Women's Studies Department Faculty Affiliates

A-B C-J K-M N-R S-Z

Raquel Aldana, Boyd School of Law M/S 1003 realdana@unlv.nevada.edu 895-2699
Professor Aldana earned her J.D. degree in 1997 from Harvard University, where she served as articles editor to the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Prior to coming to the Boyd School of Law, Professor Aldana worked for the Center for Justice and International Law representing victims of gross human rights violations in the Inter-American System on Human Rights. She also taught a seminar in human rights at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Prior to that, she was an associate at the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis U Pogue in Washington, D.C. Professor Aldana teaches Immigration Law, Criminal Procedure, International Human Rights, and International Public Law. Professor Aldana writes on the rights of victims of state-sponsored crimes in the criminal process and on the legality of the September 11 detention practices in the United States.

Jiemin Bao, Department of Anthropology M/S 5003 jbao@unlv.nevada.edu 895-4342

Megan Becker-Leckrone, Department of English M/S 5011 meganb@unlv.nevada.edu 895-1244

Catherine Bellver, Department of Foreign Languages M/S 5047 bellver@unlv.nevada.edu 895-3464
I am a professor in the foreign languages department, where I teach courses in nineteenth and twentieth century Spanish literature and a wide variety of language courses. My research has focused primarily on the poetry of the Generation of 27 (i.e., of the 1920s and 1930s) and on narrative of the last fifty years. I have also done some work on theater. Most of my work over the past twenty years has been on women writers. My last book, Absence and Presence: Spanish Women Poets of the Twenties and Thirties, appeared in 2001. I have been actively involved in women's studies on the campus since its inception and nationally with my work for the Modern Language Association.

Michael Bowers, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs M/S 1099 bowersm@unlv.nevada.edu 895-3141
Dr. Bowers is Professor of Political Science and Public Law. His areas of interest are public law and judicial politics, Nevada law and politics, American politics, and public policy. In addition to his full-time duties as an administrator, Dr. Bowers regularly teaches courses in civil rights and civil liberties, judicial process, the constitutional rights of women, and politics and film. He has written two books on Nevada law and politics: The Sagebrush State: Nevada's History, Government, and Politics (1996) and The Nevada Constitution: A Reference Guide (1993).

Cheryl Bowles, School of Nursing M/S 3018 cheryl.bowles@unlv.edu 895-3082

I am a professor in the School of Nursing where I primarily teach graduate courses in nursing research and nursing education.  I have been involved in women’s health concerns for many years where my primary focus has been women in mid-life and beyond.  I have developed a scale to measure attitude toward menopause which has been frequently used in menopausal research around the world.  I am currently studying effects of Pilates exercise on post-menopausal women and also the experiences of lesbian women with health care providers.

Barb Brents, Department of Sociology M/S 5033 brents@unlv.nevada.edu 895-0261
I'm an associate professor in the sociology department and have been at UNLV since earning my Ph.D. from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1987. I teach courses and do research on sexuality, political sociology, and gender. I am currently involved with Kate Hausbeck in the SABIR project, studying the sex industry. We are completing a project on Nevada's legal brothels. I am also doing work on social movements and terrorism. I believe in taking my sociology and feminist theory into real life and have been very active in local grassroots organizations supporting peace and social justice, lesbian and gay rights, the anti nuclear dump movement, and environmental issues. You can see my work on my web page at http://www.unlv.edu/faculty/brents

Thomas Burkholder, Department of Communication Studies  M/S 5007 tom.burkholder@unlv.edu 895-4376
Prof. Burkholder (Ph.D., University of Kansas) is Chair and Associate Professor in the department of Communication Studies. He teaches courses in rhetorical criticism and theory and the history of U.S. public address. His research interests include 19th century U.S. public address, the rhetoric of woman suffrage, and political and presidential rhetoric. He is co-author, with Karlyn Kohrs-Campbell, of the second edition of Critiques of Contemporary Rhetoric, and is co-editing a volume on the history of 19th century U.S. protest rhetoric with Dean Martha Watson.

