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Washington and Lee University

Washington and Lee University
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Faculty and Staff

Department Chair

  • Marc Conner
    Jo M. and James Ballengee Professor of English
    Payne 108
    (540) 458-8924
    connerm@wlu.edu

    Modernity and modern narrative; twentieth-century American fiction; African-American literature; modern Irish literature; literature and philosophy; literature and religion.

    Curriculum Vitae

Faculty

  • Edward Adams
    Professor of English
    Washington 116
    (540) 458- 8764
    adamse@wlu.edu

    History and fiction; novel and epic; high culture and popular culture.
  • Jasmin Darznik
    Assistant Professor of English
    Washington 111
    (540) 458-8311
    darznikj@wlu.edu

    Twentieth and twenty-first century American literature; creative writing.

    Professional Website
  • Hank Dobin
    Professor of English
    Payne 124
    hdobin@wlu.edu

    on sabbatical 2012-13

    Shakespeare, late Elizabethan literature and culture
  • Genelle Gertz
    Associate Professor of English and Writing Program Director
    Payne 111
    (540) 458-8763
    gertzg@wlu.edu

    Medieval and early modern women writers; the Reformation; republicanism and the English revolution; prophecy, mysticism and heresy trials; the politics of reading.
  • Curtis Jirsa
    Assistant Professor of English
    Payne 202
    (540) 458-8345
    JirsaC@wlu.edu

    Lyric poetry, hybrid texts, sequences; medieval English literature; Anglo-Norman poetry; Arthuriana; sermons; Germanic linguistics; intersections between the sacred and the secular.
  • Suzanne Keen
    Thomas H. Broadus Professor of English and Interim Dean of the College
    Lee-Jackson House / Payne 110 TR 8-9 a.m.
    (540) 458-8746 DOC office / (540) 458-8759 English Dept
    skeen@wlu.edu

    in the Office of the Dean of the College 2012-14

    Students may consult any dean. Dean Keen receives petitions concerning academic matters for the Committee on Courses and Degrees: http://www.wlu.edu/x35809.xml. For petitions to the Faculty Executive Committee, please contact Dean Peppers in the Williams School.
  • Deborah Miranda
    Associate Professor of English
    Payne 305
    (540) 458-8755
    mirandad@wlu.edu

    on sabbatical leave on a Lenfest supported fellowship 2012-13.

    Poetry; Native American women's literature; literatures of U.S. populations whose work has been traditionally overlooked; indigenous erotics.

    Professional Website
  • Holly Pickett
    Associate Professor of English
    Payne 304
    (540) 458-8078
    picketth@wlu.edu

    Shakespeare, medieval and early modern drama, history of drama, religious identities and controversies, representations of religious difference.

    Curriculum Vitae
  • Rod T. Smith
    Writer-in-Residence | Editor, Shenandoah
    17 Court House Square
    (540) 458-8908
    rodsmith@wlu.edu

    Fiction, poetry; editor of Shenandoah.

    Professional Website
  • Kary Smout
    Associate Professor of English, Director of the Writing Center
    Washington 112
    (540) 458-8979
    smoutk@wlu.edu

    Rhetoric and culture; writing instruction; the politics of higher education; Native American literature; southern American literature; western American literature.
  • Jim Warren
    S. Blount Mason, Jr. Professor of English
    Payne 214
    (540) 458-8761
    warrenj@wlu.edu

    Nineteenth-century literature and culture; literature of the environment; Walt Whitman.
  • Lesley Wheeler
    Henry S. Fox Professor of English
    Payne 308
    (540) 458-8758
    wheelerlm@wlu.edu

    Twentieth-century and twenty-first-century poetry in English: sound, voice, performance, gender, community.

    Professional Website

Visiting Faculty

Department Secretary

Emeritus Faculty

  • Edwin Craun
    Professor of English Emeritus
    Washington 108
    (540) 458-8757
    craune@wlu.edu

    Retired June 2011.

    Medieval literature; justice and law in Medieval and Renaissance literature; virtues and vices; social reform in the Middle Ages.