Creative writing, fiction; Victorian literature, domestic roles of women; neo-Victorian literature.

CTC Department of Writing,  Women's and Gender Studies, Women's Studies Program

Comparative Literature; Gender Studies; Psychoanalytic, feminist, and queer analysis of twentieth and twenty-first century literature, visual art, and film from Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States.

Dr. Amy Lauren Lovecraft is a Professor of Political Science and has served as University of Alaska faculty since 2001.   She received her B.A. in 1994 from Trinity University and began graduate studies in Vienna, Austria pursuing her undergraduate focus on international economics and European integration. Unable to resist North America for long she returned to earn her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin concentrating on American political development, public policy, and political theory. Her dissertation analyzed transboundary water policy between the United States and Canada in the Great Lakes. At UAF her courses include the Law and Society suite – Politics and Judicial Process, Con Law I and Con Law II – and, among others, Public Policy, Political Economy, and Political Behavior. Working to foster interdisciplinary engagement among students and faculty she is active in the Arctic and Northern Studies and the Resilience and Adaptation programs at UAF. In her research, Dr. Lovecraft explores power dynamics in social-ecological systems. Her scholarship has been published as book chapters and in journals such asArctic, Marine Policy, The American Review of Canadian Studies, Polar Geography, Policy Studies Journal, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Recently she is co-editor of the transdisciplinary volume North by 2020: Perspectives on Alaska’s Changing Social-Ecological Systems (Autumn 2011) that developed from collaboration during the International Polar Year. She has been a Dickey Fellow in Arctic Studies at Dartmouth College and a Fulbright Research Scholar in Norway at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO). She has served two terms as a member of the U.S. National Academies Polar Research Board and is he Associate Director of the North by 2020 Forum.  Currently, as the Principle Investigator on a three-year National Science Foundation grant, she leads a team working with resident experts in the Northwest Arctic and North Slope Boroughs on scenarios development asking "what is required for healthy sustainable communities in Arctic Alaska by 2040?"

Caroline specializes in contemporary literature, media, and culture from the Iberian Peninsula and the Global Hispanophone—Spanish-speaking areas beyond Spain and Latin America—, specifically, Equatorial Guinea and the Western Sahara. Her areas of inquiry include migration, historical memory, gender, sexuality, human rights, and decoloniality.

Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Dr. May's current scholarship focuses on understanding gender and power disparities in the #MeToo movement along with how power may be used in digital media to silence marginalized and disenfranchised populations, excluding them from conversations regarding climate change and environmental science. Dr. May’s research has been published in Journal of Communication Pedagogy, Teaching in Higher Education, and Qualitative Research Reports in Communication. Dr. May also presents at regional, national, and international conferences, including the National Communication Association (NCA) and International Communication Association (ICA). She served as editor for Supporting the Military-Affiliated Learner: Communication Approaches to Military Pedagogy and Education(Lexington, 2020) and Women of the Wild: Challenging Gender Disparities in Field Stations and Marine Laboratories (Lexington, 2022). Dr. May also serves as the current Director of the Public Speaking Center and Graduate Student Coordinator for the MA in Professional Communication.  

Gender, Body Politics, Health and Medicine

Victoria (Tori) McDermott is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland in the Public Relations track of the Department of Communication. Her research explores how power is communicated in traditionally masculine environments, specifically the military and higher education. Tori is the first editor of three edited volumes Supporting the Military-Affiliated Learner: Communication approaches to military pedagogy and education (2020), Women of the Wild: Challenging gender disparities in field stations and marine laboratories (2022), and On the Front Lines: Women Educators’ Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic (forthcoming). Her research can be read in the Journal of Communication Pedagogy and Public Relations Review. Tori has presented research at a variety of conferences including but not limited to the National Communication Association Conference, International Communication Association Conference, and the Organization of Biological Field Stations. She is currently the co-chair of the Committee on the Status of Women at UAF and co-chair of the IDEA+ committee at the Organization of Biological Field stations.

A former public defender, Dr. Carol Gray is an Assistant Professor of Public Law at UAF, teaching courses in political science and law. She is available to advise any UAF students interested in applying to law school. Gray obtained her JD from Northeastern University School of Law and her Masters in Advocacy (LLM) from Georgetown University Law Center. She also holds a PhD and Masters of Political Science, and certificates in Human Rights; Feminist Studies; and Race, Ethnicity and Politics, from the University of Connecticut.  Gray was a Fulbright Scholar in Montreal; a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar in Egypt; a Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center, and a National Association for Public Interest Law Fellow at the Georgia Resource Center which represents those on Georgia’s Death Row. Gray was also a UMass W.E.B. Du Bois Community College Fellow, a Wood/Raith Gender Identity Fellow, and holder of the Mary Miles Bibb post-doctoral teaching fellowship at Framingham State University. Her research is interdisciplinary exploring law, politics and human rights as they intersect with issues of race, class, and gender. She has published in the CLR James Journal; the Worcester Review; and the American Philosophical Association’s Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy and its Black Issues in Philosophy series blog. She published a book chapter on the lack of due process at Guantanamo and has a forthcoming co-authored book chapter on the role of the Arab-Israeli conflict in Israeli foreign policy, an edited volume to be published by Routledge.