Felicia Campbell, Department of English M/S 5011 felicia.campbell@unlv.edu 895-3457

With B.S. and M.S. degrees from University of Wisconsin, Madison and a PhD from USIU San Diego, Felicia Campbell has taught a variety of courses at UNLV since 1962.  She created the first Women in Literature Course ever taught on the UNLV campus!  A professor of English, she is currently Chair of the Asian Studies Program, Acting Director of the Asian Studies Center,  Executive Director of the Far West Popular and American Culture Associations and editor of the Popular Culture Review.  See her vita at http://liberalarts.unlv.edu/English/.

Erika Engstrom, Department of Communication Studies M/S 3007 erika.engstrom@unlv.edu 895-3639
I'm an associate professor in the department of communication studies and teach the cross-listed course "Communication Between the Sexes." I earned my B.A. in radio-television and M.A. in communication from the University of Central Florida, and my Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Florida. My research interests focus on gender portrayals in the mass media, especially reality television wedding programs. I am heavily involved with the Commission on the Status of Women of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, which promotes feminist scholarship, and am a supporter of the program "Women's Voices," which airs on KUNV-FM 91.5.

Evelyn Gajowski, Department of English M/S 5011 shakespe@unlv.nevada.edu 895-3795
Evelyn Gajowski has published two books on Shakespeare, her area of specialization: Re-Visions of Shakespeare: Essays in Honor of Robert Ornstein and The Art of Loving: Female Subjectivity and Male Discursive Traditions in Shakespeare's Tragedies. She recently organized and co-chaired two research seminars, "Performing Shakespeare and Gender in the Present," at the 8th World Shakespeare Congress in Brisbane, Australia, in July 2006, and "Shakespeare, Gender, and Sexual Orientation in the Present," at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America in Bermuda in March 2005. She has served as President and Executive Board member of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association and on the Board of Trustees of Nevada Shakespeare in the Park. She has delivered nearly sixty papers on Shakespeare and gender issues at international, national, and regional conferences. As the Shakespearean in the Department of English, she is primarily responsible for teaching graduate seminars and undergraduate courses in Shakespeare, but she also teaches courses in early modern English literature and culture, gender issues, and literary theory. An undergraduate course that she developed for cross-listing with Women's Studies, Gender and Renaissance Literature (ENG/WMST 441B/641B), draws upon her recent and current research, as does her graduate seminar, Gender and Interpretation (ENG 795).  She has served on fifty graduate student committees, having directed the dissertations of PhD students now employed in tenured or tenure-track positions across the country.

Joanne Goodwin, Women's Research Institute of Nevada M/S 5020 jgoodwin@unlv.nevada.edu 895-1026
Joanne L. Goodwin (History) arrived at UNLV in 1991 to teach women’s history in the History Department having received her doctorate from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her first book, Gender and the Politics of Welfare Reform, was published by the University of Chicago in 1997. Additional articles and reviews are published in Gender & History, Journal of Social History, Journal of American History, Signs, and the Journal of Women’s History. Since moving to Las Vegas, her research has taken a new direction focusing on women in the twentieth-century west. Las Vegas offers particular challenges because of the “youth” of the city and the relatively weak archival infrastructure. She worked with Jean Ford to create the Nevada Women’s Archives at UNLV and initiated a program to collect oral histories on women. Her interest in social policy and gender is reflected in her current position as Executive Director of the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada. She co-founded the Institute in 1999 to study conditions affecting women and girls throughout the state. The institute has already collaborated with the U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau; Rutgers University, Center for Women in American Politics; the Institute of Women's Policy Research in Washington, D.C.; and the Center for Applied Research at UNR. In addition to our ongoing historical research, we have added a project on civic engagement and leadership development among college women which enters its third year in 2005. The Women's Research Institute welcomes students from across the campus as interns, participants in the NEW Leadership program, and volunteers.

