Faculty and Staff
Katherine H. Adams, Hutchinson Professor of English, received her Ph.D. in English from Florida State University in 1981. Her book publications include Alice Paul and the American Suffrage Campaign, Controlling Representations: Depictions of Women in a Mainstream Newspaper, 1900-1950, A Group of Their Own: College Writing Courses and American Women Writers, 1880-1940, The Easy Access Handbook, A History of Professional Writing Instruction in American Colleges, Progressive Politics and the Training of America's Persuaders, Teaching Advanced Composition: Why and How, and The Accomplished Writer. She has also published many scholarly articles and reviews. Her primary fields of instruction include research writing, creative non-fiction, professional writing, and rhetorical theory. She received the Dux Academicus Award. Professor Adams may be contacted at 504-865-3841 or by email at kadams at loyno.edu. Professor Adams' home page: http://chn.loyno.edu/~kadams/
Robert Bell, Instructor,was born and raised in New Orleans and its confines. He was even able to receive an education in New Orleans: B. A. from Loyola University, MFA from the University of New Orleans. In addition to being the Interim Director for Writing Across the Curriculum, he teaches first-year writing and literature, twentieth century literature, and occasionally Irish film. In his spare time, he has been working on his…he has no spare time. Because he is from and lives in New Orleans, he loves to travel. He can be contacted at 504.865.3094 or rcbell at loyno.edu.
![Biguenet Photo [credit: Harold Baquet]](images/Biguenet.jpg)
John Biguenet is the author of Oyster, a novel, and The Torturer's Apprentice: Stories, published by Ecco/HarperCollins. Among his other books are Foreign Fictions (Random House) and three co-edited volumes on literary translation, The Craft of Translation and Theories of Translation (The University of Chicago Press),
as well as Strange Harbors (Center for the Art of Translation). Biguenet’s radio play Wundmale, which premiered on Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Germany's largest radio network, was rebroadcast by Österreichischer Rundfunk, the Austrian national radio and television network. Two of his stories have been featured in Selected Shorts at Symphony Space on Broadway. The Vulgar Soul won the 2004 Southern New Plays Festival and was a featured production in 2005 at Southern Rep Theatre; he and the play were profiled in American Theatre magazine. His new play, Rising Water, was the winner of the 2006 National New Play Network Commission Award, a 2006 National Showcase of New Plays selection, 2007 recipient of an Access to Artistic Excellence development and production grant from the National Endowment for the Arts,
and the 2007 Big Easy Best Original Play award. He was also named Big Easy 2008 Theatre Person of the Year. He won a 2007 Marquette Fellowship for the writing of his next play, Night Train,
which he then developed on a Studio Attachment at the Royal National Theatre in London. His work has received an O. Henry Award and a Harper's Magazine Writing Award among other distinctions, and his stories and essays have been reprinted or cited in The Best American Mystery Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, The Best American Short Stories, and Best Music Writing. Having served twice as president of the American Literary Translators Association and as writer-in-residence at various universities, he is currently the Robert Hunter Distinguished Professor at Loyola. Named its first guest columnist by The New York Times, Biguenet has chronicled in both columns and videos his return to New Orleans after its catastrophic flooding and the efforts to rebuild the city. Professor Biguenet may be contacted at 504-865-2474 or by email at biguenet at loyno.edu. Professor Biguenet's homepage:
http://chn.loyno.edu/~biguenet/
Christopher Chambers, Associate Professor, was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and has since lived in North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota, Florida, Alabama, Texas, and Louisiana. After receiving a degree in English at the University of Wisconsin—River Falls, he worked as a carpenter, a bartender, a dockworker, and a lifeguard. He has taught martial arts in Minneapolis, high school in south Florida, and writing in 
Alabama. He received an MFA degree from the University of Alabama, where he was editor of the Black Warrior Review. He has written for television, and has published fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and book reviews in The Gettysburg Review, Ninth Letter, Quarterly West, Carolina Quarterly, Indiana Review, Exquisite Corpse, CopperNickel, Louisiana Literature, Denver Quarterly, Epoch, Georgetown Review, Notre Dame Review, Washington Square, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Lit, BOMB Magazine, Fourteen Hills, and elsewhere. His work has received four Pushcart Prize nominations, and has been anthologized in French Quarter Fiction, Knoxville Bound, Maple Street Rag, and Best American Mystery Stories 2003. He received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for creative writing in 2008. He teaches courses in creative writing, screenwriting, and editing & publishing, and is editor of New Orleans Review.
