Faculty & Staff

Ph.D, English Language & Literature, Georgia State University

Adam H. Wood is Department Chair and Professor of English. His primary research area is American Literary Naturalism, and he has published and presented on authors such as Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, and Cormac McCarthy. His pedagogical interests, though, expand beyond this periodization into some of the strange places of the 20th century American novel, with previous courses focusing on The Experimental American Novel, Violence in the American Novel, and The Transgressive American Novel. Dr. Wood also embraces his role as a public intellectual (though he also likes the term “professional contrarian”), having been an invited guest on numerous public radio programs for his perspectives on topics such as literature and politics, freedom of speech and expression, and the current state of the humanities.  

M.A., English Education, Georgia College & State University

Professor Nancy Beasley earned her M.A. in English Education from Georgia College & State University.  She teaches composition, world literature and utopian/dystopian worlds.

Ph.D, English, The Ohio State University

alexeblazer.com

Dr. Alex E. Blazer specializes in twentieth- and twenty-first century American literature and critical theory.  His publications include I Am Otherwise: The Romance between Poetry and Theory after the Death of the Subject; articles on contemporary American authors Paul Auster, Bret Easton Ellis, and Chuck Palahniuk; and an article on the cult film Donnie Darko.  He teaches modern and contemporary American literature, film, poetry, critical theory survey, focused studies in literary criticism (existentialism and phenomenology, reader-response criticism, Marxist criticism, psychoanalytic film theory), global horror film, and science fiction and philosophy.

Ph.D., English, University of Georgia

Dr. Joy Bracewell earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Georgia.  In addition to being the Director of the Writing Center, she teaches composition and first-year composition practices.

PhD, English, University of Kentucky

Dr. Matt Bryant Cheney specializes in 20^th and 21^st Century American Literature, Film, and Comics, particularly those produced in and about Appalachia and the US South. Dr. Bryant Cheney also serves as Editor of the Flannery O’Connor Review and is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and the Bonner Foundation’s Legacy Award for Community-Engaged Scholarship. His work has appeared in Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Written Communication, The Routledge Companion to Literature of the US South, The Georgia Review, the Flannery O’Connor Review, disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory, and Critical Insights: The American Comic Book. He has taught courses on American Literature, Southern Literature, Flannery O’Connor, Black American Writers, Appalachian Women Writers, Film History, American Film Genres, Comics and Film, Social Entrepreneurship, and Academic Community Engagement.

M.A. English Literature, Valdosta State University

Benjamin Elliott earned a Masters of Arts in English Literature from Valdosta State University in 2022. He teaches first year composition. Previously, he has edited for research journals Study and Practice of Undergraduate Research and Omnino. Research interests include multimodality, composition in a post-A.I. world, Jungian analysis, and science fiction. Most recently, he published “‘A Fountain by Another Name’: Communication Breakdown, Language, and Meaning in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” for the Journal of the Georgia Philological Association’s 2022-23 Volume. 

Ph.D. in English, Florida State University

M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Southern Illinois University - Carbondale

B.A. in English, Missouri State University

Kerry James Evans is the author of Nine Persimmons (forthcoming from The Backwaters Press/University of Nebraska, 2026) and Bangalore (Copper Canyon), a Lannan Literary Selection. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and his poems have appeared in Agni, The American Poetry Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, and many other journals. He is an Associate Professor of English at Georgia College & State University, where he serves as the Program Coordinator for the MFA and undergraduate creative writing programs. He is the Co-editor & Managing Editor of Peach, launching spring 2027. 

Ph.D, English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Dr. Jennifer Flaherty received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a Professor of Shakespeare studies, and her research emphasizes appropriation and global Shakespeare. Her work has been published in journals such as Borrowers and Lenders, Comparative Drama, Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, and Topic. She has also contributed chapters to the volumes The Horse as Cultural Icon and Shakespeare and Millennial Fiction. Dr. Flaherty regularly teaches courses in Renaissance literature, dramatic literature, film studies, adaptation, Milton, and Shakespeare for the Literature program. She also teaches courses for Women's Studies, GC1Y and GC2Y, and the Georgia College Honors College.

