English Department Faculty

Office Hours (Spring 2025):
MWF 12-1, 2-3, and by appointment.

Courses:
LITR 1050 - Introduction to Literary Studies
COMP 1000 - Composition
WLIT 2042 - Muslim Women Writers

Suzanne Black (Ph.D., University of Michigan) came to Oneonta in Fall 2008 after working in Indiana and Minnesota. She teaches courses in modern world and British literature, professional writing, and composition. In addition to her background in French and comparative literature, she has an undergraduate degree in chemistry and experience as a grant writer.

She remains interested in popular science writing and in more humanistic aspects of the sciences, such as scientific images. Her current research focuses on two novels by the Anglo-Sudanese writer Leila Aboulela and work by the Mozambican writer and environmental consultant Mia Couto.

Office Hours (Fall 2024):
Online M-F 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

Courses (Fall 2024):
Online COMP 1000-15 - Composition
Online COMP 1000-17 - Composition

Martin Christiansen earned an M.A. from Central Michigan University in 1998.

View Martin Christiansen's CV

Office Hours (Spring 2025):
MWF 11-11:45 a.m., M 1:00-2:00 p.m., and by appointment.

Courses:
LING 3010 - Traditional Grammar
LITR 3043 – Major Author in Children’s and Young Adult Literature
COMP 3037 – Writing Fantasy and SF

Dr. Doughty joined the faculty in Fall 2006 after spending several years teaching at Lake Superior State University in Michigan. She earned her MA from Indiana State University and her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. A generalist, she has taught classes in linguistics, composition, and literature, particularly children's literature, fantasy, and folk literature. She is the author of Folktales Retold: A Critical Overview of Stories Updated for Children (2006) and "Throw the book away": Reading versus Experience in Children's Fantasy (2013). Dr. Doughty's research interests are varied but lean toward the intersection of literature and linguistics, as well as language in popular culture.

Her research includes papers examining magic and technology in the Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, and Faerie Wars series; language attitudes about the Junie B. Jones series; environmentalism in children's and YA fantasy; gender in urban fantasy by women; and storytelling, fate, and self-determination in Robin McKinley's folktale revisions. She is the Area Chair of the Children's and YA Literature and Culture area of the Popular Culture Association and the editor of the collection Children's and Young Adult Literature and Culture: A Mosaic of Criticism (2016).

Office hours (Spring 2025):
TTH 6:45-7:45 and by appointment

Courses (Spring 2025):
COMP 2050-03 Introduction to Creative Writing
COMP 1000-03 Composition

Office Hours (Spring 2025):
TTH 12:45 p.m. - 2:15 p.m.

Courses:
COMP 2050-02 - Instruction to Creative Writing
WLIT 3060 – The Bible as Literature
WLIT 2001 – World Literature 18th Century to the Present

View Mark Ferrara's CV

Office Hours (Spring 2025):
M 3:00-3:30 p.m., Tues 12:30-3:00, and by appointment.

Courses:
LITR – 3470 – Environmental Humanities
ELIT 2070 – Shakespeare

Dr. Finin joined the English Department in 2003, after teaching Shakespeare and Literary/Critical Theory for several years as a part-time instructor at SUNY-Oneonta.In 2001, she received the college’s Simphiwe Hlatswayo Award for Excellence in Part-Time Teaching. Dr. Finin received her doctorate from Binghamton University in 1997, earning the Distinguished Research Award for her work on English Renaissance Drama. She has presented many scholarly papers at The Shakespeare Association of America, as well as other conferences, and published several essays on plays by Shakespeare, Webster, and Middleton.

Dr. Finin's teaching interests include courses on Shakespeare, Early Modern English literature, literary and critical theory, and various introductory survey courses. Currently, Dr. Finin is involved in two major research projects: one on Shakespeare’s female icons and a second on early modern English writers’ representations of Ireland and its people in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. She is developing courses on Spenser's The Faerie Queene and the notoriously fluid genre of Romance in English Literature. In addition to her teaching and scholarly interests, Dr. Finin is a trained labyrinth facilitator who offers various community labyrinth walks, lectures and workshops.

