Christine Blain
Information to come
Todd Comer
Prof Todd completed his MA and PhD in American literature and film at Michigan State University. Prior to his time at Michigan State University, Todd worked as a reporter, copywriter, and librarian. He earned his BA (English and History) at Taylor University and was born and raised in West Virginia. He has two young children and a brilliant wife, Dawn, who also teaches creative writing at Defiance College on occasion.
Todd's strengths lie in the area of 20th-century American and British Commonwealth literature/film/comics and literary theory. Todd has published on Joel and Ethan Coen's The Big Lebowski, Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren, and Flann O'Brien's At-Swim-Two-Birds.
He has a recent chapter in Peregrinations, Ruminations, and Regenerations: A Critical Approach to Doctor Who (2010). In November of 2010, he will chair panels on "terror and the cinematic sublime" and "love and sex in the work of Alan Moore" at the Midwest Modern Language Association and Film and History conferences in Chicago and Milwaukee, respectively.
Todd is writing a book provisionally titled Mourning, and the Day After, in which he argues for postmodern subjectivity as essentially riven by mourning. With Joseph Sommers, he is also editing Lost Loves: Alan Moore and the Ideology of a Sexual Revolution. The book, hopefully, will be out in 2011.
Professor Courtney has served as part-time instructor in the Arts and Humanities Division since August 1991.
Born Geromina (Jerri) Catherine Ferrara in Washington, D.C., she grew up in the politically charged, culturally diverse Washington area. National events and political issues continually played out on the family television and on the streets she traveled. Jerri was fortunate to grow up with friends from a wide variety of cultures and creeds. Frequent treks to the Smithsonian and an Italian immigrant family also contributed to her interest in culture and her appreciation of diversity. Jerri married Larry Courtney and the two moved to “the city with the big shoulders” (Chicago) and started a family. College was put on hold for a time. Then the Courtneys moved to northwest Ohio and Mrs. Courtney soon enrolled in Defiance College.
In May 1978, Courtney earned a B. A. in Social Work from Defiance College with special emphasis on interdisciplinary studies in Humanities. The skills she gained through the DC social work program combined with insights gained from her interest in Humanities helped to shape her subsequent practice as a professional Social Worker. Courtney later traveled a new path and completed a Master of Liberal Studies Degree (an interdisciplinary degree) at the University of Toledo in June 1987. Continuing interest in history and culture has led her to travel in Europe, Canada, and Puerto Rico where she has visited and photographed several interesting sites.
In addition to photography, Professor Courtney enjoys writing, studies in religion and spirituality, art, music, and theater. She loves to experiment with new technologies and has pages on Facebook, My Space, Deviant Art, and Yahoo 360. As an Adjunct Professor at Defiance College, she has taught Composition, Literature, Western and Global Civilization courses, and Freshman Seminar. For Professor Courtney, the excitement of teaching comes from the opportunity to share. She believes that learning deepens as students work together to share their understanding and their ideas. By participating in that interaction, the professor continues to learn from her students. And of course she loves to share her passions, love of writing, fascination with culture and interdisciplinary studies, and her favorite travel photos.
Lisa Crumit-Hancock has served as part-time instructor in the Arts and Humanities Division since August 1991.
I believe Composition is all about exercising and improving one’s reading, writing and researching skills. So in preparing to write this biography, I decided to do a little research and asked my family for some input. My daughter said I am “a very intelligent mother of two loving children” and my son said I am “the best mommy in the world.” I obviously have reared them well, but they might be a little biased. My husband of over fifteen years, John Hancock (yes, that is really his name and don’t ask him to sign his “John Hancock” because he will), decided to plead the fifth. It became clear in this “research process” that I needed to just take matters into my own hands and simply move on to the drafting process. This is what I finally decided upon:
I am a first generation Ohioan with strong Appalachian roots. I completed my BA in English and History at Defiance College and then completed my MA in American Culture Studies at BGSU. I have taught for many years at NSCC and more recently began to teach at my alma mater, DC. Due to my interdisciplinary interests and training, I teach a variety of courses in English, Philosophy, History, and the Arts and Humanities. At Defiance College, I teach Composition and Global Civilization.
