PACS Faculty & Staff
Department Chair
Robin L. Turner is an Associate Professor of Political Science, Chair of the Department of Political Science, Director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program, and Coordinator of the African and Black Studies Minor at Butler University in the US A and an honorary research associate of the Society, Work, and Politics Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. Co-founder of Black Women Writing African Politics and Women of Color in Comparative Politics, Dr. Turner also served as the founding director of the Social Justice and Diversity Butler University Core Curriculum requirement from 2017 to 2019. She earned a master’s degree and doctorate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley and a masters degree in social science (African politics) from the University of Cape Town (South Africa). Her research, writing, and teaching span multiple fields, including political science, gender studies, African studies, development studies, tourism studies, political ecology, and geography.
Dr. Turner’s research focuses principally on how public policies shape rural political economies, influence identities, and affect people’s behavior in southern Africa. She uses interviews, ethnography, and archival research to examine the interplay between state policies and local practices over time and to look closely at how past and present ways of structuring property and authority shape local political economies and influence constructions of identity. She has published on topics ranging from the politics of tradition; dispossession, property, and nature tourism; and field research to decolonial pedagogy in journals including Africa Spectrum, Development and Change, Journal of Modern African Studies, Peacebuilding, and Qualitative and Multi-Method Research.
Dr. Turner teaches courses that help students better understand the perspectives, experiences, and political strategies of historically marginalized people in Africa, the United States, and elsewhere in the world. Her courses contribute to the political science major and minor, to the core curriculum, and to several interdisciplinary programs She led the the development of a new Global and Historical Studies course centered on the question, “What is Freedom,” with grant support from the National Endowment for the Humanities,
Her recent course offerings include:
GHS 206-SJD Resistance and Reaction: Resistance and Reaction: Colonialism and Post-Colonialism in Africa
GHS 210-SJD Freedom and Movement in the Transatlantic World
PO 151 Introduction to Comparative Politics
PO 350 African Politics
PO 351-SJD Politics of Gender & Sexuality in Africa
PO 352 Comparative Political Economy
PO 354-SJD Environmental Justice
PO 490 Senior Seminar on Women and Politics across the World
SW 245-PO Politics from the Margins
Administrative Specialist
Faculty & Staff
Biography
Professor Bauman grew up in eastern Pennsylvania before going to Goshen College, in Northern Indiana, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree. After college, Professor Bauman went to Princeton Theological Seminary (PTS) and earned both an M.Div. and Ph.D. degree, while teaching courses on Buddhism and Islam at PTS, Princeton University, and The College of New Jersey.
Contributions
Professor Bauman’s earliest research focused on the interaction of low-caste Christians and Hindus in colonial Chhattisgarh. His book on the topic, Christian Identity and Dalit Religion in Hindu India, 1868-1947 (Eerdmans Publishers, 2008) won the prize for Best Book in Hindu-Christian Studies, 2006-2008, from the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. During this time period, Professor Bauman also conducted research on Sathya Sai Baba, a popular, miracle-working Indian guru with an international following that extends even to the city of Indianapolis.
From 2008 to 2019, Professor Bauman conducted research on Hindu-Christian conflict. His most recent book, published by Cornell University Press, is Anti-Christian Violence in India, and earlier he published a book on the same topic with specific reference to Pentecostals and the public controversies surrounding conversion (called Pentecostals, Proselytization, and anti-Christian Violence in Contemporary India). Both this book and a volume he co-edited with Richard Fox Young (Constructing Indian Christianities) were named as prize finalists for the Best Book in Hindu-Christian Studies (History/Ethnography), 2013-17, by the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies.
In 2020, he co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Relations with Michelle Voss Roberts, and in 2024, he co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Megachurches with Afe Adogame, Damaris Parsitau, and Jeaney Yip.
His future projects will likely focus on religion and the law in Asia, and on the experiences and treatment of Hindu minorities in predominantly Christian countries.
Butler Teaching Assignment
Professor Bauman teaches introductory surveys of the world’s religions as well as upper-level courses on Hinduism and Buddhism. He has recently taught topical courses such as “Religion, ‘Cults,’ and (In)Tolerance in America,” “Religion, Politics and Conflict in South Asia,” “Religion, Gender, and the Goddess in Asia,” “Race and Religion in America,” and “Theory and Method in the Study of Religion.”
