Faculty
Faculty from numerous departments and disciplines are available as resources to diversity studies minors with specific research interests. They include:
John J. Bodinger de Uriarte, Ph.D.
Director of Diversity Studies, Associate Professor of Anthropology
One of Bodinger de Uriarte's main research areas is the formation of ethnic and cultural self-definition and self-representation in the public sphere. Specifically, he is interested in questions of identity, representation, and Native American sovereignty, and how such issues are engaged in contemporary museum, casino and photographic practice. His research interests also include social theory, the histories of anthropology and photography in the United States, identity politics, visual anthropology, museum studies, war and violent conflict, new reproductive technologies, and questions of family, kinship, and relatedness.
BIO »
C. Cymone Fourshey, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History
Fourshey's research focuses on East African history before the 18th century. She deals with the social and cultural history of East Africa, African gender systems, political history, environmental history and the Indian Ocean world. She is particularly interested in the negotiation of relationships, hierarchies, language and social behaviors and how these negotiations vary from generation to generation. One of the critical questions Fourshey addresses in her work on Tanzania is: in which historical moments does diversity serve as an asset and in which contexts is it disadvantageous in social negotiation? She draws upon archaeological, linguistic, oral, written and visual landscape data, to engage a cross-disciplinary approach in examining research questions.
BIO »
David Imhoof, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chair of History
Imhoof researches and publishes on the political implications of various cultural activities in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. He looks at and has written on, in particular, sports, music, film, associational life, and gun clubs. He is particularly interested in ways that local experience shapes how people take part in larger national or international changes. He also teaches on the Holocaust and itslegacy in Europe and the United States.
BIO »
Shari Jacobson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Jacobson's research addresses conservative religious movements and their relationship to modern forms of life. She has worked among ultra-orthodox Jews in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and is currently studying fundamentalist and evangelical Christians in the United States. She is particularly interested in the critiques conservative religious actors offer of secular forms of social organization. More broadly, Jacobson is also interested in the anthropology of food; national, transnational and diasporic communities; political and economic anthropology; and Latin America. She has lived and worked in France, the Congo, China and Argentina.
BIO »
Gretchen S. Lovas, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology
Lovas’s primary research explores the development and construction of gender within the context of mother/infant and father/infant interactions. She is also interested in gender, emotions, and relationality across the lifespan and in the consequences of gender roles for both men and women. On a broader level, her interests encompass issues of diversity and social justice more generally, especially as they impact personal attitudes and interactions. Her courses on gender and race/culture/ethnicity focus on the dynamics of privilege and oppression, the matrix of intersectionality among markers of diversity, and the personal consequences of positionality within that matrix. As a capstone mentor, Lovas can work with students who are interested in exploring empirical approaches to the study of diversity, especially in the areas of social, emotional, and cognitive development and/or behavior.
BIO »
Ed Slavishak, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History
Slavishak has written about class, race, gender and ethnicity in the United States. His research has focused particularly on working-class experiences in industrial cities, the politics and economics of immigration and the pseudoscience of eugenics. He has also done extensive research on the history of disability and the techno-commercial industries that cater to the disabled. He is currently working on a project considering representations of poverty, region and history in the Appalachian Mountains.
BIO »
Craig Stark, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Communications
One of Stark’s main research interests is in the area of public access to media outlets. For equity to be achieved in a democratic society, equal access to media outlets must considered, and with the constant conglomeration of mainstream media in the United States, it is imperative to examine how marginalized groups have access to production facilities and channels for distribution and exhibition. It is just as important to examine how these groups are represented in both entertainment and information-based programming and content. Stark draws on cultural, historical, political, economic, and legislative data to help create as clear an understanding as possible of how enlarging the public sphere can benefit underrepresented groups in American society.
BIO »
Tammy C. Tobin, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology
Tobin’s main research areas involve molecular biology, genetics and evolution. As a capstone mentor, she would be interested in helping students to explore questions such as the genetic basis for human diversity, the control of human genetic futures, and the diversity issues that arise both from gathering and from using genetic information.
BIO »
Lucien T. Winegar, Ph.D.
Dean, School of Natural & Social Sciences, Professor of Psychology
Winegar publishes and presents on topics such as language and race, color-blind racism, white privilege, and diversity in higher education. He is particularly interested in development of racial identity, cultivation of cross-racial allies and organizational/relational challenges that often accompany an increasingly diverse community. He has taught Introduction to Diversity Studies, White Privilege and Cross-Cultural Psychology.
BIO »
