Print Page
Faculty
 |
Richard Botkin Richard Botkin taught Western Civilization I and II as a Graduate Teaching Assistant while completing his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Kansas and returned to the Humanities & Western Civilization Program as a Lecturer in 2000. Dr. Botkin’s interests are in the areas of symbolic logic, epistemology, ancient Greek philosophy, and the scientific revolution of 17th century Europe. |
 |
Antha Cotten-Spreckelmeyer Antha Cotten-Spreckelmeyer holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Kansas with a specialization in Old English Literature. She joined the Humanities & Western Civilization Program in 1990 as a faculty lecturer, became Assistant Director of the program in 1995, and is now Associate Director. Professor Spreckelmeyer directs the program’s writing instruction and serves as the coordinator for majors. Publications and scholarly presentations include work in the field of early English religious poetry. |
 |
Cristian Dimitriu Cristian Dimitriu is a Lecturer in the Humanities & Western Civilization Program. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Buenos Aires. His areas of specialization are political philosophy, normative ethics, and global justice. |
 |
Christopher E. Forth Christopher E. Forth is the Jack and Shirley Howard Chair of Humanities & Western Civilization, Professor of History, and Courtesy Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. His research and teaching interests revolve around the cultural history of gender, sexuality, the body, and the senses with an emphasis on modern French, British, and American contexts. The author of Zarathustra in Paris: The Nietzsche Vogue in France, 1891-1918 (2001), The Dreyfus Affair and the Crisis of French Manhood (2004) and Masculinity in the Modern West (2008), he has also co-edited five books, including Cultures of the Abdomen: Diet, Digestion and Fat in the Modern World (2005), French Masculinities (2007), and Confronting Modernity in Fin-de-Siècle France (2010). Co-director of the Hall Center “Modernities” seminar, Forth taught for ten years at the Australian National University before taking up his current position at KU. He is writing a cultural history of fat in the West, which is under contract with Reaktion Books (UK). |
 |
Diane Fourny Diane Fourny is an Associate Professor in the Humanities & Western Civilization Program. Also, she is Co-Director of the Humanities Multicultural Scholars Program, and is heavily involved in the direction of the HWC Program’s Study Abroad in Florence and Paris. Her areas of research are the French Enlightenment (18th Century Novel, J.-J. Rousseau, Diderot), autobiography, and European Studies. Professor Fourny has received the H. Bernard Fink Distinguished Teaching Award and a Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. She received a Ph.D. in French from Stanford University. |
 |
Jennifer Heller Jennifer Heller, Assistant Director of the Humanities and Western Civilization Program, earned her M.S.Ed. in Teaching and Leadership and her Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Kansas. Her dissertation subject was American evangelical women of the mid-twentieth century. Dr. Heller came to the program first as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and more recently as a Lecturer. In addition to overseeing the Graduate Teaching Assistants and Western Civilization classes, she continues to lecture in Western Civilization I and II courses and is the director of CLAS Social Sciences division of the Multicultural Scholars Program. |
 |
Marike Janzen Marike Janzen is a Lecturer in the Humanities & Western Civilization Program, teaching World Literature. She also serves as a Lecturer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Dr. Janzen earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in twentieth-century German and Latin American literature. Before coming to the University of Kansas, Dr. Janzen was Assistant Professor of German at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia. She has published work on the East German writer Anna Seghers, and is interested in issues of solidarity, authorship, and social criticism in diverse cultural contexts of the Cold War. |
Devon Abbott Mihesuah Devon Mihesuah is the Cora Lee Beers Price Teaching Professor in International Cultural Understanding. She holds a Ph.D. in American History from Texas Christian University. Her career has been devoted to the empowerment and well-being of indigenous peoples. She served as Editor of the American Indian Quarterly for nine years. Her research, writing and speaking focuses on decolonization strategies and is one of the few indigenous writers who successfully writes non-fiction and fiction. She regularly speaks nationally and internationally about issues pertaining to empowerment of indigenous peoples; her works are cited and reprinted in hundreds of publications and her books and essays are used in classrooms across the world. |
|
 |
Martha Rabbani Martha Jalali Rabbani joined the Humanities & Western Civilization Program faculty in 2004 as a Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies. A Brazilian, she holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from universities in Brazil, an advanced diploma in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution from the European Peace University in Schlainnin, Austria, and a doctorate in Humanities from Jaume I University in Spain. Dr. Rabbani's teaching and research are in peace education, global democracy and world citizenship. She has authored several articles on peace education and a book on Education for World Citizenship. |
 |
Dale Urie Dale Urie received her Ph.D. from the University of North Texas in Modern European History. Her current research focuses on issues surrounding the growing Muslim population in Europe. Her publications center on the life of the English author Rebecca West and her exploration of events and ideas that shaped the twentieth century. After teaching on the faculties of Northeastern University and the Art Institute of Boston as well as the Anglo-American College in Prague, Czech Republic, Dr. Urie joined the Humanities and Western Civilization Program as a Lecturer in 2000. She also teaches in the European Studies Program and is the recipient of numerous teaching awards. |
 |
James Woelfel James Woelfel serves as a Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Humanities and Western Civilization. He served as Director of Humanities & Western Civilization from 1985 until July 2010. Professor Woelfel received a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of St. Andrews, and has served on the KU faculty since 1966. His teaching and research have been primarily 19th and 20th century European philosophical and religious thought. Among the books he has authored are Bonhoeffer’s Theology, Borderland Christianity, Albert Camus on the Sacred and the Secular, Portraits in Victorian Religious Thought, The Existentialist Legacy and Other Essays on Philosophy and Religion, and is an editor of Patterns in Western Civilization fourth edition. Professor Woelfel was a 1997 recipient of the Kansas Humanities Council’s Silver Anniversary Public Scholar Award, and in 1998 received a Kemper Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching. |
 |
Sandra Zimdars-Swartz Sandra Zimdars-Swartz is Director of HWC and a Professor in the Humanities and Western Civilization Program. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy and Religion from Claremont Graduate School. Her research interests are religious experience and popular religion with Christian traditions. Professor Zimdars-Swartz is the author of Encountering Mary: from La Salette to Medjugorje. She is the HWC Ambassador to the Center for Teaching Excellence, and has received a Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. |