Dr. Terri Carney
Professor of Spanish
Modern Languages, Literatures & Cultures
Butler University, JH391A (940-8438)
https://works.bepress.com/terri_carney/about/
I am Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Butler University. Before coming to Butler, I earned a dual-title Ph.D. from Purdue University in sociology and gerontology. I then spent at year at the University of Missouri as a postdoctoral scholar in the Research Center for Human Animal Interactions.
My research interests include the roles of women and mothers, health and body weight issues, and social psychology. I teach a variety of courses including; families, international crime, gender, race, and crime, health and society, aging and the life course, and gender and society.
My research is currently funded by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). This research examines mothers’ perspectives of the benefits of interscholastic activities of their high school students. This is a 10 year longitudinal study that begin in the fall of 2019. I also host the podcast, MOMent with Mom, with members of the NFHS.
Background
Research
Teaching
Fall 2022
MW 1-2:15 HST 305 Vexing Women: Transnational Feminist Histories and Struggles, 1870-1940
MW 2:30-3:40 American Visions
Spring 2022
MW 1-2:15 American Visions
T/TH 1-2:15 Formation of Modern America
Fall 2021
MW 1-2:15 HST 342 US Workingwomen in the Modern City, 1870-1940
T Dolly Parton’s America: Gender, Region, & Culture
- Check out our Spotify playlist for our course read, Sarah Smarsh, She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs (2020)
Dr. Stephanie Fernhaber teaches a variety of courses within the Entrepreneurship & Innovation program at the undergraduate and graduate levels including The Entrepreneurial Mindset, Business Practicum, First-Year Business Experience, and Social Entrepreneurship.
In addition to teaching, Dr. Fernhaber conducts research in the areas of international entrepreneurship, grassroots innovation, and new venture strategy. Her research has been published in various academic journals including the Journal of International Business Studies, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Business Venturing, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, and Entrepreneurship, Theory & Practice. Dr. Fernhaber has also co-created four books. She serves as the Field Editor for International Entrepreneurship at the Journal of Business Venturing.
At the community level, Dr. Fernhaber has a passion for spurring innovation with an emphasis on social entrepreneurship.
Dr. Fletcher is the Frances Shera Fessler Assistant Professor of History. She holds a Ph.D. in History from Indiana University.
Before entering the academy, Charlene led a domestic violence/sexual assault program and a significant prison reentry initiative in New York City, assisting women and men in their transition from incarceration to society, and served as a lecturer of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. Charlene’s forthcoming book Confined Femininity: Race, Gender, and Incarceration in Kentucky, 1865-1920, explores the experiences of confined African American women in Kentucky from Reconstruction to the Progressive Era, explicitly illuminating the lives of confined Black women by examining places other than carceral locales as arenas of confinement, including mental health institutions and domestic spaces. Charlene’s newest research project is rooted in her grandmother’s memories, takes a transnational approach to race and confinement in the American South, and builds on Charlene’s interest in Italian history. The project, Down in the Delta: Race Relations between African and Italian Americans in Mississippi, 1880-1940 explores Italian migration and experiences in the Mississippi Delta between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. It interrogates the Italian padrone system as a form of confinement and examines relationships between Italians and African Americans because of their shared proximity and experience in the rural Jim Crow South.
In addition to her research, Dr. Fletcher is a Community Scholar at the Center for Africana Studies and Culture at Indiana University Indianapolis. She also serves on the editorial boards of The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society and the North Meridian Review. She is an elected member of the National Council of Public History (NCPH) Board of Directors.
To learn more about Charlene and her work, visit www.charlenejfletcher.com
Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh is a Professor of Journalism and Director of Graduate Studies in the College of Communication. Her textbook, “Journalism and Gender: Global Perspectives ,” with Routledge is set to be published on July 28, 2025.
She held the Richard M. Fairbanks endowed chair from 2018 to 2024 and served as Interim Dean from April 2021 to December 2022. Before her appointment as Interim Dean, Dr. Geertsema-Sligh served as Director of the Eugene S. Pulliam School of Journalism and Creative Media for five years. She joined Butler University in 2005 and has taught classes in news writing, gender and news, and global media.
