Faculty

Professor of English
Office location: Neville Hall 229
Office phone: 864.833.8373
gtbarr@presby.edu
BA, University of Montevallo
MA, PhD, University of Tennessee
Joined PC in 1987

Courses taught:

Survey of American Literature II, Introduction to World Cinema, Creative Writing: Creative Nonfiction, Film and American Culture, Holocaust Literature, Southern Jewish Literature, The Modern British and American Novel, Media and Society

Personal interests:

Comic Book Culture; Alternative Graphic Novels; Independent Film; any novel by Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon, Philip Roth; Live Music (Wilco, Flaming Lips, Radiohead, Neil Young); Writing; Jewish Culture; Cooking (Cajun especially!!!); The now-defunct Six Feet Under and The X-Files (still love it); my wife, daughters, and 2 cats

My teaching philosophy is, and has always been, to persuade and give opportunities to students to see their world from as many perspectives as possible.  I believe it is important to challenge the pre-existing views of students, to help them form their world views, and to encourage them to use literature in this process, as it is a true window to the world and into their hearts, minds, and souls.

In the past few years, particularly in my American and Jewish-based courses, I have asked students to participate in the ongoing American narrative which means, in my view, that we must examine the stories, the mythos, that America has been writing about, and which it has come to believe about itself. In doing so, we must examine closely the issues of race, culture, and religion in America and try to determine if our country has been fulfilling its promise and living up to its own expectations.  So as we read works by Faulkner, Capote, Michael Chabon, or examine the reality of Jewish life in the American South, or see how America responded (or didn’t respond) to the gathering storm clouds of the Holocaust, or how multi-racial Americans are still coming to terms with their pasts and legacies, we attempt to answer questions about ourselves, our views, biases, and prejudices.  And in this process, both my students and I continue to grow and re-evaluate ourselves and what it means to be an American.

Professor of English
Director, Media Studies program
Office location: Neville Hall 227
Office phone: 864.833.8989
jbrent@presby.edu
BA, Furman University
PhD, State University of New York at Stony Brook
Joined PC in 2001

Faculty advisor, The Bluestocking

Courses taught:

Survey of English Literature I, Studies in Linguistics, Chaucer, Topics in Medieval Literature, Advanced Writing

Professional interests:

Medieval eschatology and manuscript studies, Old and Middle English Literature, History and Structure of the English Language, Medieval Latin Prose and Poetry, History of Rhetoric, History of Writing Technology, Computer-Assisted Instruction

I joined the faculty in 2001, after completing my PhD work at SUNY Stony Brook in New York. My education and career path show the direction and focus of an errant knight in your typical medieval romance: full of passion and commitment, but often distracted by phantasms of his own making. I like to think that I have remained steadfast and loyal to the maiden of my affection, literature of the late medieval period, whom I revere in all of her many manifestations—romances, tale collections, lyrics, saints’ lives, plays, debates, fables, and so forth. But to be truthful, other intellectual beauties have caught my eye as well. I find foreign languages perfectly irresistible, even if I don’t speak them very well. What started as flirtation with European languages turned into a full-fledged affair with Language (yes, with a capital L), and so now I teach our department’s Topics in Linguistics course. It’s perfectly scandalous, but I can’t give her up!

If promiscuous in my academic interests, I am boringly single-minded when it comes to family. My wife and two kids (Sylvia, Sienna & Jack) are the true lights of my life. Look for me and the kids bicycling around Clinton. We’re hoping that one day we’ll make it onto PC’s promotional posters.

Associate Professor of English
Director, Southern Studies Program
Office location: Neville Hall 231
Office phone: 864.833.8340
khamilton@presby.edu
AB, English, Duke University
MFA, Poetry, Louisiana State University
PhD, English and American Studies, University of Virginia
Joined PC in 2014

Courses taught:

Introduction to Southern Studies; African American literature; American identities; composition and creative writing; literary “geographies”; the “global South”; gender studies; genre studies, especially modern and contemporary poetry; transatlantic modernism.

Personal interests:

Cats; cooking; digital humanities; folklore and oral history; gardening; meditation, yoga, and contemplative practice; the natural world and nature writing; singing and Southern music generally-blues, folk, and jazz, and spirituals in particular; small-scale sustainable farming practices and stewardship of land for future generations.

Assistant Professor of English and Communication Studies
Office location: Neville Hall 211
Office phone: 864.833.8365
pdperdue@presby.edu
BA, Western Washington University
MA, Ph.D., Indiana University
Joined PC in 2019

Editor, Reading The Pictures

Courses taught:

Introduction to Communication Studies; Communicating Citizenship; Sports Communication; Podcasting: Persuasion Through Sound; Visual Rhetoric; Digital Rhetoric; The Public Sphere; Rhetoric and Religion; Introduction to Composition

My time in higher education started in 1993 when I enrolled at Pensacola Christian College to train as a commercial artist. I wanted a degree in visual art and design, but by 1996 plans had changed and I headed out to Washington state. Living in the Pacific Northwest, I chased a music career, as one does, while also reading up on history, religion, and politics.

