Meet the Faculty

Wendy Kolmar

Title:  Department Chair and Professor of English; Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies
Office:  Sitterly House 107
Phone:  973-408-3632
Email:  wkolmar@drew.edu
Education:  A.B., Bryn Mawr College, 1972; Ph.D., Indiana University, 1992
Biography: Wendy Kolmar is Professor of English and of Women’s and Gender Studies. She teaches courses on feminist theory and the history of feminist thought, Victorian literature, women and literature, gothic and supernatural literature, film and literary criticism. She serves regularly as a consultant and reviewer for women’s and gender studies programs around the country and also served for many years on various governing bodies of the National Women’s Studies Association.  Her publications include Haunting the House of Fiction: Feminist Perspectives on Ghost Stories by American Women (with Lynette Carpenter ‑‑ 1991); Creating an Inclusive College Curriculum: A Teaching Source Book from the New Jersey Project (edited with Ellen G. Friedman, Charley B. Flint, and Paula Rothenberg — 1996); A Selected Annotated Bibliography of Ghost Stories by British and American Women Writers (with Lynette Carpenter –1998); Feminist Theory: A Reader(with Fran Batkowski, now in its second edition.) and a special issue of Women’s Studies Quarterly, entitled Looking Across the Lens: Women’s Studies and Film.

Martin Foys

Title:  Associate Professor of English
Office:  Sitterly House 303
Phone:  973-408-3340
Email:  mfoys@drew.edu
Education:  B.A., Drew University (1990); M.A., Ph.D Loyola University Chicago (1993, 1998)
Biography:  Martin Foys, an Associate Professor of English, came to Drew in 2008.  He specializes in the areas of Old and Middle English literature; critical theory, New Media studies, digital scholarship.  Some of his most recent publications include Virtually Anglo-Saxon: New Media, Old Media, and Early Medieval Studies in the Late Age of Print (Gainesville: University Press of Florida), 2007, for which he was a 2008 Finalist for the Modern Language Association’s First Book Prize, awarded Honorable Mention and won a 2007 International Society of Anglo-Saxonists [ISAS] Best Book Publication Prize.  Some of his recent research and publications include: with Shannon Bradshaw (Computer Science), Director of the Digital Mappaemundi Project (2010 – ); co-editor, The Bayeux Tapestry: New Interpretations (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer), 2009.  He is also the incoming Executive Director of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists (ISAS), 2012-2015.

James Hala

Title:  Professor of English
Office:  Sitterly House 205
Phone:  973-408-3297
Email:  jhala@drew.edu
Education:  B.A., University of Michigan, 1974; M.A., University of Michigan, 1976; Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1984
Biography:  James Hala, a Professor of English, came to Drew in 1986.  He specializes in the areas of Old & Middle English Literature; Celtic and Continental European Medieval Literatures; Linguistics; Critical theory; Gender studies; Film.  His most recent publications include a study of Grendel’s mother from Beowulf and a biographical essay on Bernard of Clairvaux.  Hala is also the founder of That Medieval Thing (Med Fest).

Jennifer Holly-Wells

Title:  Assistant Professor of English
Office:  Sitterly House 301B
Phone:  973-408-8833
Email:  jholly@drew.edu
Education:  B.A., College of Saint Benedict, 1998; Ph.D., Drew University, 2009
Biography:  Jennifer Holly Wells, an Assistant Professor of English, came to Drew in 1999.  In 2005, Jennifer won the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies Teacher-Mentor Award.  Her teaching and research interests are in composition, 20^th century American literature, the work of Louise Erdrich, literary historiography, assessment of first-year composition, and digital humanities.  She is a contributing researcher on the Citation Project.  Jennifer has recently taught College Writing and 20^th Century American Immigrant Literature, as well as the Joy of Scholarly Writing for the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies.  Jennifer regularly presents her work at conferences, and her article on Louise Erdrich’s early publishing success was published in MidAmerica in 2011.

Shakti Jaising

Title:  Assistant Professor of English
Office:  Sitterly House 204
Phone:  973-408-3915
Email:  sjaising@drew.edu
Education:  B.A., University of Mumbai, 1996; M.A., University of Florida, 1999; M.F.A., Temple University, 2003; Ph.D., Rutgers Universtiy, 2011
Biography:  Shakti Jaising, Assistant Professor of English, came to Drew in 2011. Her research and teaching interests include twentieth-century and contemporary Anglophone literature, world cinema, documentary film, and theoretical approaches emerging out of Marxism and postcolonial and race studies. Her publication, “Who is Christophine? The Good Black Servant and the Contradictions of (Racial) Liberalism,” appeared in Modern Fiction Studies 56.4 (Winter 2010), as part of a special issue titled “Postcolonial Literature: Twenty-Five Years Later.” Here she examines the trope of the good black servant within the 1831 anti-slavery treatise, The History of Mary Prince, and Jean Rhys’s 1966 novel, Wide Sargasso Sea. Her next publication explores the challenges of representing institutionalized racism within literary and cinematic narratives emerging out of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This essay is forthcoming in Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies.