Professor Chambers may be contacted at 504-865-2475 or by email at chambers at loyno.edu.
William Cotton, Associate Professor, B.A. Cornell, M.A.-Ph.D. University of New Mexico, teaches English Renaissance, particularly Spenser and Milton, as well as two genres, utopia and epic. An Associate Professor of English, his publication has been in medieval subjects and in utopia studies. Dr. Cotton directs the English Honors Thesis Program and moderates The Reader's Response. He has served as Department Chair, Director of the University Honors Program, and in 1991, was named Dux Academicus. Cotton is a co-founder of New Orleans Fencing Academy, member of New Orleans Badminton Club, and a distance runner who has completed four marathons. Professor Cotton may be contacted at 504-865-2480 or by email at cotton at loyno.edu.
Brooke Ethridge, Instructor, earned her M.A. in English Literature from Drew University where she 
studied Modernist writers and poets. Her other academic interests include African-American literature, rhetoric and composition, Southern literature, and graphic novels. Before all that, she spent her time growing up on the family peanut farm in rural Alabama. Several years ago, she visited New Orleans and fell in love with the place, the people, and the culture and decided to live here one day. Currently, she enjoys the fantastic food, wonderful music, and crazy festivals that the city has to offer. She teaches first-year writing and literature classes and may be contacted at bethridg at loyno.edu.
Barbara C. Ewell is the Dorothy Harrell Brown Distinguished Professor, with a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Notre Dame. She is author of Kate Chopin, a bio-critical study, lots of 
articles on Renaissance poetry, various North American writers, and feminist pedagogy. She has co-edited two collections, Louisiana Women Writers: Critical Essays and Bibliography and Southern Local Color: Stories of Region, Race and Gender. A native of Baker, Louisiana, she attended the University of Dallas and taught across the fence at Tulane and up the road at the University of Mississippi before settling in at Loyola's City College in 1984. She continues to instruct and advise adult students in the Evening Division and teaches in the Women's Studies Program. She received the Dux Academicus Award in 2003 and can be obsessive about recycling. Professor Ewell may be contacted at 504-865-2160, or by email at bewell at loyno.edu. Professor Ewell's homepage is http://loyno.edu/~bewell
Robert Ficociello, Instructor, has had a varied education, including a B.S. in Marine Biology from UMass, an M.F.A. from the University of New Orleans, and with anticipation, a Ph.D. from SUNY Albany. His dissertation research focuses on "The Cultural and Literary Discourse of War in the 20th Century." Which means? How and where does our nation talk about war in media and literature? His fiction has appeared in Mobius, Short Story, South Dakota Review, and the New Orleans Review. Growing up in New England, he has worked as a clam digger ["diggah"], club DJ, organic chemist, bartender ["bahtendah"], and plumber ["plumbah"]. These days, he teaches creative writing and composition. Contact Mr. Fic at rficocie at loyno.edu.
Dale Hrebik, Instructor, earned his Master's degree in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California with concentrations in fiction and screenwriting. His stories have appeared in magazines such as Short Story and Third Coast. Before coming to New Orleans he worked in New York's East Village as a waiter and bartender. When not teaching composition and creative writing, he has been spotted playing in a rock band. He can be contacted at 504-865-2771 or dshrebik at loyno.edu.
Jennifer Jeanfreau, Instructor, was born and raised in New Orleans. She earned a B.A. in English from Louisiana State University, a B.A. in art history from the University of Texas, and an M.A. from the University of New Orleans. She also received a less formal education from previous employment as a bartender, college recruiter, pre-school teacher, and summer camp coordinator. Her primary teaching interests are in first year writing and literature, Southern American literature,and African-American literature. She may be contacted at 865-2278, or jnjeanfr at loyno.edu.
