Peter Balaam teaches courses in early American literature and culture, with a special interest in the 19th century. He is currently at work on a book on mourning in the antebellum era. Degrees: University of California Berkeley, B.A.; Princeton Theological Seminary, M.Div.; Princeton University, M.A., Ph.D.

Wayne Carver, William H. Laird Professor of Liberal Arts, Emeritus, graduated from Weber Junior College (Ogden, Utah) and Kenyon College (Gambier, Ohio) and joined the English faculty of Carleton in 1954. At Carleton he was in on the beginning of the teacher certification program, the American Studies Program, and The Carleton Miscellany. He worked on the Miscellany for its first seventeen years. He continues to write and publish ephemera and to teach whenever and wherever he has the chance. Degrees: B.A. Kenyon College

Arnab Chakladar teaches and writes on South Asian literature and film, and postcolonial studies. He has published on the marketing of Indian literature, the novels of Shashi Deshpande, and multilingual publishing and translation on the Web. He is the founder of AnotherSubcontinent.com, an online journal and forum on South Asian society and culture. He is unhealthily obsessed with his dogs. Degrees: Delhi University (Hindu College), BA; University of Southern California, Ph.D."

Nancy Cho teaches and writes on nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature, Asian American literature, and contemporary multicultural drama. She also offers courses in American studies. Degrees: Yale, B.A.; Michigan (Ann Arbor), M.A., Ph.D.

Adriana Estill teaches courses on U.S. Latino/a literature and twentieth century American literature, especially poetry. She also teaches in the American Studies program. She has published essays on Sandra Cisneros and Ana Castillo and recently contributed to the Gale encyclopedia of Latino/a authors with scholarly entries on Sandra María Esteves and Giannina Braschi. Her interest in popular culture has led to published articles on Mexican telenovelas and their literary origins as well as to current research into the perceptions and constructions of Latina beauty in contemporary Latino literature and the mass media. Degrees: Stanford B.A.; Cornell, M.A., Ph.D.

Keith Harrison, an internationally known poet, was a Professor of English and Writer in Residence at Carleton from 1968 to 1996. He taught beginning and advanced Crafts of Writing Poetry and experimental classes in poetry recitation. A recent book, entitled Changes: New and Collected Poems, 1959-2002, was published in 2002 by the Black Willow Press.

Pierre Hecker’s areas of teaching interest include Shakespeare; the drama, poetry, and prose of the English Renaissance; drama in performance; visual culture; the history, theory, and criticism of drama and film; screenwriting; and genre fiction. Degrees: Wesleyan, B.A.; Columbia, M.F.A. (Film); Oxford, M.Phil and D.Phil.

Gregory Hewett teaches American literature and creative writing. He has a special interest in poetry and poetics. His third book of poems, The Eros Conspiracy, has recently been published by Coffee House Press. Greg has been a Fulbright Fellow, Fulbright Professor, and a Fellow at the Camargo Foundation, Cassis, France. Degrees: New York (Binghamton), B.A.; California (Davis), M.A.; New York (Albany), D.A.

Susan Jaret McKinstry teaches courses on Jane Austen, the Victorian novel, Victorian poetry and painting, narrative theory, literary theory, and creative writing. Her current research explores poetry and painting, book illustration, and the book as object in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. She is the Helen F. Lewis Professor of English. Degrees: Miami (Ohio), B.A., M.A.; Michigan, Ph.D.

Michael Kowalewski teaches courses in American literature and culture. He is a former Director of American Studies and active in the Environmental and Technology Studies (ENTS) program. He is a former president of the Western Literature Association and the author or editor of several books, including Deadly Musings: Violence and Verbal Form in American Fiction (1993), Reading the West: New Essays on the Literature of the American West (1996), and Gold Rush: A Literary Exploration (1997). Degrees: Amherst, B.A.; Rutgers, M.A., Ph.D.

Jessica Leiman teaches and writes on British literature of the long eighteenth century, with particular focus on the novel, life-writing, gender and sexuality, and contemporary print culture. She is currently working on a book on impotence and authorship in eighteenth-century fictional and nonfictional personal histories. Degrees: Williams, B.A.; Yale, M.A., Ph.D.

James McDonnell specializes in Irish literature, modern criticism and Shakespeare; he has, on a number of occasions, taken a college seminar studying Irish literature in Ireland. Degrees: Cambridge, B.A., M.A.; Washington University (St. Louis), Ph.D.