Such interests led me back to school in 2004, this time at the Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies in Bellingham, WA. I soaked up as many oddball courses as I could. A supportive faculty member there encouraged me to give graduate school a try, so I enrolled at Indiana University in 2011 and focused on visual rhetoric, media, and religious studies. Lots of college basketball, too.

I joined the PC faculty in 2019. These days I write about news photographs, Christian nationalism, and communication strategies people use to keep things working in their favor. Should such topics seem uninviting, ask me instead about stand-up comedy or what to do with scrap wood. I’d also like to paint a mural, so if you have any leads on that I’m all ears.

 

Professor of English
Department Chair
Office location: Neville Hall 213
Office phone: 864.833.8996
lsimpson@presby.edu
BA, Washington and Jefferson College
MA, PhD, University of Massachusetts
Joined PC in 1996

Courses Taught:

Capstone: Tragedy Evolving; Composition & World Literature I & II; Modern & Contemporary Drama; Survey of British Literature I & II, Renaissance Poetry & Drama, Shakespeare; & Women’s Literature

Professional Interests:

British Literature; Drama; Renaissance Literature; & Shakespeare

I am a native of Pittsburgh (Go Steelers!) who resides in Greer and considers Walt Disney World my ‘home away from home.’ I enjoy a good laugh, a good book, and anything chocolate. Indeed, I keep a stash of candy in my office—for medicinal purposes only—should you require some! My hubby, Dr. Greg Goeckel, is a professor of mathematics at PC, and we are the doting and always delighted parents of Zachary Charles. I am also the proud step-mother of twins: Julia Goeckel, a 2013 graduate of PC, and Philip Goeckel, who serves in the US Army and is married to the lovely Jennifer Culbertson Goeckel.

I graduated summa cum laude from Washington and Jefferson College in Pennsylvania where I majored in English and Business and Economics. College was transformative for me: I was the first in my family to complete a four-year degree. I wanted to be a professor myself, and teach at a place where the liberal arts and personal relationships mattered; therefore, PC felt like home from the minute I arrived back in 1996. At PC I was appointed an inaugural Student Life Fellow from 2006-2008, and I continue to work closely with Campus Life. I also happily serve on the Writing and the Women’s and Gender Studies Committees. I enjoy leading student travel to England and Italy—and taking my son along too. When he touched down in London for the first time at the age of three, he promptly shouted for the entire plane to hear, “Hey! Jane Austen lives here!”

My students consistently comment on my great passion for literature, which I hope is contagious and a source of motivation. If nothing else, I advocate appreciation of literature for its essential beauty and richness. A good book explores the fundamental questions of human existence, and through these questions, I encourage my students to examine their own lives through writing and class discussions. The latter are very important to me. I maintain a challenging but supportive, hopefully even nurturing, environment for learning. No PC students would tell you that “Dr. S.” is an easy professor, but I bet they wouldn’t tell you that I don’t care or am ever unenthusiastic either!

Professor of English
Director, Creative Writing program
Office location: Neville Hall 235
Office phone: 864.833.8366
rstutts@presby.edu
BA, English, Francis Marion College
MA, English, Clemson University
MFA, Creative Writing (Popular Fiction), University of Southern Maine
Joined PC in 2001

Faculty advisor, Figs & Thistles

Courses taught:

Freshman Composition and Creative Writing (Poetry, Short Fiction, Screenwriting, Children’s Books, Fairy Tales, Advanced Creative Writing)

Professional interests:

Creative Writing; Fairy Tales, Folklore, and Mythology; Magic Realism & Fantasy; Film; Gender Studies; Comic Books & Graphic Novels; Pop Culture

When I began teaching full-time in 1994, I had no idea where I would end up, or if teaching was really what I was called to do. The first half of my teaching career was peripatetic—four schools in six years, such being the life of an itinerant academic—and while I enjoyed the work, the sense of being perpetually in transition was not what I wanted. Then, in 2001, I came to Presbyterian College, a great place which I’m happy to call home.

My favorite part of teaching at PC is working individually with students. I feel that the one-on-one conference is where I can be most effective in talking about writing, whether critical or creative, and in those individual conferences I can give my full attention to each student.

“…the ideal teacher would not so much influence others as discover the uniqueness of each writer and thereupon respond to and develop that…” ~Donald Justice, AWP Newsletter, September 1980

In his memoir, Stan Persky talks about the French literary theorist Maurice Blanchot’s concept of teaching as an “infinite attention to the other.” Persky’s response to Blanchot was to define learning as “the willingness to change your life,” which I think is not only true but necessary for both the student and the teacher. These ideas have stuck with me since I read them in 1998, as I think they offer a summation of my own teaching philosophy.  To give infinite attention to the other must also include a willingness to change—as a teacher I must be willing to not only change my students but be changed by them. And I am, every day.

Associate Professor of English
Director, Women’s & Gender Studies program
Office location: Neville Hall 226
Office phone: 864.833.8368
etaylor@presby.edu
BA, English and Spanish, University of Northern Iowa
PhD, Comparative Literature, University of Oregon
Joined PC in 2012

Courses taught:

Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism, Women’s World Literature, Postcolonial Literature and Film