Dr. Geertsema-Sligh holds a doctorate in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, a master’s degree in Communication from Washington State University, and a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication from North-West University in South Africa. She is a past chair of the International Communication Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and a past co-chair of the Gender and Communication section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research. Her research has been published in several leading academic journals. See www.margarethageertsemasligh.com for more information.
I am a native from Bogota, Colombia. I have been living in the United States for over 30 years. I came to this country to pursue a masters degree in Linguistics which I got from Saint Michael’s College in Winooski, Vermont. Since then I have been teaching at the University level. I was an adjunct at Butler for 15 years until I became a full time Instructor. I have taught beginners, intermediate, and advanced levels. Besides teaching skill classes at the 300 level, I have also taught the Service Learning course. I recently completed a second master’s degree in Effective Teaching and Leadership at Butler University.
I enjoy teaching, yoga, and walking.
Biography
Born and raised in southcentral Pennsylvania in one of only two counties in the Commonwealth without a traffic light, Brent Hege earned his BA in Religion and History with a minor in Classics from Gettysburg College (PA) in 1998. He completed the Zentrale Mittelstufenprüfung Diplom (German Language Certificate) at the Goethe Institut in Dresden, Germany, in 2000 while completing his MA in Historical Theology with a minor in New Testament at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg (PA). He earned his PhD in Theology with Distinction from Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, VA, in 2007. His dissertation was awarded the 2010 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise by the Forschungszentrum Internationale und Interdisziplinäre Theologie at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He was honored by his alma mater with the 2013 Gettysburg College Young Alumni Achievement Award and in 2015 he was elected an honorary member of Butler’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. In 2017 he received the Outstanding Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching from Butler’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and in 2024 he received the Butler University First-Year Impact Award for his work teaching and mentoring first-year students at Butler. In 2017 he was appointed The Compass Center Scholar in Residence and in 2020 he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Religion. He has taught at Butler since 2008.
Teaching Duties
As a faculty member of Butler’s Religious Studies program, Hege teaches the yearlong First Year Seminar, “Faith, Doubt, and Reason,” the Texts & Ideas (TI) course, “Religions of the World,” online every summer, and the following 300-level Religious Studies courses: God, Theologies of Liberation, Evil, Religious Pluralism, and Ecotheology. Hege has directed several offerings of the Butler Series on Religion and Society, including “Religion, Race, and Culture” (2015-2016), “Sacred Spaces: Intersections of Religion and Ecology” (2018-2019), and “Faith and Activism” (2022-2023). Hege is also the Compass Center Scholar in Residence, where he works with a cohort of student Scholars on issues of interfaith engagement and vocational discernment. Hege holds affiliate faculty status in the programs of Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Science, Technology, and Environmental Studies, and the Center for Urban Ecology and Sustainability. In 2022, Hege successfully chartered Butler’s chapter of Theta Alpha Kappa, the national honors society for Religious Studies and Theology, for which he serves as faculty advisor. Hege is also the faculty advisor of Grace Unlimited, Butler’s Lutheran-Episcopal campus ministry.
Scholarship
Hege’s research focuses on the history of Christian thought and contemporary Christian theology, with special focus on 19th- and 20th-century liberal Protestant theology, continental philosophy and philosophical theology, contemporary constructive theology, Lutheranism, and theology and culture. In addition to his award-winning first book, Faith at the Intersection of History and Experience: The Theology of Georg Wobbermin (Wipf and Stock, 2009), he has published articles and invited review essays in a number of European and American journals, including Zeitschrift für Neuere Theologiegeschichte/Journal for the History of Modern Theology, Theologische Zeitschrift, Theology and Science, Radical Philosophy Review, Politics and Religion, and Teaching Theology and Religion. He is also a frequent reviewer of books on historical and contemporary theology for Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology. He has presented papers at national and regional academic conferences, including The American Academy of Religion and The Southwest Popular Culture Association and The American Culture Association, as well as being a frequent guest lecturer and panel member for school, church, and community programs. His second book, Myth, History, and the Resurrection in German Protestant Theology, was published by Pickwick Press in 2017. His most recent book, based on the first semester of his popular Butler First Year Seminar, is Faith, Doubt, and Reason (Wipf and Stock 2020). In 2020 he was elected to the editorial council of Dialog: A Journal of Theology, the world’s premier journal of Lutheran theology.
