Faculty for the 2005-06 seminars:

Tom Grayson Colonnese (Santee Sioux) is the Director of the American Indian Studies Center at the University of Washington. He teaches contemporary American Indian literature. Dr. Colonnese previously taught at Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University. He served on President Clinton's Board of Advisors for Tribal Colleges and Universities, and acts as a consultant to NASA and to the Educational Testing Service.

Patricia Failing is Professor and Chair of the Division of Art History at the University of Washington. Her teaching emphasizes artworks developed since 1940, with an emphasis on new art forms since 1960. She has published widely on modern and contemporary art and has written numerous reviews of local and West Coast exhibitions.

Christoph Giebel, Associate Professor of International Studies and History at the University of Washington, teaches the modern history of Viet Nam and Southeast Asia. He was trained at Cornell University and in Germany, Taiwan, and Viet Nam. His recent book, Imagined Ancestries of Vietnamese Communism, is a case study of the politics of Vietnamese revolutionary historiography. His research interests include the Vietnamese South and human rights in Asia.

James Gregory, Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington, teaches courses in American history and labor studies. He is the author of numerous articles and two books, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California and The Southern Diaspora: How Black Southerners and White Southerners Transformed 20th Century America (forthcoming).

Michelle Habell-Pallan is Associate Professor of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington. She teaches courses in Chicano/Latina theater and popular culture, is author of Loca Motion: The Travels of Chicana and Latina Popular Culture, and is co-editor of Latino/a Popular Culture. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller and Mellon foundations.

Gary Handwerk, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Washington, teaches modern European narrative and narrative theory, with particular interest in narrative ethics and ecocriticism. His recent work includes essays on Romantic-era fiction and Rousseau's Emile, as well as a translation of Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human. He coordinates the UW Texts and Teachers Program, which offers ongoing links between UW and high school classes.

Ron Krabill is Assistant Professor in the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences program of the University of Washington, Bothell. He teaches courses involving African studies, cultural studies, mass media, contentious politics, and colonial and postcolonial history and theory. His research, published on three continents, focuses on politics, mass media, and culture during and after apartheid in South Africa, with a particular interest in social movements and issues of peace and justice.

Katharyne Mitchell is Professor of Geography and the Simpson Professor in the Public Humanities at the University of Washington. She teaches philosophies of education, especially with respect to immigrant integration and education for democratic citizenship. She is the director of the Reclaiming Childhood project.

Frances McCue is the Artistic Director and co-founder of Richard Hugo House, the largest and liveliest literary center in the West. She is a widely published poet and, as a scholar and essayist, investigates the intersection of writing and community life. She is a researcher for the Reclaiming Childhood Project.

Brian Reed, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Washington, teaches a wide variety of courses on the reading and writing of poetry and fiction. He is a specialist in modern and contemporary American poetry and has published articles on Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, and Susan Howe. His first book, Hart Crane: After His Lights, is forthcoming. His awards include a Rhodes Scholarship and a Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities.

Sonnet Retman, Assistant Professor in American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington, teaches courses in African American literature and cultural studies as well as multi-ethnic American literature. She is working on a book about race and nation in the documentary and satire of the 1930s.

John Webster, Professor of English at the University of Washington, teaches Renaissance literature, literary theory, expository writing, and pedagogy. He has published on Sidney, Spenser, Renaissance rhetoric and poetics, and the teaching of Renaissance poetry. In addition, he is College Director of Writing, directs the Puget Sound Writing Project, and has been a Carnegie Scholar since 1998. He leads the popular UW London Theatre Tour.