Faculty and Staff

M. Genevieve West, PhD

Chair of Language, Culture & Gender Studies; Professor of English
PhD, Florida State University
Office: CFO 906
Phone: 940-898-2324
Email: GWest@twu.edu

Interests: Dr. West teaches courses in history, theory, and practice of rhetoric; feminist rhetorics; expository writing; and American literature. Her research focuses on African American women in the inter-war period and the Harlem Renaissance, and she has a deep commitment to archival research and recovering "lost" voices.

Dr. West's projects explore life as a department chair and the work of Marita Bonner. Her most recent volumes collect Zora Neale Hurston's short fiction in Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick (2020) and essays in You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays (2022). West's essays appeared in African American Literature in Transition, 1920-1930 and Religion and Literature.

Rima Abunasser, PhD

Assistant Professor
Office: CFO 806
Phone: 940-898-2345
Email: rabunasser@twu.edu

Interests: Abunasser’s teaching and research focus on British and global writing and activism, specifically looking at how transnational writers, at home and in the diaspora, articulate nation, freedom and home. Her teaching specialties are British Literature from the eighteenth century to the present, the Global Anglophone and Francophone novel, and the literature of the Middle East and North Africa, with additional expertise in diaspora studies, decolonial studies, gender studies, and race and ethnic studies.

Jamie Barker, PhD

Senior Lecturer
PhD, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Office: CFO 914
Phone: 940-898-2348
Email: jbarker2@twu.edu

Interests: Dr. Barker teaches a wide range of courses from first-year composition to graduate-level courses, specializing in and researching 20th- and 21st-century American minority literature and the trauma found within.

Dr. Barker is working on his second monograph, "Broken Fences and Instrumental Lessons: Trauma, Healing, and Identity in Selected Plays of August Wilson." His first monograph, "Trauma in 20th Century Multicultural American Poetry: Unmuted Verse," was published as part of the Reading Trauma and Memory series in 2020. He also won the International Award in 2022 for an article published in New Directions in Humanity Journal.

Ashley Bender, PhD

Assistant Professor of English; B.A. in English Program Coordinator
PhD, University of North Texas
Office: CFO 801
Phone: 940-898-2334
Email: abender@twu.edu 

Interests: Literature of the long 18th century, especially drama; Shakespeare in the 18th century; sex and gender in the 18th century; textual studies; service learning in the composition classroom; experiential education and multimodal pedagogy

Will Benner, PhD

Assistant Professor of Spanish
PhD, Tulane University
Office: CFO 910
Phone: 940.898.2316
Email: wbenner@twu.edu 
Website: sites.google.com/view/williambenner

Interests: Dr. Benner teaches courses in Spanish proficiency, Latin American Women Writers and Filmmakers, and Medical Interpreting. His research explores the artistic productions by post-dictatorship generations in the Southern Cone. He is also developing a secondary area of expertise in medical interpreting pedagogy.

Dr. Benner has published in English and Spanish in "Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana, Archivos de la Filmoteca," and the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies. He has a book chapter in The Film Archipelago: Islands in Latin American Cinema published by Bloomsbury in 2022. Dr. Benner is writing an article on virtual reality as an artistic medium to testify against labor exploitation on the U.S.-Mexico border, and is working on a book project, Entangled Specters, which examines the digital turn in Southern Cone memory studies.

Matthew Brown, PhD

Associate Professor of English
PhD, University of Notre Dame
Office: CFO 901
Phone: 940.898.2371
Email: mbrown39@twu.edu

Interests: Medieval Literature, Literary Theory, History of the English Language

Gretchen Busl, PhD

Associate Professor of English; Graduate Program Coordinator
PhD, University of Notre Dame
Office: CFO 912
Phone: 940.898.2331
Email: gbusl@twu.edu

Interests: World Literature, Adaptation, Translation, Multilingualism, Graduate Student Writing

Vivian Casper, PhD

Associate Professor of English
PhD, Rice University
Office: CFO 808
Phone: 940.898.2344
Email: vcasper@twu.edu

Interests: Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, modern drama

Daniel Ernst, PhD

Assistant Professor of English
PhD, Purdue University
Office: CFO 903
Phone: 940-898-2336
Email: dernst@twu.edu

Interests: Dr. Ernst teaches courses on science and technical communication, public rhetoric, research methodology, and pedagogy. His research concerns automated language technology, writing and educational assessment, literacy and applied rhetoric.

Dr. Ernst's research explores the efficacy of automated writing evaluation technology in improving student writing, as well as the future of writing assessment techniques amid new language production technologies such as large language models.

Brian Fehler, PhD

Professor of English
PhD, Texas Christian University
Office: CFO 913
Phone: 940.898.2220
Email: bfehler@twu.edu
Website: brianfehler.com

Interests: Dr. Fehler teaches courses in history, theory and practice of rhetoric; feminist rhetorics; expository writing; and American literature. Dr. Fehler researches and recovers marginalized, overlooked and forgotten voices in the history of rhetoric, particularly in American life from the 19th century forward; considers and re-evaluates the rhetorical practices and methods of figures who rarely had access to prominent oratorical stages; and applies lenses of contemporary rhetorical criticism (Burkean studies; rhetorical ecologies; feminist historiography) to redefine and more broadly consider practices of rhetorical and political participation.