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology & Criminology at Butler University. I am a socio-legal scholar exploring how legal, political, and social actors influence global and local institutions and organizations, producing social change or reproducing structural inequalities. Globally, I study how lawyers shape trade regimes between countries, which has contributed to today’s climate crisis. Locally, I analyze the mobilization against and governance of climate change in Brazil’s Amazon, where I was born and raised. My work has appeared in World Development, Sociology of Development, Law & Social Inquiry, University of Illinois Law Review, University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, and Cambridge University Press.
After moving from Brazil to the U.S., I earned my LL.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Indiana University Bloomington. In 2022-2023, I was a Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. At IU-Bloomington, I remain affiliated with the Center for the Analysis of Social-Ecological Landscapes and the Maurer School of Law’s Stewart Center on the Global Legal Profession. I am currently co-editing a special issue of the Law & Society Review on Law in a Changing Climate.
You can find more information about Vitor at vitormartinsdias.github.io.
Siobhán McEvoy-Levy is Professor of Political Science and Peace and Conflict Studies and Director of The Desmond Tutu Peace Lab at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. Her current research focuses on ‘everyday’ sites of international relations, youth and peacebuilding, and critical studies of political violence and peace (formation). She the author of Peace and Resistance in Youth Cultures: Reading the Politics of Peacebuilding from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games (Palgrave, 2018), American Exceptionalism and US Foreign Policy (Palgrave, 2001); the editor of Troublemakers or Peacemakers? Youth and Post-Accord Peacebuilding (University of Notre Dame, 2006); and a co-author of Peacebuilding after Peace Accords (University of Notre Dame, 2007). She has also published articles on youth and conflict, and on pop culture, reconciliation and peacebuilding. McEvoy-Levy holds a B.A. Hons degree (Politics and English) from Queen’s University, Belfast, and M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in International Relations from the University of Cambridge.
At Butler she has taught:
- Introductionto Peace Studies (PO 102)
- Introduction to Politics (PO 101)
- Activism (PO 230)
- International Relations (PO 320)
- International Conflict and Peacebuilding (PO 322)
- Gender and Generation in War and Peace (SW 240 PO 01)
- Change and Tradition (ID 202)
- Politics of Youth and Conflict (PO 357)
- Art and Politics (PO 380)
- Understandingthe Israel-Palestine Conflict (PO 380)
- Northern Ireland Between War and Peace (PO 380)
- U.S.Foreign Policy (PO 355)
- Ethics of Peacebuilding (PO 380)
- The Politics of Harry Potter and the Hunger Games (PO 490)
- Belfast and (London) Derry Field Seminar on Gender and Generation in ‘Post-Conflict’Northern Ireland, Global Adventures in the Liberal Arts (GALA).
- She supervises undergraduate honors theses, independent studies, student apprenticeship and peace lab internships.
Lav McKittrick-Sweitzer is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy. Before arriving at Butler in Autumn 2021, they completed their PhD (philosophy, 2021) at Ohio State University, MA (philosophy, 2015) at the University of Missouri – St. Louis, and BA (philosophy, 2013) at the University of Missouri – Columbia.
Their area of specialization is feminist social and political philosophy, with a focus on care, exploitation, public reason, and global justice.
For more information about Lavender’s research, teaching, and CV, visit: www.lmsweitzer.com.
Tom Mould teaches and conducts research in the areas of folklore, language and culture, American Indian studies, oral narrative, religious and sacred narrative, contemporary legend, identity, ethnography, genre, and performance theory. He is the author of the books ChoctawProphecy: A Legacy of the Future (2003), Choctaw Tales (2004), Still, the Small Voice: Revelation, Personal Narrative and the Mormon Folk Tradition (2011), and Overthrowing the Queen: Telling Stories of Welfare in America (2020), which won the Chicago Folklore Prize and the Brian McConnell Book Award from the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research. He is currently working on a second edition of Choctaw Tales, and two new books: Choctaw Traditions: Stories of the Life and Customs of the Mississippi Choctaw, and Folklore in the Public Square: How the Study of Traditional Culture Can Solve Contemporary Social Issues.
Before coming to Butler in 2019, Tom was the J.Earl Danieley Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Folklore at Elon University where he taught for 18 years and served in various roles including Director of the Honors Program and Chair of the Sociology and Anthropology Department.
