The English Department is pleased to welcome new faculty to campus this fall:
Michelle Karnes
Associate Professor of English
PhD from: University of Pennsylvania
Joins us from: Stanford University, where she was Associate Professor
Specialties: Late medieval literature, philosophy, and religion
Teaching: ENGL 30110, British Literature I, and ENGL 40299, Medieval Visions; has also taught Chaucer, medieval mysticism, medievalism, medieval romance, world literature, Bible as literature, Dante and Aristotle
Michelle Karnes studies late medieval literature in its intellectual context. She investigates medieval theories about how literature affects us—how it engages us, confuses us, or amazes us—by looking at medieval literature and philosophy in tandem. Her first book, Imagination, Meditation, and Cognition in the Middle Ages (University of Chicago Press, 2011), explores the role of imagination in medieval religious meditations and theories of cognition. Her current project studies marvels in medieval romance and philosophy.
Ernest Morrell
Professor of English
Coyle Professor in Literacy Education
Director, Notre Dame Center for Literacy
PhD from: University of California, Berkeley
Joins us from: Teachers College, Columbia University, where he was Macy Professor of English Education
Specialties: English Education, the African Diaspora, Media and Popular Culture, Literacy and Freedom, Postcolonial Studies, Literature for Children
Teaches: The Teaching of English, Literature for Children, Youth Popular Culture, Introduction to Post-colonialism, African Diaspora
Ernest Morrell has written more than 80 articles and book chapters and authored 8 books including New Directions in Teaching English, Doing Youth Participatory Research, The Art of Critical Pedagogy, Critical Literacy and Urban Youth, and Critical Media Pedagogy: Teaching for Achievement in City Schools, which was awarded Outstanding Academic Title for 2014 by Choice Magazine of the American Library Association. He is also an elected member of the AERA Council, elected Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, a past president of the National Council of Teachers of English, an appointed member of the International Literacy Association’s Research Panel, and convener of the African Diaspora International Research Network. For more about Ernest's work see this article.
Sarah Quesada
Assistant Professor of English
Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Latino Studies
PhD from: Stanford University
Joins us from: The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she was a Postdoctoral Associate
Specialties: Latina/o Literature, Transnational Literature, Hispanic Caribbean and Afro-Latina/o Literature, African Diaspora Studies
Teaching: ENGL 13186-13, The Extraordinary Americas: “Magic” and Reality in 20th- and 21st-century Latina/o and Latin American Literature
Sarah Margarita Quesada’s research and teaching interests include 20th- and 21st-century Latina/o, Chicana/o, and Caribbean Latin American literatures. Her main focus is on the constructions of race, gender, sexuality, and spiritual formation of the Latino/a African Diaspora in literature, especially in relation to West African heritage. She examines the links between West African spaces of memory and Latino/a storytelling.
Francisco Robles
Assistant Professor of English
Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Latino Studies
PhD from: Princeton University
Joins us from: Connecticut College, where he was Visiting Assistant Professor
Specialties: Chicanx Literature, African American Literature, Multiethnic American Literature, Postcolonial Literature
Teaching: ENGL 13186-12, On the Move: Migration in American Literature; ENGL 40828, American Migrant Communities; has also taught Race and Literary Criticism, Black Genre Fiction, Chicano/a/x Literature, Toni Morrison, American Jewish Writers, Graphic Novels and Comics, Modern Evil
Francisco E. Robles teaches and researches in American Literatures of the twentieth century, and he focuses in particular on Chicanx Literature, African American Literature, and Multiethnic American Literature more broadly. He also works on contemporary literature and culture, literature and ethics, LGBTQ* Literature, Postcolonial Literature, and Southwestern US Literature. Dr. Robles’s current book project, Migrant Modes: Aesthetics on the Move in the Long Popular Front, examines literary and musical representations of migrants in the United States.
Mark Sanders
Professor of English and Africana Studies
PhD from: Brown University
Joins us from: Emory University, where he was Professor of English and African American Studies
Specialties: African-American literature of the 20th century and Afro-Latino literature and culture
Teaching: ENGL 13186-14, The Black First Person (USem), ENGL 40823, Early African American Prose
Mark A. Sanders specializes in early twentieth-century American and African American literature and culture, more specifically, the connections between “mainstream” American modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. His research interests also include American and African American poetics, race theory, the African American novel, African American autobiography, and Afro-Cuban and Afro-Latino literature and culture. Professor Sanders teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century African American literature and culture, exploring issues of racial and cultural identity, citizenship, and freedom.