Division of Arts and Humanities Bookshelf
Bethany Monea (she/her) is an assistant professor of English, focusing on Community Writing. She holds a Ph.D. in Literacy Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. in English from North Carolina State University. Her research interests include community writing and media, digital literacies, high-school-to-college transitions, participatory and arts-based research methods, and supporting first-generation and multilingual students. Her work has been published in Written Communication, Computers and Composition, Kairos, English Journal, English Teaching: Practice & Critique, Qualitative Research, The Handbook of Critical Participatory Inquiry in Transnational Research Contexts, Designing and Implementing Multimodal Curricula and Programs, and elsewhere, and many of her articles and book chapters have been coauthored with students.
She is committed to using the arts and media to expand access to and participation in academic knowledge production, and she has facilitated community-driven research projects such as a YouTube channel about college transitions for first-gen, Latinx students, a public high school’s first literary arts magazine, a transnational online writing community, and a bilingual creative writing group. She is currently a co-facilitator of the Youth Research Council, a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) partnership. She has produced a short documentary film, and she received the Kairos Award for Best Webtext in 2021. Her work has been funded by the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation, the American Educational Research Association’s Division of Methodology and Measurement, and the Center for Experimental Ethnography.
Dr. Monea teaches courses on academic writing, digital literacies, research methods, and community writing. She is committed to building justice-oriented partnerships between university and community-based researchers, writers, and artists, and is open to new collaborations.
Olive Vassell, Associate Professor of Digital Media, has been selected as a Fulbright Specialist and invited to the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Windhoek to teach faculty about emerging technology in journalism and best practices for online media courses. She will also spearhead the establishment of a student-run wire service.
Additionally, Professor Vassell is currently editing and writing a chapter for a book titled Mapping Black Europe: Monuments, Memories, Markers which records and discusses sites of public memory, markers and monuments to Black Europeans. The pioneering work will feature Black European scholars from eight cities, and Professor Vassell’s contribution will focus on her London birthplace. The book will be published by the leading German Academic publishing house Transcript Verlag and distributed by Columbia University Press in the US and Pluto in the UK.
Dr. Leah Claiborne, coordinator of the Keyboard Area in the Music Program, was recently published in the fall 2020 issue of Piano Magazine, Clavier Companion. Her article, “Diversifying Your Piano Studio” gave insights on the pedagogical benefits of incorporating piano music by Black composers in piano studios.
During the summer of 2020, Dr. Claiborne created and developed an educational online course that will be featured on the Clavier Companion web platform. The course, “Unsung Heroes in Piano Pedagogy” deeply examines twenty piano pieces by Black composers through performance, articles, and teaching videos. The Clavier Companion is the largest online platform dedicated to piano teaching scholarship.
Dr. Craig Wynne, Associate Professor of English, has a new book published: How to Be a Happy Bachelor (Kendall Hunt 2020).
Dr. Alexander Howe, Professor of English and Chair of the Division of Arts and Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences, recently published an article in the anthology Tattoos in Crime and Detective Narratives: Marking and Remarking (Manchester University Press, 2019). This collection has just been awarded the International Crime Fiction Association Book Prize. Dr. Howe’s article examines Louisa May Alcott’s feminist revision of female embodiment in her pseudonymous thrillers.
Dr. Cherie Ann Turpin, Associate Professor of English, works in the areas of Afrofuturism, African Diaspora Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, World Literature, Multicultural American Literature, Popular Culture, Film Studies, and Digital Humanities/Diversity.
Access Dr. Turpin’s ongoing radio show here.
Her recent creative works are available here.
Davide Prete, Associate Professor of Art, in collaboration with playground architect Justin Wilson won the competition DC Playable Art 2020 with the project “Soundwave Art Park”.
Playable Art DC is a creative play and placemaking project designed to create interactive works of art that are bold, exciting, and playful, inspire imagination, build social skills, and are enjoyed by youth and adults The concept for the project located in the triangle park at the corner of Minnesota Avenue and 34th and D Streets, SE started with the idea to create a visual filter to the traffic noise and create an interactive oasis for the community.
Ada Vilageliu-Díaz, Assistant Professor in the English Program, in October 2020 launched a community literacy service project titled Mi libro, mi espejo (My Book, My Mirror) featuring children’s books by Latinx authors in both English and Spanish. This virtual Storytime project is done in collaboration with the UDC Library and other community partners.
Dr. Aparajita De (she/her/hers; pronounced Aw-paw-ra-gee-ta Day) is an Associate Professor of English and specializes in postcolonial literature and Cultural Studies. Her recent collection, South Asian Racialization and Belonging after 9/11: Masks of Threat, was published by Lexington Books Inc. in 2016. Her essays can also be found in the Journal of South Asian Popular Culture, South Asian Review, and Postcolonial Text. Dr. De’s most recent essay is a chapter in Bollywood’s New Woman: Liberalization, Liberation, and Contested Bodies (Rutgers University Press, 2021). Her contribution to the Encyclopedia of Indian English Writing is targeted towards the more recent English graduate; her reviews of scholarly books are accessible in the journals South Asian Review and Synoptique.
A recent essay is forthcoming from the University of Arizona Press, along with two other scholarly essays under review. She has been a regular presenter and panelist at American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA), Modern Language Association (MLA), National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA), and Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA).
Her scholar profile is accessible here.
Aparajita’s public humanities work has been published by Inside Higher Ed, American Kahani, Café Dissensus, Humanities Underground, and Journal of Expressive Writing, among others. Her creative work is accessible at Kitaab, Tulip Tree, and Tin Lunchbox Magazines.
Helene Krauthamer (she/ her/ hers), Professor of English and English BA Program Coordinator, received her Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in Linguistics from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and her A.B. degree in Mathematics from New York University. Her experiences at UDC teaching composition have resulted in her book, Spoken Language Interference Patterns (SLIPs) in Written English, as well as several articles on topics related to computers and composition, teaching grammar, the use of the passive voice, and assessment. She has recently produced with Routledge Publishers a book about pronouns, titled The Great Pronoun Shift. Dr. Krauthamer was the co-recipient of the Faculty of the Year Award, presented at the 2005 UDC Convocation, for her co-leadership of the Self-Study Team, leading to the reaffirmation of the accreditation of the university by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE). She also served on the 2016 Self-Study Team and edited the Self-Study report leading to another successful reaffirmation of MSCHE accreditation. She is currently serving on the Steering Committee for the 2025 Self-Study and is the co-chair for the Standard V Working Group. She serves on the University Assessment Council and co-wrote the Firebird Guide to Assessment at UDC. She is also the Sigma Tau Delta faculty sponsor for the Alpha Epsilon Rho chapter. Outside the university, she serves as the treasurer for the College English Association – Middle Atlantic Group.