Language and gender; kinship

As a linguistic anthropologist I am animated by thinking about language as a cultural resource. I liken my training and outlook to a “toolbox” that allows me to investigate cultural formations in a way that gets beyond what can be unearthed by interviews and participant observation. Using language as a lens—and discourse analysis as a tool—illuminates how the form of an utterance or speech event can “say” and “do” in ways that are meaningful beyond its content. I also believe that semiotics, one of the frameworks in my arsenal, has much to offer cultural anthropologists and archeologists. I am enthusiastic about working with students whose interests are not only firmly centered in linguistic anthropology, but also those who seek advising on research design, field methods and interpretation of things ranging from grammatical structures, narratives and interviews to the semiotic use of space and material culture.

In my own research I use my methodological and conceptual toolkit to investigate core issues of anthropological and ethnographic interest: personhood, subjectivity, kinship, ritual, religion and morality. I explore these things in my primary fieldsite in highland Guatemala, where I have done extensive research with two ethnolinguistic groups, the K'iche' and Sakapultek Maya. I have also pursued research with North American evangelicals and US conservative talk radio. I draw from my research in my teaching and have offered courses on linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, the language of religion and ritual, discourse analysis, the cultural construction of the self, and political media. 

 

Degrees:
BA,  Boston College (Major: English; Minor: Ancient Civilization)
MA, University of Toronto  (Medieval Studies)
PhD, University of Toronto (Medieval Studies and Collaborative PhD Program in Women and Gender Studies)  

Background:
Eileen M. Harney received her BA in English with a minor in Ancient Civilizations from Boston College and her MA and PhD in Medieval Studies from the University of Toronto. She also completed the collaborative PhD program in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto. Her research centers on the sacrificial woman in Western literature. A subsection of this interest was explored in her dissertation, which focused on the narratological developments and alterations of virgin martyrs' sex-specific or sex-emphasized tortures throughout the medieval period. Her current research areas include depictions of women's spirituality in the Middle Ages, gender motifs in the early and medieval Christian traditions, contemporary depictions of the tormented female body and heroic female character, and gender constructs in graphic novels and science fiction/fantasy television series and films. Other scholarly interests include Arthurian literature, the works of C. S. Lewis, and Old and Middle English heroic narratives.

Dr. Jeremy Speight is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at UAF. He is also an affiliated faculty in the Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies and Arctic & Northern Studies (ACNS) programs. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 2016. His research agenda is comprised of two interrelated streams focusing on (a) political authority and the production of political order in civil war and (b) the durability or institutionalization of wartime rebel governance systems after the cessation of violent conflict. His geographic area of specialization is West Africa, particularly Côte d’Ivoire, where he has conducted extensive field research in 2010-2011 and 2017. Dr. Speight’s research has appeared in peer-reviewed publications such as African Affairs, Civil Wars, and the Canadian Journal of African Studies. Dr. Speight teaches in the Political Science sub-field of Comparative Politics. At UAF, he teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate classes, including: Democracy & Global Society, Comparative Politics, Political Economy, Comparative Environmental Politics and the Global Political Economy of the Environment. In his spare time, he enjoys playing hockey, ice fishing or hanging out with his daughter Frances, all while listening to some Tiken Jah Fakoly.

Degrees:
BA, Cornell University (English)
MFA, University of Oregon (Poetry)
Ph.D., University of Utah (Poetry)

Areas of Expertise:
Poetry Writing, Nonfiction Writing, Contemporary Poetry, and Poetics, Eco-poetics, Film, Apocalyptic Texts

Degrees:
BA, Creighton University
MS, University of Kansas
PhD, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Areas of Expertise:
Pedagogy, Community Writing, and Metaphor

Background:
Thanks to my experience as a Writing Center tutor as an undergraduate at Creighton University, I knew my mission early: I found intellectual curiosity in observing and learning from people who are engaged in a process. I believe in affirmation, inclusivity, and openness--all of which can be translated into practices to bring about a more just world. My passion for writing as process mirrors my passion for food, community, and collaboration. In addition to being an Assistant Professor of English, I'm also a volunteer and board member for the Stone Soup Cafe. 

Before I called Fairbanks home, I had lived and studied metaphor, genre, and feminist pedagogy at the University of Kansas for a Master's degree. I then moved to Western Massachusetts for a doctorate in Rhetoric and Composition where I furthered my knowledge about linguistic ideologies, focusing on ideological constructs between race and writing in classroom practices, curricular design, and program policy. 

At the University of Massachusetts Amherst I taught Basic Writing for three years, and conducted teacher research in this setting for my dissertation. I revised and shaped this work in an article which bridges second language acquisition scholarship with translingual theory.

My favorite writing project is a shorter essay on John Dewey, which you can access here. 

