbright, fellowships to Yaddo, MacDowell, and the Milay Colony, and the Stover Award in Poetry. His work has appeared in Paris Review, Poetry, Partisan Review, The New Criterion, The Iowa Review, N.Y. Times Book Review, and numerous other journals. Since 1988 he has taught creative writing, literature, and translation at Bard College. A graduate of Williams and Columbia University, he has taught several Winter Study courses at Williams in the past.
David Gates
Margaret Bundy Scott Visiting Professor of English, Spring ‘10
David Gates is the author of the novels Jernigan and Preston Falls and a collection of stories, The Wonders of the Invisible World. His fiction has been appeared in such magazines as The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, Tin House and Ploughshares. His nonfiction has appeared in Newsweek, where he was a longtime writer and editor, The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, BookForum, GQ, H.O.W., The Oxford American and the Journal of Country Music. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, and his books have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has taught in the MFA writing programs at The New School, Bennington, Columbia and Hunter College.
Daniel Greenberg
Lecturer in Physical Education and Head Men’s Tennis Coach
Christopher Himes
Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology, Fall ‘09
Dr. Chris Himes is broadly interested in evolutionary biology, in particular examining how populations evolve over time and contribute to the diversity of life. He received his Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Washington in 2001. As a graduate student he combined field based research with laboratory work using DNA to study the natural history and evolutionary processes affecting the mammalian species in North and South America. Dr. Himes also co-developed a course to help students succeed in introductory Biology. He received the University of Washington’s Excellence in Teaching Award for his work on this course and his efforts to address the participation of underrepresented students in the Sciences. Currently, his research examines the colonization and isolation of island populations and methods to compare and contrast genealogies from different co-distributed species. This past spring quarter he instructed a laboratory series on DNA evolution and sequencing here at Williams College.
Ann-Cathrine Jungar
Research Scholar, Visiting Professor of Political Science, Fall ‘09
Ann-Cathrine Jungar studied political science at the Åbo Akademi University in Finland for her Masters and Licentiate degrees and received her Ph.D in political science from the Department of Government at the Uppsala University in Sweden. She wrote her thesis on parliamentary government and in her book “Surplus majority government. A Comparative Study of Finland and Italy” she develops explanations for why oversized cabinets form.
After her dissertation she has continued with research on Europeanisation, that is, how the EU affects the political systems of the member states. She has studied the repercussions of the EU on the states in Europe and has taken a particular interest in the roles of national parliaments in internationalized political processes. She has also made a number of studies on popular referenda in relation to both national decision-makings processes as well as the policy processes within the EU. Another area of interest is gender equality politics in the European Union. She is current leading the multidisciplinary project “New voices, old roots” is on populism in the enlarged Europe.
Charles Karelis
Bennett Boskey Visiting Professor of Public Policy and Political Philosophy, Fall ‘09
Charles Karelis majored in philosophy at Williams and received his doctorate from Oxford, where he wrote his dissertation on Hegel. Returning to the Purple Valley, he taught philosophy at Williams for thirteen years before leaving again to direct the federal Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. After fourteen years in the civil service, he became president of Colgate and subsequently Research Professor of Philosophy at George Washington University. Karelis’s research interests include poverty and the philosophy of art. His book The Persistence of Poverty–Why the Economics of the Well-off Can’t Help the Poor was published in 2007 by Yale and in 2008, in India, by Oxford. His hobbies include sleight of hand and painting in watercolor.
Christi Kelsey
Assistant Professor of Physical Education and Head Coach of Volleyball
Christi Kelsey, Assistant Professor of Physical Education and Head Volleyball Coach, joins the Williams faculty after serving three years as the first assistant coach at Harvard University. Prior to that, she was a volunteer assistant coach for four years at Wellesley College, while working full-time at Deitel & Associates, Inc. as Director of Business Development. Christi grew up in Eaton, Indiana and has lived in the Boston area for the past nine years. She played volleyball in college for Purdue University where she also graduated with a degree in business and information systems. In her spare time, Christi still enjoys playing volleyball and promoting the sport throughout the New England region through summer camps and clinics for players at all levels.