Michaela George earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of New Hampshire in 2025. Her teaching and research interests are world literature, 18^th -century British literature, composition, and feminist studies. Her article titled "The Symbolism of Trees in Tess of the d'Urbervilles" is published in The Explicator

M.F.A., Creative Writing, Georgia College & State University

B.A., English Literature, California Baptist University

Christian Gurrola received his Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Georgia College & State University in 2025. He teaches English Composition 1102 and American Literature. His fiction has appeared in Brilliant Flash Fiction, The Dazed Starling, and random corners of the internet.

MFA, Poetry, Columbia College Chicago

Courtney Hitson earned her MFA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago in 2012, after completing bachelor’s degrees in Psychology (Purdue University) and English (Indiana University). Over the last fifteen years, Courtney has taught a variety of courses, including Visual Culture, Narrative Structure, Composition, American Literature, and World Literature. Her scholarly interests include pedagogy, poetry, visual culture, media theory, historiography, and digital culture. Her creative work has appeared in more than twenty literary journals, including Potomac Review, About Place Literary Journal, and Emerge Literary Journal. In 2024, three of her poems were nominated for Pushcart Prizes.

Ph.D., English, University of California, Los Angeles

Dr. Julian Knox earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles. His teaching and research interests include British and Global Romanticism, literature and visual culture, Romanticism and popular music, children’s literature, theories and practices of translation, and the philosophy of time. He has published articles in the journals European Romantic Review, The Wordsworth Circle, The Coleridge Bulletin, Grave Notes, and The New German Review, and has contributed chapters to The Oxford Handbook of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Memory in German Romanticism, Rock and Romanticism, and David Bowie and Romanticism. He is co-editor of the forthcoming essay collection Romanticism and Heavy Metal.

Ph.D. in English from the University of Maryland College Park

Dr. Roberto León earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Maryland College Park.  His teaching and research interests include theories and histories of rhetoric and composition, comparative rhetoric, technical and professional writing, second language writing, writing program administration, writing across the curriculum, religious rhetorics, and argumentation.

M.A. in English Language & Literature, Georgia College & State University

Kathryn Livingston earned her M.A. in English Language & Literature from Georgia College & State University. She specializes in English as a Second Language, international education, and composition. Her debut novel Epoch was published in May 2023.

M.F.A, Fiction, Chatham University

Mr. Jeffrey MacLachlan earned an M.F.A. in Fiction from Chatham University. His work has recently been published in New Ohio Review, Eleven Eleven, and Minetta Review, among others.  He teaches composition, world literature, and war literature.

Ph.D, Folklore, Indiana University

Dr. Mary Magoulick teaches many courses on folklore, popular culture, and literature (including on myths and fairy tales). She has published in The Journal of American Folklore, The Journal of Folklore Research, The Journal of Popular Culture, and more. Her book, The Goddess Myth in Contemporary Literature and Popular Culture was published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2022. She has traveled widely, including on a Fulbright in Croatia, and focuses on contextual approaches to studying human artistic expressions.

M.A., English Literature, Georgia College & State University 

B.A., English Literature, Georgia College & State University

Olivia McDuffie (she/her/hers) earned her Master of Arts in English from Georgia College & State University in Spring 2025. Her research interests focus on depictions of girlhood and women in media. In Spring 2025, Olivia instructed an English Composition 1102 course titled "Taylor Swift & Girlhood" which introduces students to discussions surrounding girlhood while also strengthening communication and writing skills. She is set to receive her first publication in Peitho Journal in late Summer 2025. 

Ph.D, Creative Writing, University of Houston

Dr. Kerry Neville is the author of the memoir, Momma May Be Mad, and two collections of stories, Necessary Lies, which received the G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize and was named a ForeWord Magazine Short Story Book of the Year, and Remember to Forget Me. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Gettysburg Review, Epoch, TriQuarterly, Brevity, The Washington Post, The Irish Times, and elsewhere. Her fiction and nonfiction have been named Notables in Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays. She received her Ph.D. in creative writing and literature from University of Houston. She was a Fulbright Fellow at University of Limerick in Ireland, where she was visiting faculty in the M.A. Creative Writing Program. She lives in Milledgeville, Georgia, and teaches at Georgia College and State University where she is Interim Chair of the Department of Communication as well as faculty in the Creative Writing Program.