Sandra Jamieson

Title:  Professor of English and Director of Writing Across the Curriculum
Office:  Sitterly House 306
Phone:  973-408-3499
Email:  sjamieso@drew.edu
Education:  B.A., University at East Anglia, 1981; M.A., 1986; Ph.D., S.U.N.Y. Binghamton University, 1991
Biography:  Sandra Jamieson, a Professor of English, came to Drew in 1993.  She specializes in the areas of composition theory and pedagogy; creative non-fiction (travel writing); contemporary American authors and Ethnic-American authors; critical theory.  Her recent publications include: Coming of Age: The Advanced Writing Curriculum, with Linda Shamoon, Rebecca Moore Howard, and Robert Schwegler (Heinemann, 2000), Winner of the WPA Best Book Award for 2000-2001; The Bedford Guide to Teaching Writing in the Disciplines: An Instructor’s Desk Reference, with Rebecca Moore Howard (Bedford Books, 1995), and essays on composition and culture in books published by Oxford University Press, Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, NCTE, MLA, and Greenwood Press.
Website:  sandrajamieson.wordpress.com/

Liz Kimball

Title:  Visiting Assistant Professor of English
Office:  Sitterly House 307
Phone:  973-408-8829
Email:  lkimball@drew.edu
Education:  M.A. in English, Rutgers-Camden, 1996; B.A. in English, Earlham College, 2003; Ph.D., Temple University, 2010
Biography:  Elizabeth Kimball came to Drew in 2010 upon completing her Ph.D. at Temple University, where she focused on rhetoric and composition with a heavy dose of eighteenth-century literature and culture. With longtime interests in the intersection of textual study and cultures of literacy, her dissertation work examined multilingual pedagogies in the diverse communities of eighteenth-century Philadelphia. She is currently writing about multilingual experience and ideologies in community-university partnerships. At Drew, she teaches in, and helps to direct, the College Writing program. She is also involved in community-based learning projects with Neighborhood House of Morristown and local Latino communities. She is published in Rhetoric Review and Reflections: A Journal of Public Rhetoric, Civic Writing, and Service Learning, and is co-editing a collection of essays on identity among instructors and administrators in first-year writing programs.

Neil Levi

Title:  Associate Professor of English
Office:  Sitterly House 308
Phone:  973-408-3821
Email:  nlevi@drew.edu
Education:  B.A., University of Western Australia, 1989; M.A., Columbia University, 1991; M.Phil., Columbia University, 1994; Ph.D., Columbia University, 2000
Biography:  Neil Levi, an Associate Professor of English, came to Drew in 2000.  He specializes in twentieth century British and comparative literature, critical theory, and the Holocaust. He is editor, with Michael Rothberg, of The Holocaust: Theoretical Readings (Edinburgh University Press/Rutgers University Press, 2003) and, with Tim Dolin, of a Special Issue of Australian Cultural History, entitled Antipodean Modern.  Selected recent publications include:“Carl Schmitt and the Question of the Aesthetic,” New German Critique, volume 101 (Summer 2007): 27-43; “No Sensible Comparison?” The Place of the Holocaust In Australia’s History Wars,” History and Memory Volume 19, Number 1 (2007): 124-156. “The Persistence of the Old Regime: Late Modernist Form in the Postmodern Period (Jameson, Badiou, Mosley),” Modernism and Theory: A Critical Debate, edited by Stephen Ross (Routledge, 2009).  He has also published articles in the journals Symploke, Modernism/Modernity, OCTOBER, Textual Practice, and Idealistic Studies.  Prof. Levi’s monograph, Modernism, Dirt, and the Jews, is forthcoming from Fordham University Press.

Melissa Nicolas

Title:  Associate Professor of English, Director of the Writing Center,
and Associate Dean of Academic Services
Office:  Sitterly House 206/BC-114
Phone:  973-408-3136
Email:  mnicolas@drew.edu
Education:  Ph.D. English, Ohio State University, 2002
Biography:  Melissa Nicolas’ research and teaching interests include:  Composition, writing center, and writing across the curriculum, theory, practice, and administration; feminist epistemology, philosophy, and pedagogy; historiography; nineteenth-century women’s rhetoric; history and philosophy of education; and qualitative research.  She is the co-editor of By Any Other Name:  Writing Groups Inside and Outside the Academy and editor of (E)Merging Identities: Graduate Students in the Writing Center and has book chapters in several award-winning collections as well numerous journal articles.