Dr. Katherine (Kate) Novak is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology where she teaches courses in criminology, mental illness, social psychology, research methods and statistics. She holds a B.A in sociology and in psychology, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology, with a concentration in criminology, and a Ph.D. minor in Criminal Justice from Indiana University-Bloomington.
Much of Dr. Novak’s current research focuses on adolescent and college student substance use and delinquency and has been published in academic journals such as Crime & Delinquency, Addictive Behaviors, Journal of Criminal Justice, Sociological Inquiry, Journal of Social Psychology, The Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse, The Journal of Family Issues, The Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, and The Journal of Primary Prevention. She is the co-author of two textbooks- Individual and Society: Sociological Social Psychology (with Lizabeth A. Crawford) and Applied Communication Research (with Judith M. Buddenbaum). Additionally, Dr. Novak has collaborated with other faculty on research projects focusing on homelessness in Indianapolis, perceptions of crime and safety in the local community, immigrants’ perceptions of prejudice and discrimination, faculty work-load satisfaction, and student learning in a topically-focused introductory sociology course. She has published several class assignments and activities in TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology and serves on the advisory board for the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Dr. Novak regularly mentors students, supervising internships and directed research projects, and serving as the faculty advisor for department and university honors theses. Her students have presented their research at college and sociology conferences and to organizational leaders and administrators and have published papers in peer-reviewed research journals.
Dr. Novak has received many internal grants for both research and teaching, and she has won a number of university awards. She received the Liberal Arts and Sciences Outstanding Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence in 2016 and the Liberal Arts and Sciences Outstanding Faculty Award in 2010 and 2003.
Recent Publications:
Crawford, Lizabeth A. and Novak, Katherine B. 2013. Individual and Society: Sociological Social Psychology. Routledge/Taylor& Francis. [2nd edition released March 2018] https://www.routledge.com/Individual-and-Society-Sociological-Social-Psychology-2nd-Edition/Crawford-Novak/p/book/9781138284692
Crawford, Lizabeth A. and Novak, Katherine B. 2023. “Beliefs About Alcohol and the College Experience as Determinants of Academic and Social Outcomes Among Undergraduate Students.” College Student Journal 56(4):371-381.
Kowalski, Jennifer R., Lineweaver, Tara L., and Novak, Katherine B. 2021. “DevelopingIntegrative Thinking in Undergraduate Students through an Interdisciplinary General Education Course on Mental Illness.” College Teaching. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/87567555.2021.1982856\
Crawford, Lizabeth A. and Novak, Katherine, B. 2020. “College Student Activities, Social Capital, and Drinking Behavior.” Journal of Alcohol and Drug Eductation 64(1):9-32.
Crawford, Lizabeth A, Novak, Katherine B, and Rasitha R.Jayasekare. 2019. “Volunteerism, Alcohol Beliefs, and First-Year College Students’ Drinking Behaviors: Implications for Prevention.” The Journal of Primary Prevention. Advanced On-line Publication. https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s10935-019-00558-z?author_access_token=VsSE7FJJx4odI99TFRd2z_e4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY5U0p0vLjEfjXTWGPJg3fnUs7hDFpqWDQBu-3S9HNrZBdSXHQeiJNHtTScfiJScXxZnrFgi8YqhWDnMn4l9SXYNcCZl9aE9GpZQl-UpIAGxcA%3D%3D
Crawford, Lizabeth A. and Novak, Katherine B. 2018. “Being with Friends and the Potential for Binge Drinking During the First College Semester.” Journal of the First-Year Experience & Students in Transition 30(2):79-96.
Crawford, Lizabeth A., Novak, Katherine B., and Foston, Amia K. 2016 (online)/ 2018 (print).“Routine Activities and Delinquency: The Significance of Bonds to Society and Peer Context.” Crime & Delinquency 64(4):472-509.
Howard, Jay R., Novak, Katherine B., Scott, Marvin B. and Cline, Krista M.C. 2014. “Another Nibble at the Core: Student Learning in a Topically-Focused Introductory Sociology Course.” Teaching Sociology 42(3):177-186.
Crawford, Lizabeth A. and Novak, Katherine B. 2013. “The Effects of Public Self-Consciousness and Embarrassability on College Student Drinking: Evidence in Support of a Protective Self-Presentational Model.” The Journal of Social Psychology 153(1):109-122.
