Department of Language, Literature & Culture Faculty
Dr. Jennifer A. Hughes
Associate Professor and Director of the Honors Program
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 434-791-7129
Office: Frith Hall 317
Jennifer A. Hughes is an Assistant Professor of English, and is Chair of the Department of Language, Literature, and Communication at Averett University. She received her Ph.D. in English Literature from Emory University, her M.A. in English from the University of Virginia, and her B.A. from Cornell University. She joined the faculty at Averett in 2013.
Dr. Hughes specializes in early and nineteenth-century American literature, and much of her work is in the field of humor studies. She has articles and essays appearing in The African American Review, A Concise Companion to American Fiction 1900-1950, The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, and Southern Frontier Humor: New Approaches.
Dr. Catherine Clark,
Associate Professor of French and English and Director of Study Abroad
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 434-791-5764
Office: Student Center 115
You can’t do it. It’s simply not possible to spend more than two or three minutes with Dr. Katy Clark without getting swept up in her enthusiasm, her intelligence, her world perspective. It’s a wonderful state of mind, Dr. Clark’s, where all things are connected, where everything is interesting and worth exploring. She certainly has lived an interesting and diverse life.
Consider: A Texan by birth, she teaches both English and French. She has taught in Paris and in Normandy. She also has taught at Elon University and at UNC-Chapel Hill. Before her graduate studies, Clark struck out on her own, with a backpack, and spent three months traveling across Europe to learn French firsthand. She studied French formally at the Sorbonne (in Paris). The only American in her class, she rented an apartment on the Left Bank and walked to class. She holds a black belt in taekwondo.
Not exactly a stodgy, pipe-smoking university professor. She has chosen to teach at Averett because she likes the feel of a small, private school. “Being a graduate student at a large school was fine for me, but as a teacher [at UNC] I had students whom I connected with, but then never saw again once the class was done. At Averett, I have some students repeatedly — sometimes in English, sometimes in French — and the relationships we develop with our students are what allow us to be effective teachers.”
“When I was a student, I took an interdisciplinary course with two teachers who taught me how things connect,” Clark says. “Those teachers were extraordinary. They expanded my world view.” This is what Dr. Clark now does for her students, daily, at Averett.
Credentials:
Doctor of Philosophy, Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Master of Arts, Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Bachelor of Arts, English and French, Salem College
Certificate, Cours universitaire d’été (CUE), Cours de Civilisation Française de la Sorbonne, Paris, France
Graduate studies, L’École Française, Middlebury College, Vermont
Dr. Antoinette Gazda,
Associate Professor and Coordinator of African and African American Studies
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 434-791-7101
Office: Danville Hall 105B
There might be a boring English, World Lit or other college class somewhere in America, but it won’t be taught by Antoinette Gazda.
Look at that face. It is captivating … the face of an actress who now teaches.
Verbally she gives real value to every carefully chosen and beautifully articulated word. Her timing is perfect, her expressions full of life and meaning. You will not look away.
She cheats a little with the face, in that she was born with a lot of its appeal. When you’re of Hawaiian, Spanish, French, Native American and Puerto Rican ancestry, you’re automatically going to look and sound interesting.
“I AM interdisciplinary,” she says, exhibiting constantly captivating intelligence, insights and self-awareness. “My dissertation, my face, the world … it’s all interdisciplinary. We are the face of the future!”
Truly she sees connections in all that we do — among disciplines, among peoples, in all of literature. And her enthusiasm for what she teaches is both infectious and nonstop, as is her energy.
“I would love to travel to places that would allow me to walk in the footsteps of the people I teach and have studied,” she says. “I want to go to Walden Pond, to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. I want to walk where Booker T. Washington walked, go back to Hawaii to see the Kilauea Volcano the way Mark Twain saw it. I want to walk in Machiavelli’s steps in Italy.”
Global, interdisciplinary. And very, very student-oriented: “Anyone who is thinking of enrolling at Averett should know that they cannot hide here. We will know you, we will stay aware of your progress and we will be there to help … on every step of your journey.”
In fact, she adds, “I let all of my students know that I see them and I want them to do the work and succeed. Also, I tell them that I am holding onto you. You can do this. We will do it together. If it doesn’t work out in the end, it is because YOU let go. I will not let go.”
The result? “They learn to reach beyond their grasp. They learn, ‘I can do this!’ And then they can see — and go — even further.”
Credentials:
Doctor of Philosophy, Literature and Criticism, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Master of Arts, Liberal Studies with a concentration in English, University of North Carolina Wilmington
Bachelor of Arts, English/History with a minor in Religion, Averett University
Certificate, Writing Tutor, International College Learning & Reading Association
Dr. Jeremy W. Groskopf
Part-Time Instructor, English and Communication
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (434) 791-5767
Office: Frith 317
Jeremy W. Groskopf is an instructor in the Department of Language, Literature, & Communication, teaching courses in film and media. He received his Ph.D. in Communication (Film & Media Studies) from Georgia State University, his M.A. in Film from Emory University, and his B.A. from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.
Dr. Groskopf specializes in silent-era cinema and advertising, but he has taught courses on sci-fi cinema, women in film, surrealism, and video games. His book project Profit Margins: The American Silent Cinema and the Marginalization of Advertising is contracted to be published with Indiana University Press.
Dr. Marc Muneal
Professor of English
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (434)791-5099
Office: Frith 322
Marc Muneal is a Professor of English, having joined the faculty in 2015. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature from Emory University, and his B.A. from Morehouse College.
Dr. Muneal is a specialist in British literature of the long 19th century, and teaches classes including the sophomore survey of British literature from 1770-present, upper-division courses on the Romantic and Victorian periods, and Caribbean literature and culture. He has publications appearing in Studies in Popular Culture, Nineteenth Century Studies, and Nineteenth Century Contexts. His current project is a scholarly biography of Fanny Cradock, a British television personality.
