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Faculty


Rick Botkin

Richard Botkin
Office: 205-G Bailey, (785) 864-1379
E-mail: pigeon1@ku.edu

Rick Botkin taught Western Civilization I and II as a Graduate Teaching Assistant while completing his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Kansas and returned to the Humanities & Western Civilization Program as a Lecturer in 2000.  Dr. Botkin’s interests are in the areas of symbolic logic, epistemology, ancient Greek philosophy, and the scientific revolution of 17th century Europe.

 
Peter Casagrande Peter Casagrande
Office: 303G Bailey, (785) 864-0168
E-mail: pjc@ku.edu

Pete Casagrande came to the University of Kansas in 1967 having received a Ph.D. in English from Indiana University.  He joined the Humanities & Western Civilization Program faculty in 1995 and also is a member of the faculty of the Department of English.  He has written several books and many articles and reviews on the poet-novelist Thomas Hardy and on the topic of literary creativity.  Professor Casagrande is the recipient of several teaching awards.

 
  Katherine Clark
Office: 3634 Wescoe, (785) 864-2145
E-mail: krpclark@ku.edu

Katherine Clark is an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the Humanities & Western Civilization Program and the Department of History.  She received her Ph.D. in History from the Johns Hopkins University.  Her research interests include the history of western political and social thought and the intellectual and cultural history of  17th and 18th century Britain.

 
Antha Cotten-Spreckelmeyer

Antha Cotten-Spreckelmeyer
Office: 308-A Bailey, (785) 864-3012
E-mail: arcs@ku.edu

Antha Cotten-Spreckelmeyer holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Kansas with a specialization in Old English Literature.  She joined the Humanities & Western Civilization Program in 1990 as a faculty lecturer, became Assistant Director of the program in 1995, and is now Associate Director.  Professor Spreckelmeyer directs the program’s writing instruction and serves as the coordinator for majors. Publications and scholarly presentations include work in the field of early English religious poetry.

 
Antha Cotten-Spreckelmeyer Anne Dotter
Office: 303-J Bailey, (785) 864-3021
E-mail: annele@ku.edu

Anne Dotter, Humanities and Western Civilization Program Lecturer, is a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies.  Her emphasis is on transnational cultural exchanges between French and American films dealing with teenage adolescence.  Ms. Dotter, a native of France, received a Diplome d’Etudes Approfondies (DEA) in American Civilization at Université Marc Bloch in Strasbourg.  While a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the HWC Program she was named as a Dean’s Instructor and received the Outstanding GTA Award from the Graduate School.

 
Kevin Dyck

Kevin Dyck
Office: 303-J Bailey, (785) 864-3021
E-mail: kdyck@ku.edu

Kevin Dyck is a Lecturer in the Humanities & Western Civilization Program. He is a Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy and received his M.A. from the University of Kansas.  Mr. Dyck has extensive teaching experience in both the department of Philosophy and in the HWC Program as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and was a Dean’s Instructor in 2004. His interests are normative psychology, ethics, and history of modern philosophy.

 
Chris Forth

Christopher E. Forth
Office: 303-F Bailey, (785) 864-8036
E-mail: cforth@ku.edu

Christopher Forth is the Jack and Shirley Howard Teaching Professor of Humanities & Western Civilization. A specialist in the cultural history of gender, sexuality and the body, he received his doctorate from the State University of New York at Buffalo and has previously taught at the Australian National University. He is the author or editor of several books, including The Dreyfus Affair and the Crisis of French Manhood (2004) and Masculinity in the Modern West: Gender, Civilization and the Body (2008), and is currently writing a cultural history of obesity.

 
Diane Fourny

Diane Fourny
Office: 303-L Bailey, (785) 864-9070
E-mail: dfourny@ku.edu

Diane Fourny is an Associate Professor in the Department of French and Italian and in the Humanities & Western Civilization Program.  She also serves as Director of the Center for European Studies, is Co-Director of the Humanities Multicultural Scholars Program, and is heavily involved in the direction of the HWC Program’s Study Abroad in Florence and Paris.  Her areas of research are the French Enlightenment (18th Century Novel, J.-J. Rousseau, Diderot), autobiography, and European Studies.   Professor Fourny has received the H. Bernard Fink Distinguished Teaching Award and a Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence.  She received a Ph.D. in French from Stanford University.

 
Jennifer Heller

Jennifer Heller
Office: 303-B Bailey, (785) 864-3013
E-mail: jheller@ku.edu

Jenny Heller, Assistant Director of the Humanities and Western Civilization Program, earned her M.S.Ed. in Teaching and Leadership and her Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Kansas.  Her dissertation subject was American evangelical women of the mid-twentieth century. Dr. Heller came to the program first as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and more recently as a Lecturer. In addition to overseeing the Graduate Teaching Assistants and Western Civilization classes, she continues to lecture in Western Civilization I and II courses and is the co-director of CLAS Humanities division of the Multicultural Scholars Program.   During her post-graduate years she received numerous teaching and writing awards.  Dr. Heller also brings to her position extensive university administrative experience, having held positions at Avila University, Rockhurst University and Donnelly College.  