P. Jane Hafen, Department of English M/S 5011 pjhafen@unlv.nevada.edu 895-3508
P. Jane Hafen (Taos Pueblo) serves as book review editor for Studies in American Indian Literatures, on the editorial board of Western American Literature, as an advisory editor of Great Plains Quarterly, on the University of Nevada Press editorial advisory board, on the board of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, and is an Associate Fellow at the Center for Great Plains Studies. She is a Frances C. Allen Fellow, D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian, The Newberry Library. She is editor of Dreams and Thunder: Stories, Poems and The Sun Dance Opera by Zitkala-Ša and co-editor, with Diane Quantic, of A Great Plains Reader. Her monograph, Reading Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine is part of the Western Writers Series. She is one of the clan mothers of the Native American Literature Symposium, and mother of four children.

Kate Hausbeck, Graduate College M/S 1017 hausbeck@unlv.nevada.edu 895-0265
I am an associate professor in the sociology department and have been involved in the women’s studies program since my arrival at UNLV in 1995. As a social theorist, I teach courses in contemporary, classical, and feminist theory. My substantive areas of research are gender and culture; I regularly cross list my cultural studies and gender courses with women’s studies. For the past several years, Barb Brents and I have been working together to research the sex industry, particularly the Nevada brothel system. We have co-founded the SABIR (Sex and Body Industry Research) project and are committed to feminist theory and research that critically evaluates the economics, politics, and culture of commercial sexuality and the complex ways women experience and negotiate these social systems. Approximately every two years we team-teach a course called sociology of the sex industry, which is cross listed with women’s studies. A committed community educator and activist, I also serve on the Board of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Nevada.

Claudia Keelan, Department of English M/S 5011 keelanc@unlv.nevada.edu 895-3333
I have published two books of poetry: Refinery, which won the 1994 Cleveland State Poetry Prize, and The Secularist, which was a winner in the 1997 Contemporary Poetry Series from the University of George Press. I received a grant from The Kentucky Foundation for Women for my commitment to feminism as well as a Helene Wurlitzer Foundation grant and my work has been nominated for many awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the PEN Medal in Poetry. My essay on civil rights, "Revising the Parade: Against the Poetry of Witness," won the Robert D. Richardson award for best essay published in 1997.

Jennifer Keene, Department of Sociology M/S 5033 jkeene@unlv.nevada.edu 895-0239
Jennifer Reid Keene is Associate Professor of Sociology at UNLV.  She arrived at UNLV in 2001 from Florida State University in Tallahassee.  Currently, Jennifer teaches graduate and undergraduate quantitative methods, Introduction to Sociology, Sociology of Aging and the Life Course, and Marriage and the Family.  Jennifer’s research interests include gender, work and family, eldercare issues, widowhood and bereavement, gender and health benefits, grandparenting, and the struggles of the Sandwiched Generation.  She is also a founding member (with Anastasia Prokos) of UNLV's local chapter of Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS), which is an international organization of social scientists working together to improve the position of women within sociology and within society in general.

Cathie Kelly, Department of Art M/S 5002 cathie.kelly@unlv.edu 895-3894
I am an associate professor and chair of the art department, where I teach 15th-18th century art history. My area of specialization is 17th and 18th century Roman architecture. I have an active interest in historic preservation. For the past five years I have served as president of the Preservation Association of Clark County and am currently a member of the City of Las Vegas's Historic Preservation Commission and a member of the board of trustees of the Neon Museum. I have lectured in the community on a variety of topics ranging from artists as architects to sculpture and painting as manifestations of religion.

Kelly Mays, Department of English M/S 5011 kelly.mays@unlv.edu 895-3589

Ann C. McGinley, Boyd School of Law M/S 1003 ann.mcginley@unlv.edu 895-2436
I am a Professor of Law at the newly established William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV. Before coming to UNLV in 1999, I taught at Florida State University College of Law and at Brooklyn Law School. I teach Civil Procedure, Employment Law, Employment Discrimination, Disability Law and Pretrial Litigation. A 1982 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, I was a member of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and I clerked for Judge Joseph Lord III in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. I spent five years practicing civil rights and employment law in Minnesota and New Jersey. Since coming to the Academy in 1989, I have published numerous articles on discrimination law, focusing on race and gender issues in the law, particularly in the realm of employment. I am currently working on projects on sexual harassment and on the rights of contingent workers.

