Academics
Faculty
Douglas Slaybaugh
Coordinator of American Studies Program
Professor of History
B.S. Iowa State University; M.A. Iowa State University; Ph.D. Cornell University
Courses Taught: U.S. History Since 1865; American Society and Culture Since 1865; Presidential Elections; The Age of FDR; America and the Cold War
Areas of Expertise: U.S. politics, society and culture; biography
Recent Scholarly Achievements: Dr. Slaybaugh has published a biography of William I. Myers, the head of the Farm Credit Administration during the New Deal and journal articles on Myers, courtship and marriage in the Progressive Era, and Adlai Stevenson’s presidential campaigns. Currently, he is working on a dual biography of a pair of idealistic Oberlin College graduates, class of 1912.
On Teaching and Research: Dr. Slaybaugh enjoys the opportunities for teaching and research possible at a college like Saint Michael’s and believes the two activities are mutually supportive. His research helps inform his teaching; his teaching experiences help raise issues for his research.
Learn more about Dr. Slaybaugh in his faculty spotlight.
Campus Office
Durick Library 310
Phone: 802.654.2465
Box 202
E-mail: dslaybaugh@smcvt.edu
Fall 2010 Office Hours: MW 4:00-5:15 pm; TTH 4:30-5:30 pm & by appt.
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Nathaniel Lewis
Professor of English
B.A. Yale University; M.A. University of North Carolina; Ph.D. Harvard University
Dr. Lewis has written on western American literature, literary aesthetics, and nature writing. He is the co-editor of True West: Authenticity and the American West and the author of Unsettling the Literary West, which won the Western Literature Association’s 2004 Thomas J. Lyon award for Best Critical Book in the field. He serves on the editorial board of the Postwestern Horizons series for the University of Nebraska Press and is a past member of the Western Literature Association’s Executive Council. He is currently at work on a collaborative book, tentatively titled Morta Las Vegas: CSI and the Problem of the West. Dr. Lewis teaches courses on literary theory, environmental writing, and multiethnic literatures.
Campus Office
Saint Edmund's 335
Phone: 802.654.2308
Box 245
E-mail: nlewis@smcvt.edu
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Bob Niemi
Associate Professor of English
B.A. University of Massachusetts at Amherst; M.S. Columbia University; M.A., Ph.D. University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Courses Taught: Genres: Film; American literature surveys; Critical Theory; advanced film courses
Areas of Expertise: American Studies; American literature and cultural history; film studies; critical theory; popular culture studies
Recent Scholarly Achievements: Dr. Niemi has just completed a book on Russell Banks and has published a bibliography of Weldon Kees. He is beginning work on another study, Class Representation in Film.
On Teaching and Research: Most of Dr. Niemi's research and publishing is in American Studies areas (i.e., contemporary literature, film, cultural studies and critical theory), which makes for a close and lively reciprocity between his research and teaching.
Outside Saint Michael's: Dr. Niemi and his wife keep a "hobby farm," complete with numerous chickens, roosters, goats, dogs, cats, and a 3-year-old pet Vietnamese potbellied pig named Leonard.
Campus Office
Saint Edmund's 345
Phone: 802.654.2569
Box 394
E-mail: rniemi@smcvt.edu
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Susan Ouellette
Professor of History
B.A. SUNY Plattsburgh; M.A., Ph.D. University of Massachusetts, Amherst
View Dr. Ouellette's Curriculum Vitae
Courses Taught: United States History to 1865; Women in American Society; Native Peoples of North America; American Society and Culture to 1865; The Age of American Revolution, 1763-1815; History of the American Family; The Roots of American Society, 1607-1763; Topics in Women's History; History of Gender
Areas of Expertise: Early America, including the first settlement up to the American Revolution period; Native Americans; Immigration history, especially the experience of Francophones in the Northeast; Textiles history; Women’s history; diaries and memoirs.
Recent Scholarly Achievements: Dr. Ouellette's most recent published book is US Textile Production in Historical Perspective: A Case Study from Massachusetts (Rutledge Press, 2007). She is currently working on a biography of an early Vermont woman, Phebe Orvis, based on Orvis’ own journal; two journal articles on Orvis are already in press (Dublin Seminar Proceedings and Journal of Vermont History). She has also contributed a chapter on the political economy of textile work in early Massachusetts to an upcoming work by Barry Levy, Town Born (UPenn Press, forthcoming). In March 2007 she was a guest on Vermont Public Radio's Switchboard program, discussing her role in the Vermont Women's History Project.