Jarret Lofstead, Instructor, received his B.A. in History (concentration: Eastern Europe) from West Virginia University and his MFA in Creative Writing (concentration: Poetry) from the University of New Orleans in 2002. He is the publisher of NOLAFugees.com and NOLAFugees Press, and the co-editor of the collections Year Zero: A Year of Reporting from post-Katrina New Orleans, Life in the Wake: Fiction from post-Katrina New Orleans, and the forthcoming Soul Is Bulletproof: Reports from Reconstruction New Orleans. He lives in the 12th Ward. He can be contacted at jjlofste at loyno.edu or at 504-865-2771.
Andrew Macdonald, Professor, was born in
Buenos Aires, Argentina and initially educated in bilingual British schools.
He earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from Tulane University and
a Ph.D. from the University of Texas (Austin), with specialties in English
Renaissance literature and composition/practical linguistics. He has published
in popular culture studies and cultural/linguistic problems in second
language learning. He is co-author of Mastering Writing Essentials,
a text for second language speakers. His book Howard Fast explores the
novelist's contributions to American culture. He served as Academic Director
of the Loyola Intensive English program for seven years.
Professor Macdonald may be contacted at 504-865-2478 or by email at mdonald at loyno.edu.
Mary McCay trained as an Olympic swimmer, but gave it up because she could not read while 
swimming. Instead, she earned a B.A. (from Catholic University of America), M.A. (from Boston College), & Ph.D. in English (from Tufts University). That led, by a rather circuitous route, to Loyola University. She teaches American Literature, Film, Travel Writing and Irish Literature. Reading leads to writing, and her books, Rachel Carson and Ellen Gilchrist, are the result, as well as numerous articles on American literature and culture and Irish Literature and film. She also directs Loyola's Irish Studies Summer Program at Trinity College, Dublin; the Americans in Paris Program in Paris; and two exchange programs: Keele University in the UK and Radboud University in The Netherlands. One day, she might swim the Channel. Meanwhile, she received the Dux Academicus in 2004. The Landrieu Distinguished Teaching Professor, she is currently serving as Interim Dean of HNS, but will be freed and sabbatical from January 1, 2009-December 31, 2009. Professor McCay may be contacted at 504-865-2910 or by email at mccay at loyno.edu. Professor McCay's homepage: http://chn.loyno.edu/english/mccay.html
Peggy McCormack, Professor, earned all of her degrees in Houston, at Rice University and the University of St. Thomas, a liberal arts university like Loyola--where she enjoyed getting a B.A. so much that, as soon as she finished her Ph.D. at Rice, she returned to St. Thomas to teach; in 1981, Dr. McCormack came to Loyola. Her publications include a book on Henry James, examining gender and economic exchange theory and an edited collection of essays on James which focuses on gender studies. She teaches courses on American film and literature andBritish fiction. Professor McCormack may be contacted at 504-865-2473 or by email at cormack at loyno.edu.
Melanie McKay, Associate Professor, received her Ph.D. in English from Tulane University in 1982 and joined Loyola's English department in 1990. A serious traveler, Dr. McKay has made it to five continents so far and hopes to see them all someday. In the 80s and 90s, she supported her travel habit with work as a professional writing consultant, and in 2000 published a series of textbooks on workplace writing. She has also published articles in her favorite teaching fields—women’s studies and culture studies—and a book on images of women in the press (Controlling Representations: Depictions of Women in a Mainstream Newspaper, 1900-1950). She has worked extensively with New Orleans’ literary community, and served for three years as the programming director for the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival. Professor McKay may be contacted at 504-864-7197 or by email at mckay at loyno.edu. Professor McKay's homepage: http://chns.loyno.edu/~mckay/
John Mosier, Professor of English, earned his Ph.D. at Tulane University in 1968, where he held a double fellowship in English and Music and wrote a dissertation on the relationship between 
historiography and epic poetry. He teaches modern European fiction and the 18th century novel. An active film critic (he served on the Camera d'Or jury at the Cannes Film Festival), he wrote the concluding essay in the Cambridge University study, Jane Austen on Screen, together with over 100 articles on film for Kino, Americas, Variety, and the New Orleans Arts Review. As a military historian, Mosier has written four books: The Myth of the Great War (nominated for a Pulitzer Prize), The Blitzkrieg Myth, The Generalship of U. S. Grant, and Cross of Iron. In connection with these books he has appeared on the BBC, Fox News, the History Channel, Sky News, and Comcast. His books are currently being translated into French and Czech, while he finishes a volume on
the Eastern front in WW2 for Simon and Schuster. Professor Mosier may be contacted at 504-865-2296 or by email at jmosier at loyno.edu.