M.F.A., The Program for Writers, Waren Wilson College

M.A., English, New York University

B.A., Barnard College, Columbia University

Associate Professor Laura Newbern is the author of two poetry collections, Love and the  Eye, which won the Kore Press First Book Award (selected by Claudia Rankine) and A Night in the Country (selected by Louise Glück for the Changes Book Prize). Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic, The Threepenny Review, New England Review, and Poetry, among other journals; and in the anthologies Urban Nature, Inspired Georgia, and Ensnaring the Moment: On the Intersection of Poetry and Photography. She’s the recipient of a Writer’s Award from the Rona Jaffe Foundation and a Georgia Author of the Year Award for a full-length poetry collection. She teaches undergraduate courses in literature and imaginative writing as well as graduate poetry workshops and seminars. With Dr. Evans she is the coeditor of Peach, launching spring 2027.

Ph.D., English, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Dr. Profitt is Lecturer of Film Studies in the Department of English at Georgia College. She teaches courses in global film history, theory, and criticism.  Her research focuses on 1980s film history, American popular culture, and youth-oriented media. She earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she was twice awarded the Chancellor’s Award for excellence in English Studies, and a BA in English from the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Ph.D., University of Alabama

Dr. Emily Jane Pucker is the Coordinator for Composition. She earned her PhD at The University of Alabama and specializes in Composition and Rhetoric, with secondary focuses in Writing Center Studies, Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition, and medieval English literature. Dr. Pucker teaches first-year composition, technical and professional writing, and advanced composition.

M.F.A., Creative Writing, New School University

Peter Selgin is the author of Drowning Lessons, winner of the 2007 Flannery O’Connor Award for Fiction, two children's books, three books on the writer’s craft, and two essay collections. His memoir, The Inventors, won the 2017 Housatonic Book Award. His 2020 novel, Duplicity, won the Best Indie Book Award and the Indie Excellence Book Award. His full-length drama, A God in the House, based on Dr. Jack Kevorkian and his “suicide machine,” won the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. His novel, A Boy’s Guide to Outer Space, is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing in the Fall 2024.

Ph.D, English, University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Katie Simon is an Associate Professor in the English Department and the Coordinator of the Program in Women’s and Gender Studies. Her research and teaching focuses on American literature, critical theory, and the environment—with special interests in issues of social and environmental justice. Current projects include an anthology of essays on Ecocriticism and Social Justice in the U.S. South, as well as a research initiative on Race and Nature. Her articles appear in ESQ: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture; The Transparent Eye-ball; Eighteenth-Century Fiction; Women's Studies: An Inter-Disciplinary Journal and in the anthology Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life (Pluto Press). Dr. Simon has received a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, and was awarded GCSU’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

M.F.A., Creative Writing, Georgia College & State University

M.A., English Literature, Mississippi State University

B.A., English Literature, Delta State University

Jonna Smith (they, them) earned their M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Georgia College & State University while writing a memoir-in-hybridity. They teach first-year composition, including ENGL 1102 sections Monsters and Horror, as well as World Literature, American Literature, and GC2Y Global Cinema. They are currently developing a GC1Y course--Video Games and Narrative Ethics--and co-host the English Department's Thursday Night at the Movies film series.

Dr. Chika Unigwe earned her Ph.D. from the Universiteit Leiden, Holland, and her M.A. from Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium.

Dr. Unigwe's novels include On Black Sister Street (Random House, 2011) and Night Dancer (Jonathan Cape, 2012). Her debut collection of short stories, Better Never than Late (Cassava Republic),  was published in 2019. Widely anthologized, she has also placed work in different journals including the New York Times, Guernica, Kenyon Review, the UK Guardian, Aeon, Wasafiri, Transition and Agni.