On Teaching and Research: Dr. Ouellette's research enhances her teaching. She often uses materials she has collected in her research directly in the classroom. She also uses her writing projects to model the process of research and writing for students.
Outside Saint Michael's: Dr. Ouellette serves as an expert panel member on the Vermont Women's History project. She has also been a board member of the Mount Independence Historic Site and the Lake Champlain Quadricentennial Committee. At home, she enjoys kayaking, country walks with her Jack Russell terrier, Chloe, and gardening.
Learn more about Dr. Ouellette in her faculty spotlight.
Campus Office
Durick Library 304
Phone: 802.654.2249
Box 136
E-mail: souellette@smcvt.edu
Fall 2010 Office Hours: TTH 1:30-2:30pm & by appt.
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Lorrie Smith
Professor of English and American Studies
B.A. University of Massachusetts-Boston; M.A., Ph.D. Brown University
View Dr. Smith's Curriculum Vitae
Courses Taught: American Literature I and II; African American Literature; The Middle Passage (Transatlantic Slave Trade in History, Memory, and Imagination); Genres: Poetry; Senior Seminar on various topics (latest: Literature and the Blues); First-Year Seminar on Race and Culture
Areas of Expertise: African American literature, especially poetry
Recent Scholarly Achievements: Dr. Smith is currently working on a book entitled Reports from Vernacular Valleys: Post-Sixties Black Poetry and the Public Sphere. She published a book chapter, "Hungry Ghosts and Restless Spirits: Lyric Voices of the Middle Passage" in Africa and Its Diaporas: History, Memory, and Literary Manifestations (Eritrea: African World Press, 2008).
On Teaching and Research: Dr. Smith's classes offer the opportunity to engage students in discussions of race, racism, African American literature and history. She has worked hard to develop strategies for safely approaching what can often be loaded material that challenges students' comfort zones. She often incorporates experiences that combine classroom study with activities in the community. This includes overnight field trips to Charlestown, Massachusetts with her First-Year Seminar course and a three-week service-learning program in Ghana with students from her Middle Passage class. Through these cross-cultural encounters, students have a chance to examine and enlarge their own perspectives. Dr. Smith is also a faculty member in Saint Michael's American Studies program.
Outside Saint Michael's: Dr. Smith enjoys yoga, meditation, dance, gardening and cross-country skiing. She participates in anti-racism efforts and anti-war activism.
Learn more about Dr. Smith in her faculty spotlight.
Campus Office
Saint Edmund's Hall 337
Phone: 802.654.2392
Box 167
E-mail: lsmith@smcvt.edu
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Amy Werbel
Professor of Fine Arts: Art
B.A. Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges; Ph.D. Yale University
Campus Office
Saint Edmunds 133
Phone: 802.654.2271
Box 391
E-mail: awerbel@smcvt.edu
Personal Web site: http://academics.smcvt.edu/awerbel/
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Raymond A. Patterson
Associate Professor of Religious Studies
B.A. Dartmouth College; M.A. Yale Divinity School; Ph.D. The Catholic
University of America
Research interests that Dr. Patterson pursues are within American Catholicism.
Campus Office
Saint Edmund's Hall 225
Phone: 802.654.2427
Box 201
E-mail: rpatterson@smcvt.edu
Personal Web site: http://academics.smcvt.edu/rpatterson/index.htm
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Maura D'Amore
Assistant Professor of English
B.A. Brown University; M.A., Ph.D. North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Dr. Maura D'Amore joined Saint Michael's as an assistant professor of English beginning with the Fall 2009 semester. She is a specialist in American literature up to 1900 and in American Studies. Dr. D'Amore has an essay forthcoming in New England Quarterly titled, "Thoreau's Unreal Estate: Playing House at Walden Pond." She has four other essays on the subject of masculine domesticity scheduled to appear in important journals, including "'A Man's Sense of Domesticity'; Donald Grant Mitchell's Suburban Vision," forthcoming in ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance, and "Suburban Men at the Table: Culinary Aesthetics in the Mid-Century Country Book," forthcoming in an edition of essays on Culinary Aesthetics and Practices in 19th Century American Literature.
Campus Office
Saint Edmund's Hall 331
Phone: 802.654.2742
Box 102
E-mail: mdamore@smcvt.edu