Meet Our Faculty at USC Upstate

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Meet Our Faculty

Our faculty are committed to innovative teaching, significant scholarship, and the creation and maintenance of a collegial community.  If you have any questions, please stop by to see us in the Humanities and Performing Arts Center (HPAC), Room 222, or call us at 864-503-5688.

Full-Time Faculty

Full-Time Faculty in English and Writing, World Languages, Film, Global Studies, and African American Studies

Dr. George H. Williams, Chair

Associate Professor of English | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: 18th Century British Literature and Culture, History of the Book, Digital Technologies, Digital Humanities, Disability Studies. 

Gabrielle Drake, Assistant Chair for World Languages

Senior Instructor of Spanish | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Spanish Language and Spanish for Specific Purposes, Spanish for Criminal Justice

Brock Adams

Senior Instructor of English, Director of the Writing Center | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Writing, Creative Nonfiction, Flash Fiction, Apocalyptic Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

Meggan Burton

Senior Instructor of Spanish |  Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Spanish, Spanish for Business, Language Acquisition through Video

Dr. Catherine Canino

Professor of English | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Shakespeare, Elizabethan England, Shakespeare and Film

Dr. Peter Caster

Professor of English | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Film Studies, Disney, Masculinity Studies, Prison Studies, Cultural Studies

Maria Francisco Monteso

Senior Instructor of Spanish | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Spanish Language, Translation and Interpreting, Spanish in the Community and the Professions, Study Abroad to Spain

Dr. Esther Godfrey

Professor of English and Director of the First-Year Writing Program | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Victorian Literature, Women's and Gender Studies, Women's Literature

Araceli Hernandez-Laroche

Professor of Modern Languages | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: French Language and Literature, Existentialism, Immigration, Francophone Africa, the Global South

Dr. Beth Keefauver

Senior Instructor of English | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Composition, Creative, and Professional Writing, Women's and Gender Studies, Environmental Literature

Dr. Celena E. Kusch

Professor of English
Executive Director, Center for Academic Innovation and Faculty Support | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Modernism, Postmodernism, Postcolonial Studies, Women's and Gender Studies, Literary Theory

Dr. Alexander Lorenz

Assistant Professor of German, Internship Coordinator | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: German Language and Literature, German for the Professions, German Language Acquisition, German and STEM, Translation Studies

Dr. David Marlow

Professor of English
Director of the Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Linguistics, English for Speakers of Other Languages, Dialect Diversity, Service Learning, Study Abroad in Nicaragua

Dr. Richard Murphy

Associate Professor of English | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Irish Literature, Postcolonial Literature

Dr. Colleen O'Brien

Professor of English | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: American Literature, African American Literature and African American Studies, Women's and Gender Studies

Dr. Shannon Polchow

Professor of Spanish | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Spanish Language and Literature, Golden Age Spain, Study Abroad in Spain and Costa Rica

Wayne Robbins

Senior Instructor of English | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Composition, Creative, and Professional Writing, Song Writing

Dr. Monika Shehi Herr

Associate Professor of English | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Rhetoric and Composition, Discourse Analysis, Intercultural Studies in Composition

Tasha Thomas

Senior Instructor of English, Director of the Spartanburg Writing Project | Contact Email icon
Teaching and Research Areas: Composition and Creative Writing, English Education, Young Adult Literature, Teaching with Technology, Digital Storytelling

Part-Time Faculty

Part-Time Faculty in English, Film and World Languages