Frank Occhiogrosso

Title:  Professor of English
Office:  Sitterly House 201
Phone:  973-408-3301
Email:  focchiog@drew.edu
Education:  B.A., St. John’s University, 1965; M.A., Johns Hopkins, 1967; Ph.D., Johns Hopkins, 1969
Biography:  Began at Drew, English Department, 1970. Currently Professor of English. Specialties: Shakespeare, Renaissance Literature, Renaissance Poetry, Renaissance Drama, Modern Drama, American Drama, Shakespeare-on-Film. Lectures also in the adult education circuit locally, where he has done all of the above as well as classes on American popular song, American folksong, The Great American Lyricists, The Broadway Musical. Has worked as dramaturg for the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey. Books: Shakespeare in Performance, Univ. of Delaware Press, 2003; Shakespearean Performance: New Studies, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 2008; Shakespeare closely Read, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press of Rowman and Littlefield, 2011. His articles and reviews have appeared in Shakespeare Quarterly, Shakespeare Bulletin, Shakespeare Newsletter, Literature/Film Quarterly, Modern Language Studies, The Journal of Popular Culture, The Dictionary of Literary Biography, and The New Republic

Nadine Ollman

Title:  Professor of English
Office:  Sitterly House 106
Phone:  973-408-3300
Email:  nollman@drew.edu
Education:  B.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1961; M.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1962; Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1971
Biography:  Nadine Ollman, a Professor of English, arrived at Drew in 1967.  When she isn’t reading seventeenth century and eighteenth century British literature, Ollman enjoys reading mysteries and tackling crossword puzzles. A collector of puns, she also enjoys cooking, gardening, and listening to music.

Patrick Phillips

Title:  Associate Professor of English
Office:  Sitterly House 304
Phone:  973-408-3954
Email:  pphillip@drew.edu
Education:  B.A. English, Tufts University; M.F.A., University of Maryland; Ph.D. Renaissance Literature, New York University
Biography:  Patrick Phillips’ first book of poems, Chattahoochee, received the 2005 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and his second, Boy, was published in 2008.  He has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the U.S. Fulbright Commission, and honors including a 2011 Pushcart Prize, the Lyric Poetry Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the Emily Clark Balch award from the Virginia Quarterly Review.  His poems have appeared in magazines such as Poetry, Ploughshares, and The Nation, and are regularly featured on Garrison Keillor’s radio show “The Writer’s Almanac.”  He currently directs the Writing Minor at Drew, and teaches creative writing, literature, and literary translation.
Website:  patrickthemighty.com

Robert Ready

Title:  Baldwin Professor of Humanities, Professor of English,
Convener of the Arts and Letters Program, and Dean of the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies
Office:  Sitterly House 203/SW Bowne
Phone:  973-408-3302
Email:  rready@drew.edu
Education:  A.B., Columbia University, 1966; M.A., Columbia University, 1967; Ph.D., Columbia University, 1970
Biography:  Robert Ready, a Professor of English, came to Drew in 1970.  His specializes in the areas of nineteenth-century British literature, writing fiction, and graduate liberal studies. His recent work has appeared in Keats-Shelley Journal, Journal of Narrative Theory, WaterSedge, Water~Stone Review, and Reconfigurations.

Peggy Samuels

Title:  Professor of English
Office:  Sitterly House 208
Phone:  973-408-3086
Email:  psamuels@drew.edu
Education:  B.A., Yale University, 1981; M.A. in Fiction Writing, John Hopkins University, 1985; Ph.D., City University of New York, 1993
Biography:  Peggy Samuels, a Professor of English, came to Drew in 1992.  She specializes in the areas of Milton, seventeenth-century British literature, and post-World War II American poetry.  In addition to those subjects, she teaches biographical approaches to literature and the Bible as literature.  Her most recent publication explores Elizabeth Bishop’s response tot he experimental work of Paul Klee, Kurt Schwitters, and Alexander Calder (Deep Skin: Elizabeth Bishop and Visual Art, Cornell UP, 2010).  Previous publications cover Renaissance sonnets, 16th century Spanish discovery narratives, Andrew Marvell and John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and his divorce tracts.

Sarah Wald

Title:  Assistant Professor of English and Environmental Studies & Sustainability
Office:  Sitterly House 305
Phone:  973-408-3217
Email:  swald@drew.edu
Education:  B.A., Reed College, 2001; M.A., Brown University, 2004; Ph.D., Brown University, 2009
Biography:  Sarah Wald is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in English and Environmental Studies and Sustainability. She specializes in the relationship between the environment and literature, with a particular interest in the environmental imagination in Ethnic American literature.  She teaches courses in environmental literature, ecocriticism, space and place in U.S. literature, immigrant literatures, and Ethnic American literature. She is currently working on a manuscript entitled, “The Nature of Citizenship: Race, Citizenship, and Nature in Representations of Californian Agricultural Labor.”  This work examines twentieth-century representations of Californian farmers and farm workers to analyze the role nature and land plays in the racialized construction of legal and cultural citizenship.  She has published on John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Helena Maria Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus, and Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Hannah Wells

Title:  Assistant Professor of English
Office:  Sitterly House 105
Phone:  973-408-3903
Email:  hwells@drew.edu
Education:  B.A., University of Chicago, 1998; M.A., University of Pennsylvania, 2006; Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 2009
Biography:  Hannah Wells is a scholar of 19th-century American literature and culture. Her teaching and research interests include law and literature, African American literature, Native American literature, political philosophy, pragmatism, and religion in the US. She is currently at work on a book called If Bodies Matter: American Pragmatism and The Color Line, which weds the development of pragmatist philosophy to the emergence of new models of racial citizenship that found form and expression in the literary innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Before coming to Drew, Hannah was an A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto. She has also taught at Stanford, the Cooper Union, and the University of Pennsylvania.