Emiko Konomi
Visiting Assistant Professor of Japanese
Education: Ph.D. , Cornell University
Research Interests: Language Pedagogy, Japanese Linguistics
Previous Posts:
Assistant Professor, University of Maryland
Lecturer, University of California, Santa Cruz
Passion: Karate, Kendo
Nate Kornell
Assistant Professor of Psychology
nkornell.bol.ucla.edu
Nini Li
Visiting Lecturer in Chinese
Nini Li, graduated from the Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Beijing Language and Culture Univercity, where she earned a Master’s degree in 2007, specializing in Chinese grammar. In the summer of 2005 and 2006, she took part in the Harvard Beijing Academy Language program, teaching the grade 2 and grade 5 students. After graduation , she worked at the CET Academic Programs in Beijing, teaching Chinese level 100, 150 and 200.
Nadia Loan
Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology, Spring ‘10
Nadia Loan is a Doctoral Candidate at Columbia University in the Department of Anthropology. Her research interests include gender, religion, South Asia, reading and ethics. She is currently writing her dissertation, entitled Critical Readings: Devotional Reflections in the Pursuit of Quranic Understanding, which examines women’s Quranic reading practices in urban Pakistan. This project ethnographically and historically investigates the ways in which religious belief mediates and is mediated through textual practices of translation, interpretation and recitation of the Quran and the transformative potential that is accorded to ‘reading as understanding’. Nadia received her Masters degree from Harvard University and her Bachelor’s from Smith College.
Christian McEwen
Visiting Lecturer in Environmental Studies, Spring ‘10
Christian McEwen grew up in the Borders of Scotland, and moved to the U.S.A. in her early twenties. She has taught for the Teachers & Writers Collaborative in NYC, the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh, and numerous other schools and colleges, most frequently Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, teaching teachers to use poetry in the classroom. Christian is the editor of four books, including Naming the Waves: Contemporary Lesbian Poetry and The Alphabet of the Trees: A Guide to Nature Writing. She has just completed a book of non-fiction entitled World Enough & Time: The Necessary Art of Slowing Down.
Bernard McGinn
Croghan Bicentennial Visiting Professor in Biblical and Early Christian Studies, Fall ‘09
Bernard McGinn taught the History of Christianity and Historical Theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School for thirty-four years before his retirement in 2003. McGinn studied Theology in Rome during the Second Vatican Council and later worked on Medieval Intellectual History both in the United States and Germany, taking his Ph.D. from Brandeis in 1970. Much of his writing has concerned the history of apocalyptic traditions, and especially Christian spirituality and mysticism. For almost two decades he has been engaged in writing a long history of Christian mysticism under the general title The Presence of God (four volumes have appeared to date).
David Evans Morris
Assistant Professor of Theatre
David Evans Morris makes original performance work and scenographic environments for the theater. He works regularly with playwright/director Young Jean Lee (scenic design for THE SHIPMENT and LEAR, U.S. + European tours of SONGS OF THE DRAGONS FLYING TO HEAVEN and CHURCH), Taylor Mac, Clubbed Thumb (Affiliated Artist) and Target Margin Theater. He co-conceived and designed scenery for ORPHEUS (directed by Kristin Marting)—an alt-rock opera based on the Classical myth, the design of which was included in the United States pavilion at the 2007 Prague Quadrennial. Also with Ms. Marting: SOUNDING, ERENDIRA, DEAD TECH, and POSSESSED. With Les Freres Corbusier (Associate Artist) he co-created and designed the Off-Broadway hit about urban planning, BOOZY: THE LIFE, DEATH, AND SUBSEQUENT VILIFICATION OF LE CORBUSIER AND, MORE IMPORTANTLY, ROBERT MOSES, and designed scenery for the Obie-winning A VERY MERRY UNAUTHORIZED CHILDREN’S SCIENTOLOGY PAGEANT, THE FRANKLIN THESIS and PRESIDENT HARDING IS A ROCK STAR. David received his MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle and his BA from Williams College. He has received a Princess Grace Fellowship and was a member of the HERE Artist Residency Program where he began developing EXERCISES FOR THE BODY POLITIC, an ongoing series of theatrical events about American civic life.