Marta Meana, Department of Psychology,  M/S 5030 meana@unlv.nevada.edu 895-0184
I earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from McGill University, completed a pre-doctoral clinical internship in psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and did a research post-doc in women’s health at the University of Toronto. My research interests center on two separate although often related areas: gynecologic pain and female sexuality. I study biopsychosocial approaches to both the assessment and treatment of dyspareunia, vaginismus, vulvar vestibulitis, and vulvodynia. I am also interested in the etiology of female sexual dysfunction, with an emphasis on disorders of sexual desire and arousal. A secondary line of research involves the psychosocial impact of obesity surgery.

Sharon Moore, Department of English M/S 5011 sharon.moore@unlv.edu 895-1384

Elizabeth Nelson, Department of History M/S 5020 eaw@unlv.nevada.edu 895-3218
My research focuses on the cultural history of the economy. My book, Market Sentiments: Middle-Class Market culture in 19th-Century America (Smithsonian 2004) examines the social and cultural history of sentimentalism and the rise of market culture in nineteenth-century America through sentimental novels, spin-off products, magazines, fancywork, valentines, and other forms of material culture. I explore the use of sentimental rhetoric by a growing middle class to develop a new language of moral economy. My current project examines the relationship between women's writing on political economy and the development of abolitionism. I teach courses on nineteenth-century popular culture, the role of gender in the formation of a middle-class in nineteenth-century America, and the history of consumer culture, as well as courses on the National Period, 1815-1860 and the Civil War and Reconstruction, 1860-1877.

Peg Rees, Department of Public Lands Institute M/S 2040 rees@unlv.nevada.edu 895-3890
I am a geologist who is interested in feminist science education. My geological research has focused on the geological evolution of the continental margin of Antarctica from about 700 to 500 million years ago. Because of this research, I have had the pleasure of spending eight field seasons in the Antarctic. I am always pleased to talk with people about visiting and working in Antarctica and showing slides of beautiful places in the Transantarctic Mountains. In the past few years, I have become involved with the women's studies program at UNLV and have gained knowledge about feminist science education. Maralee Mayberry and I are co-founders of a National Science Foundation project, PROMISE (Projects for Multicultural and Interdisciplinary Studies and Education), which focuses on the development of teaching modules that integrate social awareness and feminist critiques of science in the earth science classroom. Maralee and I team-teach a course called Earth Systems: A Feminist Approach. Students who take this course can receive credit for it through women's studies, sociology, or geoscience. They can also use it to fulfill their university core requirements in physical or social science or in humanities.

Beth Rosenberg, Department of English M/S 5011 drbeth@unlv.nevada.edu 895-3633
I'm an assistant professor in the English department where I teach courses in modern British and women's literature. I am the author of Virginia Woolf and Samuel Johnson: Common Readers and co-editor of Virginia Woolf and the Essay. I am currently working on a book-length study of the representation of Jews and anti-Semitism in the work of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Anita Desai. My teaching interests include the nineteenth century British novelists Jane Austen and the Brontes as well as many other twentieth century British and American women writers. I often teach two courses that are cross-listed with women's studies, "Women and Literature" and "Gender and Modern British Literature."

Randall Shelden, Department of Criminal Justice M/S 5009 shelden@unlv.nevada.edu 895-0251
I’m a professor in the criminal justice department, where I teach courses in youth crime, delinquency prevention, the history of criminal justice, social inequality and crime, and women and crime (cross listed with women’s studies). I just published the second edition of a book on gangs and also a book on the history of criminal justice. I am currently revising an introduction to criminal justice textbook.

Heidi Swank, Department of Anthropology M/S 5003 heidi.swank@unlv.edu 895-4085
Heidi Swank is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Ethnic Studies.  She recently earned her Ph.D. at Northwestern University.  She teaches Language and Culture, and Language and Gender.  Her research interests include linguistic anthropology, literacy and writing, youth culture, beauty pageants, popular culture, Tibetan, English, and Tibetan Diaspora.  Dr. Swank’s work has significant implications for the study of writing as an independent medium of identity negotiation and challenges the importance placed on social institutions, such as education and the family, in the valuation of linguistic and social practices. 