Nancy Rowe, Instructor and Assistant Director of Writing Across the Curriculum, also teaches argumentative writing, creative writing and introductory literature courses. She received an MFA with distinction from the University of New Orleans and earned a BS from Colorado State University. Nancy has published several non-fiction pieces in Architect/Builder and in Louisiana in Words. Additionally, she won a first place award for fiction at the Gulf Coast Association of Creative Writing Teachers conference. Nancy taught writing at Tulane University and has also tutored graduate students in Loyola’s Institute of Ministry. Her writing and literary curiosities lean toward magical realism, young adult fiction and gothic Southern literature. Some of her favorite writings come from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Flannery O’Connor, Rumi and Lorrie Moore. Additionally, Nancy has an interesting collection of perfectly round rocks that she has plucked from various US states and countries. Professor Rowe may be contacted at 504-865-2297 or at nprowe at loyno.edu.
Janelle Schwartz Assistant Professor, has made the switch from the icy wilds of Alaska to the humid hospitality of New Orleans. She received her Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she also earned her M.A. in Comparative Literature. As a licensed Zamboni driver, she helped pay for graduate school by resurfacing the ice for Badger Hockey. Her B.A. is in 
Comparative Literature from Hamilton College, to which she later returned as a Visiting Instructor from 2005-2007. Currently, her research is in 18th-century science and Romantic literature, which specifically includes entomological study across disciplinary boundaries and the polar explorations of Captain James Cook. Her additional academic interests reside in gothic literature, the Victorian Age, and popular culture, such as science fiction, B-horror films, and professional wrestling. (Undoubtedly, her professional life and her personal life suffer no great rift!) She is currently co-editing a collection of essays on the Wunderkammern, or cabinets of curiosity, due out from Cambridge Scholars Press in 2009. And her article, "'Unchanging but in form': The Aesthetic Episteme of Erasmus Darwin," will be appearing in the collection, Erasmus Darwin and the Life Sciences. Professor Schwartz may be contacted at 504-865-2479 or, better yet, by email at jschwart at loyno.edu.
John T. Sebastian, Assistant Professor, was an undergraduate at GeorgetownUniversity and earned his Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from Cornell University. Most of his research focuses on fourteenth- and fifteenth-century English religious writing, especially the devotional lyric, drama, and mystical texts. His interests also include the history of literacy, paleography and codicology, and gender and class studies. In his courses, John teaches the literatures and cultures of the medieval world from Iceland to Japan. Outside of the English department, he is the Director of Loyola's Medieval Studies Program and the Deputy Director of the University Honors Program. Professor Sebastian may be contacted at 504-865-2277 or at jtsebast at loyno.edu. His web page is http://www.loyno.edu/~jtsebast .
Jennifer Shimek, Instructor, is a native of Erie, Pennsylvania. She earned her undergraduate degree from Tulane University and her Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the University of Houston. She has taught adult development classes to both business people and law enforcement officers, and has taught composition as an adjunct faculty member at Tulane University. Currently a member of the adjunct faculty at Loyola, she serves as a graduate-student writing Consultant and Publications Specialist at the Loyola Institute for Ministry. She also copy edits the annual journal Contemporary Austrian Studies, and works as a copy editor and typesetter for volumes on twentieth-century Austria, including SouthTyrol: A Minority Conflict and Transatlantic Relations: Austria and Latin America in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Marcus Smith, Associate Professor, the oldest beard in the department, takes great delight in engaging his students in debate and loves being challenged by them. When he was in high school, he won a summer-long trip on a cargo ship to Panama, Tahiti and Australia and developed chronic wanderlust. He has traveled on every continent and has lived in Columbia, Lebanon, Italy, Mexico and Pakistan. He is also an attorney and a notary public. Despite mischievous rumors, he absolutely denies that he is Thomas Pynchon. Professor Smith may be contacted at 504-865-2481 or by email at marcus at loyno.edu.