Marissa O’Neil
Assistant Professor of Physical Education and Head Coach of Women’s Ice Hockey
Kevin O’Rourke
Visiting Lecturer in Theatre
Oyinda Oyelaran
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
I am coming to Williams from a postdoctoral appointment at the National Cancer Institute. I earned my BS in Chemistry from Salem College (NC) and A.M. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, also in Chemistry, with a focus on synthetic organic chemistry. Before graduate school, I took a break from academia and spent some time working as a chemist at Merck Research Labs in NJ.
I have always been fascinated by how humans can learn from and mimic nature, the ultimate chemist, and various means by which pathogens exploit the human body’s chemistry to wreck havoc and cause disease. One class of molecules, which is ubiquitous in humans, that many pathogens take advantage of is carbohydrates. My research interests involve building organic molecules incorporating carbohydrates and looking at ways in which these molecules can interact with different biological systems.
I was born and have spent half of my life (so far) in southwest Nigeria. My favorite activities are running, nature photography, and discovering new places and recipes.
Barath Raghavan
Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science
I went to graduate school at UC San Diego and was an undergrad at UC Berkeley. My research interests include network protocol design, applied cryptography, computer security and privacy, Internet architecture, game theory, and distributed systems. I also played drums / guitar in two bands during grad school and hope to continue playing music in Williamstown.
Richard Rand
Lecturer in the Graduate Program in Art History, Fall ‘09
Benjamin Rubin
Assistant Professor of Classics
I am a Classical archaeologist, who specializes in the study of intercultural interactions between Greece, Rome and the ancient Near East. After graduating from Macalester College in 2001 with a degree in Classics and English, I earned my Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in 2008. My dissertation, entitled “(Re)-presenting Empire: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor, 31 BC – AD 68,” explores the legacy of Achaemenid Persian art and ideology in the Roman Empire. I am currently a post-doctoral fellow at Kalamazoo College, where I teach classes on Greek archaeology, Classical mythology and Latin. As a dedicated field archaeologist, I enjoy traveling, meeting new people and digging holes in the hot sun! I have participated on archaeological field projects at Chersonesus (Ukraine), Omrit (Israel), and, most recently, at the Roman city of Sagalassos in modern-day Turkey. It is my goal to provide similar fieldwork opportunities to students at Williams College in the near future. My teaching and research interests include Roman art and archaeology; the Persian Empire; divine kingship; post-colonial theory and gender studies. In my spare time, I enjoy gardening, playing/watching baseball and walking my beloved pug dog, Bella.
Rebecca Shaykin
Visiting Lecturer in Art, Spring ‘10
I earned my B.A. in Art History at Oberlin College and my M.A. in Art History at Williams College. During my previous tenure in Williamstown, I had the pleasure of TA-ing for Art History 101-102, interning at the Williams College Museum of Art, and dog-sitting for judicious members of the art faculty. At WCMA I co-curated the exhibition “Model American Men” and contributed to research and preparations for “Abraham Lincoln to the Nth Degree” and the traveling exhibition “Prendergast in Italy.” My interests are in French and American art—preferably of the 1860s or 1960s—with a focus on women, gender, and sexuality. I currently work at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Things I enjoy in addition to art history include: baking, modern dance, Daily Bunny, and Paris.
Kimberly Springer
Sterling Brown ‘22 Visiting Professor of Africana Studies, Spring ‘10
www.williams.edu/africana-studies/faculty/Springer.html
Patrick Tonks
Visiting Lecturer in Romance Languages, Fall ‘09
Patrick Tonks will be a visiting lecturer in French for the Fall 2009 semester. His research interests include literature in French and Portuguese from the Caribbean, Brazil and Africa, as well as literary theory, the theory of translation, and the idea of literary “cannibalism.” Patrick is pursuing a Ph.D. in comparative literature at the University of Michigan and holds a bachelor’s degree from Brown University in comparative literature and linguistics.
