The following is a list of faculty and staff in the Department of English who are easily reachable and willing to serve as experts for purposes of media inquiry. If you seek information about a topic not covered here, please contact the department’s Communications Director Kristen LaRue (480-965-7611) for more information or to reach another member of the faculty not listed here.
→ More information and additional media resources are available in the comprehensive ASU Experts Directory. ←
President's Professor, Environmental Humanities, Department of English
Senior Sustainability Scholar, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability
Director, Environmental Humanities Initiative, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability
Inaugural Affiliate, Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing
Affiliate, School for the Future of Innovation in Society
Joni.Adamson@asu.edu | 480-727-3675
- Environmental literature and film
- Climate fiction
- Climate change
- Sonoran Desert cultures, literatures and ethnobotany
- Desert cities and urban humanities
- Global Indigenous literatures and scientific literacies
- Stories plants tell
- Environmental justice movements
- Food justice/sovereignty
Sally Ball
Professor, Creative Writing, Department of English
Associate Director, Four Way Books (New York City)
sally.ball@asu.edu (pref) | 480-965-5829
- Contemporary American poetry (from the avant to the more mainstream)
- Literary publishing, editing
Lee Bebout
Professor, Department of English
Affiliate Faculty, School of Transborder Studies
Affiliate Faculty, Program in American Studies, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies
- Race
- Immigration
- White supremacy
- Mexican American literature and culture
James Blasingame
Professor, Department of English
Affiliate Faculty, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College
Executive Director, Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English (ALAN)
- Young adult literature
- Teacher training
- Indigenous education
- Secondary writing instruction
- Cowboy poetry
- Viennese waltz (dancer)
Ron Broglio
Professor, Department of English
Director, Institute for Humanities Research
Senior Sustainability Scholar, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability
ron.broglio@asu.edu | 404-723-1130
- Animals and culture
- History of agriculture 1700-present
- History of livestock 1700-present
- Continental philosophy from Kant to the present
Jessica Early
Professor / Associate Chair, Personnel, Department of English
Director, Central Arizona Writing Project
Jessica.early@asu.edu | 480-965-0742
- Secondary (grades 6-12) writing instruction
- English education
- College and career-ready writing
- Professional development
- Teaching of secondary (grades 6-12) writing
Ed Finn
Associate Professor, Arts, Media and Engineering / Department of English
Director, Center for Science and the Imagination
Affilate Faculty, Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes
Affiliate Faculty, Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing
Affiliate Faculty, Human & Social Dimensions of Science & Technology
Affiliate Faculty, Barrett, The Honors College
edfinn@asu.edu | 480-382-2116
- Contemporary fiction
- Digital culture
- Science fiction
- Imagination
- Creativity
- Understanding the imagination
- Using storytelling to change how we think about the future
- Future of the book
- The modern myth of Frankenstein and its relationship to creativity and responsibility
Melissa Free
Associate Professor, Department of English
Faculty, Barrett, The Honors College
Affiliate Faculty, School of Social Transformation
- Victorian and Edwardian literature and culture
- British empire
- Postcolonial studies
- Feminism
- Female action hero
- Adventure fiction
Brian Goodman
Assistant Professor, Department of English
Affiliate, Jewish Studies
Affiliate, Melikian Center: Russian, Eurasian & East European Studies
brian.k.goodman@asu.edu | 973-865-7341
- American literature
- American Jewish literature
- Czech literature
- East-West cultural relations during the Cold War
- History of human rights
- Cultural dissent
- Free speech and free expression
- Beat movement
- Franz Kafka
- Philip Roth
David Hawkes
Professor, Department of English
- Usury
- Debt
- Money-lending
- Idolatry
- Literature and economics
- Literature and religion
- Shakespeare
- Milton
Julia Himberg
Associate Professor / Associate Chair, Curriculum, Department of English
Advisory Board, LGBT Studies Certificate
- LGBT media and politics
- Television history
- Gender politics
- Media and marketing
Kathleen Lamp-Fortuno
Associate Professor, Department of English
Past President, American Society for the History of Rhetoric
kslamp@asu.edu | 480-965-3796
- Classical rhetorical theory and practice
- History of rhetoric
- Place, culture, identity
- Material rhetoric
- Roman rhetoric (Cicero, Quintilian)
- Visual communication
- Monuments and memorials
- Augustus
- City Beautiful Movement
- Rhetoric of cities
Neal A. Lester
Foundation Professor, Department of English
Founding Director, Project Humanities
neal.lester@asu.edu | 480-727-7030
- African American literature and culture
- Race and gender politics of hair
- Popular culture
- American race relations
- African American children’s literature
- Black women writers
- The N-word
- Privilege and anti-bias
- Cultural appropriation
Joe Lockard
Associate Professor, Department of English
Affiliate, African and African American Studies Program
Affiliate, Jewish Studies
- American literature
- African American literature
- US slavery
- Antislavery/abolitionist literature
- Prison education
- Prison writing
- Censorship
- Jewish American Literature
Devoney Looser
Regents Professor, Department of English
Guggenheim Fellow
NEH Public Scholar
devoney.looser@asu.edu | 480-965-3925
- British literature
- Women’s writings
- Jane Austen
- Feminism
- History of the novel
- Aging and old age in history
- Roller derby
Paul Kei Matsuda
Professor / Director of Second Language Writing, Department of English
Concurrent Professor of Applied Linguistics, Nanjing University, China
Concurrent Professor of Applied Linguistics, Zhengzhou University, China
- Language and writing issues for international students in U.S. higher education
Bruce Matsunaga
Associate Research Professional / Director of Technology, Department of English
bhm@asu.edu | 480-965-3884
- Digital humanities
- Literature
- Ecocriticism
- Computers and learning
- Computation and digital media
Tyler Peterson
Assistant Professor, Department of English
Executive Committee, American Indian Language Development Institute, University of Arizona (Tucson)
t.peterson@asu.edu
480-727-9127
- Linguistics
- Language and culture
- Endangered and indigenous languages of the world
- Tribal languages in North America, with a focus on communities in the Southwest
Krista Ratcliffe
Foundation Professor / Chair, Department of English
- Rhetorics (political and cultural)
- Race / whiteness
- Communication strategies
- Feminism
Kevin S. Sandler
Associate Professor, Film and Media Studies, Department of English
Kevin.Sandler@asu.edu | 480-727-3920
- Media censorship
- Animation
- American film and television history
- Media branding
- Media marketing
- Video streaming
Ayanna Thompson
Regents Professor, Department of English
Director, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
- Shakespeare
- Race
- Early Modern studies
- Renaissance
- Medieval studies
- History
- Literature
- Performance studies