A sustained academic interest of mine has been the phenomena of "noticing" or how learning becomes conscious, and I thread this interest into my collaborative curricular design for multiple student and community audiences. including students enrolled in Academic Recovery, a women's writing workshop at Fairbanks Correctional Center, and at CoW events around Fairbanks. This Summer, I travelled with two undergraduate researchers to a national conference--there, my students presented a noticing analysis on their own writing processes based on multiple sessions with a Gazepoint Eye-tracker. 

Students: I see connections before I note differences. If you would like to know how to volunteer or get involved in Fairbanks outside the university campus, or if you would like to conduct your own research on the Gazepoint Eye-tracker, send me an email.

My Motto: Write In Here to Write Out There

History of philosophy, ethics, free will and autonomy, analytic feminist philosophy

• Women's and Gender Studies
• Department of Sociology

Art History, Women in Art History

PhD, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2007.

Food and culture, ethnomycology, aesthetics, Circumpolar North, contemporary art, gender, post-Soviet studies

Research areas

Food and culture, ethnomycology, anthropology of art, Circumpolar North, post-Soviet studies

 As a cultural anthropologist interested in how human food practices in high latitude regions interact with the local climate, built environment, ecology, and aesthetics, I work in communities around Alaska and Russian Far East, and with scholars in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, and engineering. After completing my PhD dissertation in 2007, with a focus on ethnomycology in the Bering Strait, I continued to study anthropology of food in the course of two postdoctoral appointments, first as a National Science Foundation Polar Research Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and later at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Northern Engineering. I currently lead several interdisciplinary research projects at the Institute of Northern Engineering and teach a broad range of courses at the UAF Department of Anthropology. The graduate and undergraduate students I mentor at UAF conduct research on questions related to foraging, post-Soviet transitions, foodways, expressive culture, and contemporary art.

Courses

• Individual, Culture, and Society (ANTH100X)
• Fundamentals of Cultural Anthropology (ANTH 215)
• Culture and Global Issues (ANTH 245)
• Ethnography of Siberia (ANTH 302)
• Ethnomycology (EBOT/ANTH 393), team-taught with Igor Pasternak
• Anthropology of Art (ANTH/ART 402/602), team-taught with Igor Pasternak
• Economic Anthropology (ANTH 446/646)
• Gender in Cross-cultural Perspectives (ANTH/WGN 445/446)
• Food and Culture Seminar (ANTH 402/602)
• Structures of Anthropological Argument (ANTH 629)

Publications

• Yamin-Pasternak, S. and I. Pasternak, 2020 Commentary on Chloe Nahum-Claudel ‘Pyrotechnical Mastery and Humanization: Amazonian Cuisine, Care and Craft in Evolutionary and Semiotic Perspective,’ Current Anthropology 61(4):435-437.
• Dudarev, A. Yamin-Pasternak, S., Pasternak, I. and V. Chupakhin. 2019 Traditional Diet and Environmental Contaminants in Coastal Chukotka I: Study Design and Dietary Patterns.  International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16(5), 702.
• Dudarev, A. Yamin-Pasternak, S., Pasternak, I. and V. Chupakhin. 2019 Traditional Diet and Environmental Contaminants in Coastal Chukotka IV: Recommended Intake Criteria International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16(5), 696.
• Yamin-Pasternak, S. and Pasternak, I. 2018 Ethnomycology, in International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Wiley.
• Yamin-Pasternak, S., Schweitzer, P., Pasternak, I., Kliskey, A., Alessa, L. 2017 A Cup of Tundra: Ethnography of Thirst and Water in the Bering Strait, in Meanings and Values of Water in Russian Culture, Jane Costlow and Arja Rosenholm, eds., Routledge.
• Yamin-Pasternak, Sveta, 2016 "Valuing Diversity in the Study of Arctic Change." Hot Spots,Cultural Anthropology, July 29, 2016
• Yamin-Pasternak, S., Kliskey, A., Alessa, L., Pasternak, I., Schweitzer, P. 2014 The Rotten Renaissance in the Bering Strait: Loving Loathing and Washing the Smell of Foods with a (Re)Acquired Taste, Current Anthropology 55(5):619-645.
• Yamin-Pasternak Ethnomycology: Mushrooms in Cultural Entanglements, 2011.Ethnobiology, a Textbook, Anderson, E.N., Pearsall, D., Hunn, E., and Turner, N., eds. Wiley Blackwell Publishers.

Exhibitions

• Arctic Summer Plant Foods, with Igor Pasternak, featured in the British Museum exhibition Arctic: Culture and Climate, London, UK. October 2020 - February 2021.
• Aging with Change, Food Arts of the Bering Strait, with Igor Pasternak, Festival of Native Ar ts, Fairbanks, AK, 2018; Carrie McLain Memorial Museum, Nome, AK, 2019.
• Homesteadin’, with Igor Pasternak, a group exhibition on living arts curated by Bradley Chris, Liminal Gallery, Roanoke, VA, 2019.
• Yes We Can, participatory installation exploring food and aesthetic practices among the ex-Soviet immigrants in Delta Junction, Alaska, with Igor Pasternak, Valentina Kilimnik, and Ryan Tinsley, International Gallery of Contemporary Art, Anchorage, AK, 2014.