Macarena Urzúa
Visiting Lecturer in Romance Languages, Fall ‘09
I graduated from Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile in 2000 where I received a double degree in Hispanic Literature and in Aesthetics with a major in Visual Arts.
During my time as a student I started writing poetry, and attended a few creative writing workshops. Later I earned a fellowship for young poets from Fundación Pablo Neruda in 2000. My first poetry book, Jersey City will be published in Santiago, Chile in 2009.
I’m also particularly interested in visual arts, especially photography and its relationship with literature and culture.
Currently I’m a PhD candidate at Rutgers University in the Spanish and Portuguese department. My dissertation”Farewell “Bello Barrio” and “Multicancha”, landscapes and ruins. Memory and Nostalgia in Chilean Post-dictatorship Poetry”, explores the relationship between nostalgia and the city in post-dictatorship poetry in Chile. I have gone beyond the analysis of poetic discourse in order to include other forms, usually not considered official art or a valid document to look at memory, such as the punk movement during the eighties, the students’ movement against Pinochet and some comic books.
I grew up in Santiago and came to the United States in 2003. I love to travel, read, bike, cook and watch movies.
Gabriela Vainsencher
Arthur Levitt, Jr. ‘52 Artist-in-Residence in English and Art, Fall ‘09
Gabriela Vainsencher is a Brooklyn-based artist, born in Argentina and raised in Israel. She is Williams’ Arthur Levitt Jr. ‘52 Artist-in-residence for the academic year 2009-10.
Her recent solo exhibitions include Leif Magne Tangens in Skein, Norway, The WORK gallery in Brooklyn, New York and La Chambre Blanche, in Quebec City, Canada.
Vainsencher uses other people’s art and her daily life as her starting points for her drawings, videos and installations. The most recent example of this is The Unfinished Museum Tour Quebec City tinyurl.com/cmtpb9], for which she spent the winter of 2009 in Quebec City, creating a site specific solo show for La Chambre Blanche in collaboration with the Quebec National Museum of Fine Art.
Another ongoing project is Morning Drawing morningdrawing.wordpress.com, in progress since January 2008.
Shay Welch
Gaius Charles Bolin Fellow in Philosophy
I did my M.A. at Florida State University and am completing my Ph.D. at Binghamton University. I specialize in social and political philosophy and feminist theory, with a specific emphasis on the concepts of consents and obligation. I am currently writing on the effects of oppression on social freedom. I am also interested in questions concerning the effects of power relations on daily phenomenon, such as beauty, sex, and fitness. In my spare time I enjoy training and occasionally compete in fitness competitions. I am a fan of good food and great music.
Randall Woods
Stanley Kaplan Visiting Professor of American Foreign Policy, Fall ‘09
Randall Woods is Cooper Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Arkansas where he has taught for the past 38 years. His doctorate is from the University of Texas at Austin. Woods teaches courses on the diplomatic history of the United States, the U.S. and Vietnam, and Recent America. His most recent books, Fulbright: A Biography and LBJ: Architect of American Ambition, have been reviewed in the New York TImes, Washington Post, The Economist, The New Republic, The Christian Science Monitor, and other prominent publications. he has had Fulbright teaching stints in German and Argentina. Woods is somewhat addicted to physical activity – hiking, biking, pilates, golf. He is married with two children and four grandchildren. Rhoda, his wife, is a retired medical manager, amateur artist, and avid tennis player.
Ye Yuan
Visiting Lecturer in Chinese
I earned my B.A. in Chinese Language and Literature at East China Normal University in Shanghai, China, and my M.A. in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language at the same university. I have taught Chinese to American college level students for many years and have taught many different courses, including Chinese calligraphy and cooking. I enjoy teaching and consider the interaction between teachers and students as a vitally important part of the teaching process. I have been in America for two years and I like working here very much. In my spare time, I like cooking, enjoying tea, watching movies, reading books and traveling.