Mary Waguespack, Instructor, is a native New Orleanian. She holds a B.A. in Literature from Louisiana State University and an M.A. in literature from Boston University. After graduate studies and several years spent teaching writing at Boston University, she returned home to New Orleans in 1988 and joined Loyola's English Department in 1989. She currently teaches courses in developmental writing and freshman composition in the English Department, and also serves as Faculty Writing Consultant in the Writing Across the Curriculum Center. She also teaches regularly in Loyola's Summer Bridge program for incoming freshmen. Professor Waguespack may be contacted at 504-865-2176 or by email at wagues at loyno.edu. Professor Waguespack's homepage: http://chn.loyno.edu/~wagues/
Tracey Watts, Instructor, sold her yoga studio to return to academia and, strangely enough, couldn't be more 
delighted with her choice. She earned her Master's degree at the University of Montana in Missoula, and she is currently in candidacy for a Ph.D. in Ethnic and Third World Literatures at the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation inquires into the idea of New Orleans in American literature, especially into the city's frequent representation as a"jungle." Her poems have appeared in New Delta Review, The Portland Review Literary Journal, and Anteitam Review. Her first published scholarly article, "The Problems of Perspective in Mongo Beti's The Poor Christ of Bomba," is slated to appear in early 2009. She is thrilled to be teaching at her alma mater, where she herself graduated with a degree in English (concentration in writing). She can be contacted by email at tawatts at loyno.edu. Or check out her website: http://www.loyno.edu/~tawatts. If you're hunting, you might even find her on Facebook.
Mark Yakich, Associate Professor, began reading poems because they were short and began reading novels because the characters couldn’t talk back to him. His favorite poem is the “Whiteness” chapter of Moby-Dick and his favorite post-modern novel is the Bible. Mark has worked in the European Parliament and has degrees in political science (B.A., Illinois Wesleyan University), West European studies (M.A., Indiana University), creative writing (M.F.A., University of Memphis), and English (Ph.D., Florida State University). He is the author of three poetry collections: Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross (National Poetry Series, Penguin 2004), The Making of Collateral Beauty (Snowbound Chapbook Award, Tupelo 2006), and The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine (Penguin 2008). Mark’s website is markyakich.com, and he may be contacted at yakich at loyno.edu.
Staff
Carey Herman is the Office Manager in the English Department, Bobet 318. You can reach her at (504) 865-2275 or herman at loyno.edu
Amberly Fox is the Administrative Assistant for the Writing across the Curriculum Program in the English Department, Bobet 318. You can reach her at (504) 865-2295 or at amfox at loyno.edu
Professors Emeriti
Phanuel Akubueze Egejuru, after studying in Nigeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast and France, migrated to University of Minnesota and graduated Magna cum Laude, French. Moving to UCLA, she obtained her M.A., M.P.H. and Ph.D. in Comp. Lit. She taught at UCLA, and in Tanzania, New York, Nigeria, and Rhode Island before Loyola. A Professor of English at Loyola, Egejuru taught Composition, Short Fiction, Black Literature and Black Aesthetics. She also taught nineteenth-century British fiction and Victorian England. She has published books in literary criticism, a novel, and poeticized proverbs. Professor Egejuru may be contacted by email at egejuru at loyno.edu
Ronald Foust received his Ph.D. in 20th Century British & American Literature (with a dissertation in Literary Criticism) from the University of Maryland in 1976, and has taught courses in expository writing, modern literature, literary criticism, modernism and science fiction and fantasy literature at Loyola since 1981. He has published one book and numerous articles in the areas of modern literature, literary theory and science fiction and fantasy literature, is active in a variety of other scholarly, community and teaching activities, and is currently writing a book on literary theory. Professor Foust may be contacted by email at refoust at loyno.edu.