Elizabeth McKinsey is returning to the classroom, after thirteen years as Dean of the College, and to her "first love" American literature and American Studies. Her scholarship has focused on 19th century American literature, art, and culture; 20th century Southern literature; and issues in liberal education. She taught previously at Harvard University and Bryn Mawr College. Degrees: Harvard-Radcliffe A.B., Harvard Ph.D.

Since 2003, Doug McGill has been an adjunct professor of journalism and mass media at the University of St. Thomas, and has lectured on global citizenship ethics at schools including the Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Harvard University, the Poynter Institute, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Marquette University and Missouri State University. For the past four years, he has taught mass media issues and journalism skills to Minnesota citizens wishing to understand more about the threat to democracy posed by journalism’s decline, and who want to start publishing journalism themselves on the Internet.

Kofi Owusu teaches and writes on African, African American, British, and Anglophone literatures; he is the director of the African/African American Studies program. Degrees: University of Ghana, B.A.; University of Edinburgh, M.Litt.; University of Alberta, Ph.D.

Timothy Raylor teaches English literature with a focus on Renaissance poetry and drama. Degrees: Newcastle upon Tyne, B.A.; Oxford (Worcester College), D.Phil.

Mary Lahr Schier has more than 25 years experience as a professional writer, covering topics as diverse as public policy, law, the arts and gardening. She currently edits Northern Gardener magazine and works as a freelance journalist.  Degrees: Minnesota, B.A.; St. Thomas (St. Paul), M.A.

George Shuffelton teaches and writes on medieval literature, with a particular interest in Chaucer, Langland, and Gower. His current research concentrates on the relationship between miscellany manuscripts and Middle English poetry. Degrees: Harvard, A.B.; Cambridge, M.Phil.; Yale, Ph.D.

Gregory Blake Smith teaches classes in American literature and creative writing. He is the author of two novels, The Devil in the Dooryard and The Divine Comedy of John Venner, which was selected as a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times. A new novel, The Madonna of Las Vegas, will be published by Crown in 2005. Degrees: Bowdoin, A.B.; Iowa, M.F.A.

Click here for Greg Smith's web site.

George Soule, Professor Emeritus, published in 1988 Four British Women Novelists: Anita Brookner, Margaret Drabble, Iris Murdoch, Barbara Pym, An Annotated and Critical Secondary Bibliography. He teaches courses on Shakespeare, James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Wordsworth, Jane Austen, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Murdoch, and John Fowles for the Cannon Valley Elder Collegium of Northfield and lectures for the Wordsworth Winter School in Grasmere, Cumbria. Degrees: Carleton, B.A.; Yale, M.A., Ph. D.

Professor Soule's new web site: http://apps.carleton.edu/people/gsoule/

Constance Walker teaches courses on rhetoric, Romanticism, and Jane Austen. Her current research involves the literary culture of the Austen family. Degrees: Allegheny, B.A.; Pennsylvania, M.A., Ph.D.

Liz Ciner has been at Carleton since 1982, when she was hired to run the Write Place and the writing program and to teach rhetoric. Her major fields of interest in English are American multi-cultural literature and composition. Although she has served as associate dean of the college for over two decades, she continues to read in both areas and supervises independent studies on multicultural autobiography, in selected authors and in rhetoric and composition. Degrees: University of Pennsylvania, BA; MA, University of Washington, MA, PhD.

Carol Rutz has directed the College Writing Program since 1997. In addition to teaching at least two writing courses per year, she works closely with faculty to help them employ writing in their courses--whatever the discipline. Recently, she has been active in the Quantitative Inquiry, Reasoning, and Knowledge (QuIRK) initiative, which seeks to teach students to use quantitative reasoning in written argument. Her research interests include response to student writing, assessment of writing, and assessment of faculty development. Degrees: Gustavus Adolphus, B.A.; Hamline, M.A.; Minnesota, PhD.

Carolyn Soule is the English Department's Administrative Assistant. Working with her faculty colleagues and her student office assistants and learning new computer programs make her job a pleasure. Building and revising this web site is her current computer project. She also has taught composition and word processing in the Carleton Summer Writing Program. Degrees: Carleton, B.A.; Harvard, M.A.