His articles have appeared in scholarly journals such as Rhetoric Review and Rhetoric Society Quarterly and in outlets such as Gay and Lesbian Review. He is currently at work on two projects: recovering works of the British Sexological Society and tracking down less-well known speeches and writings of three prominent Texans, women politicos who rewrote, intentionally and effectively, myths of the Lone Star State for their own times and constituents.

Mark Gallagher, PhD

Visiting Assistant Professor
PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
Email: mgallagher6@twu.edu

Interests: Dr. Gallagher teaches courses on early and 19th-century American literature. Subjects include Puritanism, early American women writers, multi-ethnic literature of the United States, American Romanticism, Transcendentalism, and American nature writing. His courses emphasize the interpretation of literary works within their historical and cultural contexts; that is, understanding how American literature is in discourse with the very social, political and cultural issues of the time in which they were produced. His research focuses on the 19th-century American literary movement known as Transcendentalism, which includes the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller. Other areas of interest include religion and literature (Puritanism, Unitarianism, and Catholicism), book history and print culture, and the public humanities.

Dr. Gallagher is working on his first book, a study of how the writings of the Transcendentalists were influenced by changing ideas about labor, and how they express their own thoughts on the relationship between work and religion. His articles have appeared in The New England Quarterly, ESQ: A Journal of the Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Resources for American Literary Study, Emerson Society Papers, the Thoreau Society Bulletin, and The Concord Saunterer: A Journal of Thoreau Studies.

Russell Greer, PhD

Associate Professor of English Emeritus
PhD, University of Georgia
Office: CFO 908
Phone: 940.898.2347
Email: rgreer@twu.edu

Interests: Thomas Hardy, Anthony Trollope

Jackie Hoermann-Elliott, PhD

Assistant Professor of English; Director of First-Year Composition
PhD, Texas Christian University
Office: CFO 902
Phone: 940.898-2348

Interests: Dr. Elliott teaches courses on rhetoric and composition pedagogy and writing program administration for graduate students. She regularly teaches first-year composition courses, and occasionally teaches professional writing or special-topics courses for undergraduate students. Her research focuses on a wide range of topics including embodied writing, writing pedagogy and issues related to writing program administration.

Dr. Elliott's work has appeared in national journals The ADVANCE Journal, Composition Forum, and the WPA Journal), and her first book, Running, Writing, Thinking: Embodied Cognition in Composition, was published by Parlor Press in 2021. She is working on her next book, an edited collection that takes a critical look at how graduate student parents find support within the academy.

Rachel E. Johnston, PhD

Lecturer of English
Texas Christian University
Office: CFO 913
Phone: 940-898-2347
Email: rachelejd@gmail.com

Interests: Dr. Johnston teaches courses in composition focused on global citizenship and wellness, and literature courses on domesticity, marriage, mobility, monsters and madness. Her research primarily explores the roles of women, marriage and failed marriage in early transatlantic novels, art and plays, expanding to motherhood and domesticity 1660-1860.

Dr. Johnston is comparing several of Daniel Defoe's fiction and non-fiction writings which show Defoe's seemingly feminist opinions on mercenary marriage as well as employment opportunities and reproductive control for 18th-century women in Great Britain and America.

Dundee Lackey, PhD

Associate Professor of English
PhD, Michigan State University
Office: CFO 911
Phone: 940.898.2159
Email: dlackey@twu.edu

Interests: Digital/Community Rhetorics and Literacies

Margaret V. Williams, PhD

Visiting Associate Professor, Assistant Director of First-Year Composition
PhD, Texas Woman's University
Email: mwilliams54@twu.edu

Interests: Dr. Williams teaches courses in professional writing, first-year and advanced composition, developmental writing and multimodal composition. Her research explores rhetorical circulation, particularly the agency, multimodalities and entanglements co-constructed by/with/for women in political and public spheres. Deeply informed by cultural rhetorics and feminisms, her research includes how we co-construct stories, particularly in personal narratives and creative nonfiction.

Dr. Williams' research examines nasty-woman rhetorics that were at play in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Her publications and projects include “Let’s Talk About Chalk: The Search for Useful Knowledge in a Rhetorical Ecology,” “Vir Bonus, Hortensia: A Good Woman Speaking Well in Ancient Rome,” the short story "Rise," and an upcoming, co-written article, "Preparing Underrepresented Writers to Pitch as Freelance Authors."

Hugh Burns, PhD

Professor Emeritus
PhD, University of Texas at Austin
Email: hburns@twu.edu

Interests: Rhetoric, Computers and Writing, Digital Humanities

Lou Thompson, PhD

Professor Emerita
PhD, Texas Christian University
Office: CFO 908
Phone: 940.898.2347
Email: Lthompson2@twu.edu

Interests: Documentary film, creative writing (fiction), disability studies, visual rhetoric

Charles Dyer
Senior Secretary
Office: CFO 131
Phone: 940-898-2323
Email: cdyer2@twu.edu

Amber Fenton
Administrative Assistant
Language, Culture, and Gender Studies
Phone: 940-898-2326
Email: afenton2@twu.edu