In AH 110, I focus on writing as a process, collaborative learning, and critical thinking skills. I use the concept that the “world is a text” (borrowed from The World is a Text by Rader and Silverman) to persuade students to read the world around them both formally and informally. Through course discussion, group work and formal assignments, I encourage students to read, write and research the popular culture they interact with every day and not take the way(s) it affects them and the way(s) they use it for granted.
Stephen Harrick
Stephen Harrick was raised in the St. Louis area and moved to Ohio in 2005. He is currently finishing his doctorate in the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University, where he also earned his M.A. degree. He has published in Theatre Journal, Theatre History Studies, Theatre Topics, and The Projector Film and Media Journal. He has several research interests, most notably American popular theatre, living history interpretations, and sport and performance. He is currently writing his dissertation, which is a history of Blue Man Group.
In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Stephen is active in the theatre. He has appeared in, directed, or written more than thirty plays and musicals in Chicago, St. Louis, and northwest Ohio. He is thrilled to be teaching in the Composition Program at Defiance College.
More . . . on Stephen's work at a recent conferenceStephen can be contacted at sharrick@defiance.edu
Mary Catherine Harper . . . just call me MC.
Mary Catherine Harper is a professor and the endowed McCann Chair in the Humanities at Defiance College in Ohio, where she teaches literature and creative writing. She received her Ph.D. in literary theory and creative writing at Bowling Green State University and her undergraduate degree at Montana State University. Her creative projects include both poetry and website design, and she explores ways in which poetry intersects the visual arts and cultural representation.
She has worked in Cambodia on a language arts/ethnographic project, is the poetry editor of the online literary magazine VellumRelic, and has had the poetic reader’s theater piece “A Quarrel of Voices” performed at the Interdisciplinary International Women's Studies Conference. Her poetry has appeared in The New England Review, WomenWriters.net, The Cleveland Reader, The Bozeman Er, and Masque.
Professor Harper has also published articles on women’s science fiction in Science Fiction Studies, Extrapolation, FemSpec, and The New York Review of Science Fiction. She is currently researching and writing on the Ojibwa fiction writer Louise Erdrich, noted for such novels as Love Medicine, The Plague of Doves, and The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse.
She is the advisor for Progeny, the student-edited literary and photography magazine of Defiance College. Click here to view Progeny.
To view . . . and perhaps submit your creative works to the an online cross-media
magazine that she helps to edit, see VellumRelic.
Dorothy Singer
Information to come
Isaac Vayo
Isaac Vayo completed his M.A. and Ph.D. in American Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University. He earned his B.A. (Literature, Philosophy and French) at Ohio Northern University and was born and raised in Perrysburg, Ohio.
Isaac's research areas include sound studies and 9/11 (including attention to the use of voice recordings of the hijackers in popular media), popular music and public memory (in relation to the Holocaust and postwar Germany), and the role of conspiracy narratives in attributions of national guilt and victim/perpetrator status (focusing specifically on 9/11).
He has recently published “Bear Life: Rhetorics of Terror and Global Warming” in the online journal Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge and “On a Maddening Loop: Post-9/11 Rubble Music” in the edited volume The Politics of Post-9/11 Music: Sound, Trauma, and the Music Industry in the Time of Terror. He also has a chapter titled “I Remain Your Own: Epistolamory in ‘The New Adventures of Fanny Hill’”in an upcoming collection on the work of Alan Moore.
Currently Isaac is co-editing a collection (with Todd Comer) tentatively titled Terror and the (Post)Cinematic Sublime, as well as a linked special journal issue, and is also writing a book review for Veit Erlmann’s Reason and Resonance: A History of Modern Aurality.