Office Hours(Fall 2024):
TTH 2:30-3:30

Courses (Fall 2024):
COMP 1000-11
COMP 1000-12

Office Hours (Spring 2025):
T 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m., W 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

Courses:
LITR 4060
COMP 2050-03
ALIT 2000

Dr. Hecht joined the English Department as an Assistant Professor in 2006, after teaching literature and creative writing as a full-time lecturer at SUNY, Oneonta for several years. Dr. Hecht earned his MFA in Poetry from the University of Arizona (1990) and his Ph.D. from Syracuse University (2002). His dissertation addressed the intersection of politics and landscape representation in early American literature. He has published essays on James Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

His books include two edited anthologies: The Erie Canal Reader: 1790-1950 (Syracuse University Press, 2004)-literary writings about the Erie Canal-and Freemen Awake!: Rally Songs and Poems from New York's Anti-Rent Movement (Delaware County Historical Association (2017). His poetry has been published widely in literary journals and websites, such as Denver Quarterly, Prick of the Spindle, Sheila-Na-Gig on-line, and Yes Poetry. His first poetry collection is Talking Pictures (Cervena Barva Press, 2012). Dr. Hecht is currently researching a book on environmental themes in the animated films of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. He teaches courses in American literature, Literary/Critical Theory, and Creative Writing.

Office Hours (Spring 2025):
W: 12:30-2:50 pm, Th: 6:50-7:30 pm

Courses:
ALIT 3017
LITR 1050-02
COMP 3070

George Hovis earned a Ph.D. from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2001 and was on the faculty at Murray State University before coming to SUNY Oneonta in 2006, where he is currently a professor of English. His teaching and research interests lie in the areas of American literature, fiction writing, creative writing, and literature of the American South, especially as it addresses issues of race in America.

His debut novel, The Skin Artist (SFK Press, 2019), was nominated for the 2019 Sir Walter Raleigh Award. His short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has been honored as a 2018 prize winner in The Carolina Quarterly’s national contest “Wake and Dream Again,” selected by Daniel Wallace. His nonfiction has received the 2007 Denny C. Plattner Award from Appalachian Heritage magazine. His stories, essays, and poetry have appeared widely, in anthologies and in journals such as Southern Cultures, The North Carolina Literary Review, The Mississippi Quarterly, The Fourth River, Stone Canoe, The Southern Literary Journal, The Thomas Wolfe Review, New Madrid, Appalachian Heritage, and The Carolina Quarterly. His book of literary scholarship Vale of Humility: Plain Folk in Contemporary North Carolina Fiction was published in 2007 by the University of South Carolina Press. George has served as President of the Thomas Wolfe Society and has attended the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. In 2017 he received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. More information available at www.georgehovis.net

George Hovis CV

Office Hours (Fall 2024):
M 2:00-4:00 p.m.

Courses (Fall 2024):
LITR 1000-02
COMP 1000-10

CV

Office Hours (Fall 2024):
Online

Courses (Fall 2024):
online
COMP 1000-09
LITR1000-03

Joshua Lewis has taught composition at various institutions, such as SUNY Broome Community College, Hartwick College, and SUNY Oneonta. He received his Ph.D. in English from Binghamton University, and he has been part of the Greater Binghamton Community for over 13 years. In his spare time, he writes poetry and fiction along with facilitating poetry workshops at the Broome County Arts Council, an organization dedicated to serving the arts.

Office Hours (Fall 2024)
Online

Courses (Fall 2024)
COMP 1000-07
COMP 1000-08

Office Hours (Spring 2025):
MWF 9-11:00 a.m. and by appointment.

Courses:
ALIT 3086-01
COMP 4098-01

Sheena Mason earned her Ph.D. in English literature from Howard University, her M.A. from the University of Houston, and her B.A. from SUNY Plattsburgh. Before coming to SUNY Oneonta, she taught at the College of William and Mary, California Lutheran University, and Howard University. Her forthcoming book, Theory of Racelessness: A Case For Antirace(ism) is expected to print in early 2022. Additionally, she co-authored “The Harlem Renaissance,” a chapter of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Artexamining what, if anything, is the proper role of race in the aesthetic productions of or about members of racialized populations. “‘A WHITE SLAVE:’ Albinism in Barbara Chase-Riboud’s Sally Hemings” from Cosmopolitanisms, Race, and Ethnicity(2019) analyzes how race functions as racism in Chase-Riboud’s Sally Hemings. Dr. Mason works actively to decolonize language and, therefore, our thoughts. In “No Malcolm X in My History Text” (2018), she examines the iterations of the folklore figure Stagger lee, the figure’s relation to the public sphere, and racism. Ultimately, she concludes that Stagger lee persists in the American imagination and is a simultaneously and paradoxically subversive and stereotypical figure, highlighting the pervasiveness of racism and society’s response to racism. In her teaching, scholarship, and service, Dr. Mason consistently and unwaveringly promotes anti-racism, though her “anti-racism” necessarily differs from traditional thought and practices.