 
Marike Janzen

Marike Janzen
Office: 303-G Bailey , (785) 864-0165
E-mail: mjanzen@ku.edu

Marike Janzen is a Lecturer in the Humanities & Western Civilization Program, teaching World Literature. She also serves as a Lecturer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Dr. Janzen earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in twentieth-century German and Latin American literature. Before coming to the University of Kansas, Dr. Janzen was Assistant Professor of German at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia. She has published work on the East German writer Anna Seghers, and is interested in issues of solidarity, authorship, and social criticism in diverse cultural contexts of the Cold War. 

 
Martha Rabbani

Martha Rabbani
Office: 303-E Bailey, (785) 864-3021
E-mail: mrabbani@ku.edu

Martha Jalali Rabbani joined the Humanities & Western Civilization Program faculty in 2004 as a Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies.  A Brazilian, she holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from universities in Brazil, an advanced diploma in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution from the European Peace University in Schlainnin, Austria, and a doctorate in Humanities from Jaume I University in Spain.  Her teaching and research are in peace education, conflict resolution, and social development.

 
Sarah Trulove

Sarah Trulove
Office: 308 Bailey, (785) 864-3011
E-mail: trulove@ku.edu

Sarah Trulove is a Lecturer in the Humanities and Western Civilization Program.  She received an M.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Kansas.  Ms. Trulove co-authored the NEH grant which transformed the Western Civilization Program in the mid- 1980’s and helped develop the program’s Semester Abroad program in Florence and Paris.  She is the managing editor of and contributor to the fourth edition of the Western Civilizations textbook, Patterns in Western Civilization.  Her areas of interest include biblical studies, church history, and feminist religious thought.

 
Dale Urie

Dale Urie
Office: 303-D Bailey, (785) 864-0165
E-mail: durie@ku.edu

Dale Urie received her Ph.D. from the University of North Texas in Modern European History.  Her primary research centers on the life of the English author Rebecca West and her exploration of events and ideas that shaped the twentieth century.  After teaching on the faculties of Northeastern University and the Art Institute of Boston as well as the Anglo-American College in Prague, Czech Republic, Dr. Urie joined the Humanities and Western Civilization Program as a Lecturer in 2000.  She also teaches in the European Studies Program and is the recipient of numerous teaching awards.

 
Robert Vodicka

Robert Vodicka
Office: 206 Bailey,   (785) 864-1379
E-mail: rmexico@ku.edu

Robert Vodicka is a Lecturer in the Humanities & Western Civilization Program.  He received a B.A. from Pomona College and an M.A. in American Studies from the University of Kansas.   He has served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in American Studies, the HWC Program, and the Applied English Center.  Mr. Vodicka’s interests are popular culture, labor, labor in the academy, and cultural theory.

 
Matt Waldschlagel

Matthew Waldschlagel
Office: 303-E Bailey, (785) 864-3021
E-mail: mjwald@ku.edu

Matt Waldschlagel is a Lecturer in Humanities & Western Civilization Program, having taught previously in the program as a Graduate Teaching Assistant.  He is a recipient of the prestigious Carlin Award for outstanding teaching.  A Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy, Matt received a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of New Hampshire and an M.A. in Philosophy at Kent State University. His areas of interest are ethical theory and the history of philosophy.  Matt also teaches courses in ancient Greek philosophy and the philosophy of religion for the Department of Philosophy.

 
James Woelfel

James Woelfel
Office: 303-H Bailey, (785) 864-3011
E-mail: woelfel@ku.edu

Jim Woelfel has been Director of the Humanities and Western Civilization Program since 1985 and also serves as a Professor of Philosophy.  Professor Woelfel received a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of St. Andrews, and has served on the KU faculty since 1966.  His teaching and research have been primarily 19th and 20th century European philosophical and religious thought.  Among the books he has authored are Bonhoeffer’s Theology, Borderland Christianity, Albert Camus on the Sacred and the Secular, Portraits in Victorian Religious Thought, The Existentialist Legacy and Other Essays on Philosophy and Religion, and is an editor of Patterns in Western Civilization fourth edition.  Professor Woelfel was a 1997 recipient of the Kansas Humanities Council’s Silver Anniversary Public Scholar Award, and in 1998 received a Kemper Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching.

 
Karenbeth Zacharias

Karenbeth Zacharias
Office: 303-G Bailey Hall, (785) 864-0165
E-mail: bfarmer@ku.edu

Karenbeth Zacharias, Lecturer in the Humanities and Western Civilization Program and the Department of History, received her J.D. from the University of Kansas School of Law in May 2002, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in British History.  She has taught as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and Associate Instructor in the History Department and the HWC Program. Karenbeth has a long record of service:  she currently serves as a graduate representative on the Advisory Committee for the Department of History and is a voting member of the department.  She also serves as the co-director for the British Seminars at the Hall Center for the Humanities.  

 
Sandra Zimdars-Swartz

Sandra Zimdars-Swartz
Office: 203-C Bailey Hall, (785) 864-0160
E-mail: szimdars@ku.edu

Sandra Zimdars-Swartz is a Professor in the Humanities and Western Civilization Program. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy and Religion from Claremont Graduate School.  Her research interests are religious experience and popular religion with Christian traditions.  Professor Zimdars-Swartz is the author of Encountering Mary: from La Salette to Medjugorje. She is the HWC Ambassador to the Center for Teaching Excellence, and has received a Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence.