Faculty

The faculty members within the PhD Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities come from diverse backgrounds, that encompass a broad spectrum of disciplines. This diversity, fosters a dynamic and wide range of research interests, ensuring a vibrant academic environment for our students.

Faculty available for supervision are indicated below. Faculty with “contact for supervision” indicated may or not be available for supervision depending on their schedule, so please email them and ask.

Robert Alexander  
Associate Professor (English Language and Literature)
Email: ralexander@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Rhetoric, Literary Journalism, Creative Nonfiction, History of Linguistic Thought/Theory
– Available for supervision

 

Lynn Arner
Associate Professor (English Language & Literature)
Email: larner@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Feminist theory, analyses of class (including the work of Pierre Bourdieu), queer theory, and critical university studies, especially the professoriate and doctoral studies in the US and Canada
– Not available for supervision

 

Gregory Betts
Chancellor’s Chair for Research Excellence; Professor (English Language & Literature)
Email: gbetts@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Canadian Experimental and Avant-Garde Literature.
– Contact for supervision

 

Fiona Blaikie
Professor (Educational Studies)
Email: fblaikie@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Visual art education, qualitative research including arts-informed educational research, social theory on the body and clothing, youth culture, qualitative approaches to portfolio assessment, curriculum development and implementation, arts education, aesthetics, embodied knowledge/s, intersectionality, international curricula in arts education and comparator work in arts education
– Contact for Supervision

 

Irene Maria F. Blayer
Professor (Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures)
Email: iblayer@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Comparative Romance linguistics; philology; dialectology; text linguistics; diaspora studies; storytelling; oral history.
– Contact for supervision

 

Linda Carreiro
Professor (Visual Art)
Associate Dean, Fine and Performing Arts
Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts
Research Interests: anatomical studies, drawing, particularly anatomical drawing, experimental printmaking and text and image.
– Contact for supervision

 

Alex Christie
Associate Professor (Centre for Digital Humanities)
Email: achristie@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Spatial humanities; modernist studies; book history; mixed reality (AR/VR); digital prototyping; digital pedagogy
– Not available for supervision

 

Gale Coskan-Johnson
Associate Professor ( English Language & Literature )
Email: gcoskanjohnson@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Rhetorical studies, border studies, transnational migration, human rights, transnational feminism, the nation and its nationalisms, and postcolonial studies.
– Contact for supervision

 

François Côté-Vaillancourt
Assistant Professor (Goodman School of Business)
Email: fcotevaillancou@brocku.ca
Research Interests:  Business ethics gains from approaches pioneered elsewhere in ethics and political philosophy.
– Available for supervision

 

Christine Daigle
Professor (Philosophy) and Director of the Posthumanism Research Institute
Email: cdaigle@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Feminist theory, Posthumanism, Environmental (Post)Humanities, Phenomenology, Existentialism
– Available for supervision

 

Stefan Dolgert
Associate Professor (Political Science)
Email: sdolgert@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Political Theory, including: Ancient Political Philosophy, Continental Political Thought, Critical Animal Studies, Democratic Theory, Environmental Ethics, Literature and Philosophy, New Materialism, Posthumanism.
– Available for supervision

 

David Fancy
Professor and Chair of Theatre Praxis (Dramatic Arts)
Email: dfancy@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Performance; Performativity; Immanentist thought; Deleuze and Guattari; Theatre Creation.
– Available for supervision

 

Margot Francis
Associate Professor (Women’s and Gender Studies/Sociology)
Email: mfrancis@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Decolonizig perspectives on settler societies; queer/integrative feminist perspectives on culture arts, identity and the body.
– Available for supervision

 

Jason Hawreliak
Associate Professor, Director of the Centre for Digital Humanities (Centre for Digital Humanities)
Email: jhawreliak@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Game Studies, Multimodality, Digital Media; Rhetoric; Semiotics
– Not available for supervision

 

Pascal Lupien
Associate Professor (Political Science)
Email: plupien@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Latin American politics, Indigenous politics, participatory development, alternative forms of development, democracy, democratization and democratic reversal, social movements and civil society, social media and politics
– Available for supervision

 

Ingrid Makus
Associate Professor (Political Science)
Email: imakus@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Political philosophy, identity discourse, rights discourse, Canadian political thought, gender and politics
– Contact for supervision

 

Mathew R. Martin
Professor (English Language and Literature)
Email: mmartin@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Early Modern English Drama, Psychoanalysis, Literary Theory
– Available for supervision

 

Dan Malleck
Professor and Chair, Department of Health Sciences
Director, Centre for Canadian Studies
Email: dmalleck@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Alcohol and drug policy and history; prohibition; historical patterns of drug and alcohol use; health as a moral discourse; biopolitics.
– Available for supervision

 

Aaron Mauro
Associate Professor (Centre for Digital Humanities)
Email: amauro@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Cyber security, natural language processing, misinformation and disinformation, data visualization, digital publishing and knowledge mobilization, user interface and user experience, full stack application development, digital media including games, photography, social media, and others.
– Available for supervision

 

Behnaz Mirzai
Professor (History)
Email: bmirzai@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Comparative and cross-cultural studies, ethnicity, slavery, gender, as well as social, economic and religious interactions in the Middle East.
– Contact for supervision

 

Elizabeth Neswald
Associate Professor (History)
Email: eneswald@brocku.ca
Research Interests: History of science and technology since 1800; Cultural history of thermodynamics; History of nutritional physiology; Material cultures of science and technology.
– Available for supervision

 

Trevor Norris
Professor (Education)
Email: tnorris@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Philosophy of Education; Political Theory; Critiques of Consumerism and Neoliberalism; Modern to Postmodern Transition
– Available for supervision

 

Lissa Paul
Professor (English Language and Literature)
Fellow, Royal Society of Canada
Email: lpaul@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Children’s literature, literary theory, poetry, 18th century, gender studies, post­colonial discourse
– Not available for supervision

 

Andrew Pendakis
Associate Professor (English Language and Literature)
Email: Apendakis@brocku.ca
Research Interests: History and Theory of modern centrism
– Available for supervision

 

Nina Penner
Assistant Professor (Music)
Email: npenner@brocku.ca
Research Interests: game music, film music, opera, musical theater, philosophy and narrative theory of the foregoing
– Available for supervision

 

Michael Ripmeester
Professor (Geography and Tourism Studies)
Email:  mripmeester@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Geographies of popular memory, geography and ethnohistory, historical and cultural geography, historical geographies of First Nations in Ontario, historical geographies of  Native – Euro – Canadian relationships in 19th century Canada, landscape and Identity
– Available for supervision

 

Jennifer Roberts-Smith
Professor (Dramatic Arts)
Email: jrobertssmith@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Equity in post-secondary theatre education, intersectional feminist design research methodologies, digital theatre archives, prototyping, virtual learning environments, pedagogical and theatrical game design, theatrical text encoding, early English theatre practice, stage direction.
– Available for supervision

 

Colin Rose 
Professor (History) 
Email: crose@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Research Interests: early modern Europe, social history, crime and violence, justice, digital humanities, Historical GIS, public history.  
– Available for supervision

 

Matthew Royal
Associate Professor (Music)
Email: mroyal@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Music theory (especially theories of rhythm and temporality); Early-modern music theory (16th and 17th centuries); Music cognition; Acoustics and history of acoustics.
– Contact for supervision

 

Danny Samson
Associate Professor (History)
Email: dsamson@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Colonial, political culture, rural, environmental
– Available for supervision

 

Cristina Santos
Associate Professor (Hispanic and Latin American Studies)
Email: csantos@brocku.ca 
Research Interests: Feminist Theory, Post-colonial Discourse, Gender and Sexuality Studies
– Available for supervision

 

Donna Szoke
Associate Professor (Visual Arts)
Email: dszoke@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Video art; Experimental animation; Media art; Site-responsive public art; Installation art; Critical theory.
– Available for supervision

 

Susan Spearey
Associate Professor (English Language and Literature)
Email: sspearey@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Postcolonial Studies, South African Literature and Culture, Post-conflict Literature, Artistic responses to conflict and transitional justice, Trauma Theory, Ethics, Theories of Witnessing, Social Justice and the Arts, Pedagogy
– Not Available for supervision

 

Mark G. Spencer
Professor (History)
Email: mspencer@brocku.ca
Research Interests: History of Ideas in Eighteenth-Century America and Britain.
– Available for supervision

 

Gökbörü Sarp Tanyildiz
Assistant Professor (Sociology)
Email: gtanyildiz@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Political economy of gender, work, and social policy; sociology of genders, sexualities, and families; race and racialization; classical and contemporary social theories; history of sociological analysis; phenomenological sociology; global social movements; and urban sociology.
– Available for Supervision

 

Sarah Stang 
Associate Professor (Game Studies)
Email:  sstang@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Critique and Social Transformation and Technology and Digital Humanities
– Contact for Supervision

 

Elizabeth Vlossak
Associate Professor (History)
Email: evlossak@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Cultural history of war, women’s and gender history, border studies, nations and nationalism, critical heritage studies, and memory and the politics of commemoration.
– Contact for supervision