Dina Titus, Department of Political Science M/S 5029 dina.titus@unlv.edu 895-3756
I am a professor in the Political Science Department at UNLV and earned my doctorate from Florida State University.  I currently teach courses in Nevada Politics, State Politics, Atomic Policy (Weapons & Waste), Legislative Process and Women in Politics. My published works include Bombs in the Backyard: Atomic Testing and American Politics, University of Nevada Press, Revised Edition 2001; and Battle Born: Federal-State Relations in Nevada During the Twentieth Century, Kendall-Hunt, 1989. I am a Nevada State Senator with concerns about our natural state treasures as well as many issues that affect Nevadans, particularly Nevada's women, such as the minimum wage, sex offender laws, and senior property tax relief. Visit me at dinatitus.com.

Paul J. Traudt, Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media M/S 5007 paul.traudt@unlv.edu 895-3647
Dr. Traudt earned his doctorate in mass communication theory and research at the University of Texas at Austin and has been working at UNLV since 1996. His research and teaching interests reside within the interplay of media institutions, mass-mediated messages, and audience perceptions. He currently teaches courses in the areas of mass media and society, media criticism, and audience research methods. He is the author of Media, Audiences, Effects: An Introduction to the Study of Media Content and Audience Analysis, a textbook summarizing multi-disciplinary research on such topics as: media and eating disorders; sex and gender stereotyping in the media; television sex and sexuality; pornography; mass-mediated violence; and music videos.

Michelle Tusan, Department of History M/S 5020 michelle.tusan@unlv.edu 895-4570
Michelle Elizabeth Tusan is an Associate Professor in the History department at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, her areas of specialization include: British history, women's history, empire studies, and cultural history. She is the author of articles on women's political newspapers and journalists, including: "Reforming Work: Gender, Class and the Printing Trade in Victorian Britain," Journal of Women's History (2003); "Writing Stri Dharma: International Feminism, Nationalist Politics, and Women's Press Advocacy Colonial India," Women's History Review (2003); "Not the Ordinary Victorian Charity," History Workshop Journal (Spring 2000); and "Inventing the New Woman," Victorian Periodicals Review (Summer 1998). Her book, Women Making News: Gender and Advocacy Journalism in Britain, 1858-1930, is just out from the University of Illinois Press.

Martha Watson, Greenspun College of Urban Affairs M/S 3007 martha.watson@unlv.edu 895-3291
I’m professor of communication and dean of the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs. With a Ph.D. from the University of Texas, I have been on the faculty at Auburn University and most recently the University of Maryland-College Park, before coming to UNLV in 1997. In my real life, I am a scholar of women’s discourse, with a focus on women who were activists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Because of my focus on rhetoric and persuasion, I am quite interested in how women activists negotiate the tension between the pressures to gain adherents and their own often atypically “feminine” roles. Most recently, I have become interested in the concept of gender as performance and the implications of that for understanding these women’s persuasive efforts. To make some of my feminist concerns real, I am on the board of FIT, the Foundation for an Independent Tomorrow, a local foundation dedicated to helping women make the transition from welfare to well-paying jobs. I am also concerned with mentoring women--students, faculty, and staff--to cope with the distinctive challenges women face in the academic environment.

Elspeth Whitney, Department of History M/S 5020 elspeth@unlv.nevada.edu 895-3350
I received my Ph.D. from the Graduate School of the City University of New York in 1985 with a specialization in medieval history and the history of science. After teaching for four years at Alfred University in western New York State, I moved to UNLV and served as chair of the history department from 1996 to 1999. I began to teach courses in women's history while at Alfred and continue to do so here. In time, my teaching interests began to influence my scholarship, which came more and more to center on women in the medieval and early modern periods. While my book, Paradise Restored: The Mechanical Arts from Antiquity through the Thirteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1990) focused on the place of technology in medieval thought, my most recent scholarship is on the image of the witch in European culture. I am hoping in time to relate my earlier and current interests by exploring the ways in which medieval scientific and medical theory shaped early modern elite culture's understanding of what a witch is and does.