Her sustained interest in understanding systemic racism and being a change agent for social justice resulted in her primary specialization in African American literature. Her secondary specializations are American and Caribbean literature. Through her teaching, research, and service, Dr. Mason inspires and informs individuals and organizations on anti-racism and provides revolutionary anti-racist initiatives and policy-changing efforts. One of her mantras is “freeing ourselves together,” which she aims to cultivate: healing, unification, and recognition of shared humanity.

Since Dr. Payne began teaching at SUNY Oneonta in the fall 2001 semester, he has created several new courses including creative writing workshops in screenwriting and creative nonfiction, and courses in American and environmental literature such as Hawthorne and Melville, Environmental Literature, Rachel Carson, and The River as Metaphor and Reality. Prior to teaching at SUNY Oneonta, Dr. Payne earned a J.D. at Albany Law School, and his experience as a practicing attorney included service as Counsel to the New York State Senate Transportation Committee. He then completed his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University at Buffalo, where his dissertation was a multidisciplinary study of American Nature Writing and Environmental Politics.

His book-length works include Voices in the Wilderness: American Nature Writing and Environmental Politics (1996); The Palgrave Environmental Reader (2005); Writing the Land: John Burroughs and His Legacy (2008); Why Read Thoreau’s Walden? (2013); and Orion on the Dunes: A Biography of Henry Beston (2016). Dr. Payne also directs the biannual John Burroughs Nature Writing Conference & Seminar, commonly referred to as the “Sharp Eyes” Conference, at SUNY Oneonta. In 2012, Dr. Payne was honored with the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Office Hours (Spring 2024):
M 3-5 p.m., and by appointment.


Courses (Fall 2024):
LITR 1000-01
COMP 1000-06

CV
Lit Art Sound CV

Office hours (Fall 2024):
W 11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.

Courses (Fall 2024):
ELIT 2001-01
ELIT 3040-01
COMP 2000-01

Office Hours (Spring 2025)
MWF 1-2 p.m.

Courses
LITR 3050-01

Jonathan Sadow is a specialist in eighteenth-century British literature who received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He teaches classes in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature that emphasize shifting conceptions of fiction, poetry, theater, gender, print culture, philosophy, and empire, as well as courses on literary theory, postmodernism, and irony. He has published articles and book chapters on genre, gender, puppets, and bagels. His recent chapter "Moral and Generic Corruption in Fenwick's Secresy" is part of the book collection Didactic Novels and British Women's Writing, 1790-1820, ed. Hilary Havens (Routledge 2017). He is affiliated with the Department of Women's and Gender Studies, and his current research interests primarily involve eighteenth-century women writers like Eliza Fenwick, Charlotte Smith, and Eliza Haywood.

Office Hours (Spring 2025)
TTH 2:30-3:30 p.m.
W 1:30 –2:30 p.m. and by appointment.

Courses
ELIT 2002-01
LIT 4007-01
COMP 2045-01

Dr. Tredennick is a specialist in nineteenth-century British literature, especially the novel. Her dissertation explores a materialist metaphorics of death prevalent in this era. She continues to like texts with corpses in them. Prior to coming to SUNY, Oneonta, Dr. Tredennick taught at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. In addition to creepy Victorian stuff, her interests include composition (no, really), the Seattle Mariners, and Grand Theft Auto. She is the author of the predictably morbid "'A Labor of Death and a Labor against Death': Scott's Cenotaphic Paratexts" (European Romantic Review) and "Some Collections of Mortality: Dickens, the Paris Morgue, and the Material Corpse" (Victorian Review), and she is the editor of the less cadaverous Victorian Transformations, 2011.

Office Hours (Fall 2024)
MW 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Milne Library 1st Fl.

Courses (Fall 2024)
COMP 1000-04
COMP1000-03

Office Hours (Fall 2024)
MW 2:30-3:30 p.m.

Courses (Fall 2024)
COMP 1000-01
COMP 2050-01

Andrew Tully earned an M.F.A. from Emerson College, 1994.

Office Hours (Spring 2025)
MWF11:00-11:50 a.m. and by appointment.

Courses
COMP 1000-05
WLIT 3083-01

Akira Yatsuhashi joined the English Department in 2011 after teaching Classics in the Upper Midwest. He earned his Ph.D. in Classical Studies from Duke University (2010) and also holds MAs in Classics (Tufts, 2003) and Comparative Literature and Japanese Poetics (Dartmouth, 2001). He teaches courses in Greek and Roman literature, Greek and Latin language, and composition. His research focuses on the uses of literature and scholarly writing in shaping and defining cultural and ethnic identity in colonial and imperial contexts. He is currently researching the role the Library of Alexandria and its literary products played in allowing elites reimagine and reorder their cultural pasts in the wake of the conquests of Alexander of the Great.