Literary Arts and Social Justice Faculty and Staff
Our faculty have extensive expertise in a wide range of disciplines including American and British literature, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, linguistics, women's studies, composition, public speaking and more. Learn about their wealth of knowledge, research interests and classes they teach, featured below.
Full-Time Faculty
Karen Dwyer, Ph.D.
Professor
Coordinator, Creative Writing Program
- Published works include "Ancient Texts" in Red Orchard Review, "The Smoker" in Triquarterly Review and "If and Then" in Zoetrope: One Story
- Research interests are the contemporary short story and hysterical realism and the surreal in the contemporary novel
- Teaches courses in fiction writing, creative nonfiction, contemporary literature, world literature, American literature and the short story
Chris Girman, Ph.D., J.D.
Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Literature, Culture, and Society
- Published the books The Chili Papers and Mucho Macho: Seduction, Desire, and the Homoerotic Lives of Latin Men
- Research interests include theories of nonfiction, magical realism and masculinity theory
- Teaches creative writing and creative nonfiction classes as well as beginner and advanced nonfiction workshops
Kirstin Hanley, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Director, Composition Program
- Published pieces include Mary Wollstonecraft, Pedagogy and the Practice of Feminism, "Didacticism" and "'A New Servitude': Pedagogy and Feminist Practice in Brontë's Jane Eyre"
- Research interests involve the intersections between proto-feminist literatures and composition studies
- Teaches English Composition I & II, writing studio, senior seminar, college composition, romanticism and effective speech
J. Dwight Hines, Ph.D.
Professor
- Seeks to share with students an appreciation of the character of global political-economy and the relevance of it to their lives
- Research focuses on the process of rural gentrification — i.e. the colonization of the rural United States by ex-urban members of the post-industrial middle-class (PIMC) — and its role in the creation of the so-called "New" American West.
- Teaches Introduction to Global Cultural Studies, Modern World Systems, Modernity, Colonialism and Capitalism, Global Political Ecology and Soccer/Football in Global Perspective.
Jessica McCort, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
- Published pieces include Reading in the Dark: Horror in Children's Literature and Culture, "Breaking the Glass Slipper" and "Edward Gorey: The Humour in Children's Horror"
- Research interests are gothic and horror in children's and young adult literature and culture, fairy tales and fairy-tale revisions, Sylvia Plath and girls' cultures and girls' reading practices
- Teaches College Composition and Honors College Composition
Robert Ross, Ph.D.
Professor
Coordinator, Social Justice Studies Program
- Teaching and research interests center on the geographies of capitalism
- Areas of specialty include the Middle East and North America
- Teaches Marx and Marxism, Political Geography of the Middle East, Revolutions, Introduction to Global Cultural Studies, Sociological Foundations, Sociology of Marriage and Family and World Geography
Part-Time Faculty
Jessica Benigni Bowers
Pat Boyle
Guiliana Patricia Certo
Marilyn Davidson
Matthew Fazio
Mary Marshall Highet
Catherine Houghton
Paul Houghton
Jeaneen K. Kish
Jonathan Manning
Abby Mendelson
Bridgette Nofsinger
Sandra Pyle
James Rosenberg
Fred Shaw
Jill Walter
Kellie D. Weiss-Strasburg
Staff
Kristene Julian, assistant to the chair
Email: kjulian@pointpark.edu
Office Phone: 412-392-8068
Office: 706 Lawrence Hall