Crawford, Lizabeth A. and Novak, Katherine B. 2011. “Beliefs about Alcohol and the College Experience, Locus of Self, and College Undergraduates’ Drinking Patterns.” Sociological Inquiry 81(4):477-494.
Crawford, Lizabeth A., and Novak, Katherine B. 2010. “Beliefs about Alcohol and the College Experience as Moderators of the Effects of Perceived Campus Drinking Norms on Levels of Alcohol Use among College Undergraduates. Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education. 54(3):69-96.
Novak, Katherine B.and Crawford, L. A. 2010. “Routine Activities as Determinants of Gender Differences in Delinquency. Journal of Criminal Justice 38(5):913-920.
Menendez-Alarcon, Antonio V. and Novak, Katherine B. 2010. “Latin American Immigrants in Indianapolis: Perceptions of Prejudice and Discrimination.” Latino Studies. 8:93-120.
Chair, Department of Political Science
Director, Peace and Conflict Studies Program
Faculty Director, Butler in Asia Program
Su-Mei Ooi joined the Department of Political Science and Peace & Conflict Studies program in 2010 as Assistant Professor, shortly before earning a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto with a joint specialty in international relations and comparative politics.
Prior to settling down in Indianapolis, Ooi studied and worked in many different parts of Asia, Europe, and North America. Her lived experiences have shaped Ooi into a dedicated educator who believes strongly in the importance of critical global citizenship education in the United States. At Butler, she teaches courses in international relations and Asian politics with the express purpose of helping students to understand that there are many different ways of being in this world. She particularly encourages students to seek better solutions to global problems by re-imagining new possibilities for a better world. Ooi grew up in Singapore and Malaysia. Since 2017, Ooi has also led students to Malaysia and Singapore on the Butler in Asia program, which offers students the unique opportunity to live and work in Asia for 7 weeks in the summer.
As an affiliate faculty of the Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program, Ooi also believes in a diverse, inclusive, and equitable learning and working environment for all. At Butler, she works closely with senior administration in her role as the Director of Academic Affairs for DEI. In terms of curricular affairs, she is also responsible for Asian and Pacific American representation in the Core Curriculum, as she led a team of excellent colleagues in the development of GHS 212: Asian Americas. She works closely with students as well and is the faculty advisor of the student group Asian and Pacific Islander Alliance (APIA).
Although Ooi’s research expertise is in democratic development and human rights in East Asia, she has expanded the scope of her research in response to issues and problems beyond her core interest. More recently, her scholarship addresses peace building on the Korean Peninsula, US-China relations, global education, the well-being of faculty in teaching-focused institutions and the leadership experiences of minoritized faculty. She also believes in integrating teaching and scholarship and has mentored students in the research and publication process at Butler.
In her personal time, Ooi enjoys the company of her husband, daughter and a pet hamster named Coco. She is also an active member of the Asian and Pacific American community in Indianapolis. She is on the Board of the Indianapolis Chinese Community Center, Inc., the Council of the Indiana Association of Chinese Americans, and is also a member of Hoosier Asian American Power.
Teaching Expertise:
International Relations, US-China Relations, East and Southeast Asian Politics, Chinese Politics, Human Rights and Humanitarianism, International Political Economy
Research Specialization:
Comparative Democratization, Transnational Activism, Human Rights, East Asian Politics and International Relations, Global Citizenship Education
Education:
PhD Political Science
University of Toronto (Canada)
MA (Southeast Asian Studies)
National University of Singapore (Singapore)
LLB (Bachelor of Laws, with Honors)
University College London (United Kingdom)
Publications:
http://works.bepress.com/sumei_ooi/
Awards/Fellowships
Korea Foundation Fellowship
Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Fellowship
Taiwan Foundation for Democracy Fellowship
Dr. David Chu Scholarship
Political Science Award, University of Toronto
Volkswagen Foundation Fellowship
Corey Reed is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and steering committee member in the Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (RGSS) program at Butler University. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Morehouse College, double majoring in English and Philosophy, his Master of Arts degree from the University of Louisville in Comparative Humanities, and his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Memphis with a graduate certificate in Women and Gender Studies. His dissertation was entitled “Black-Male Imagos and Counternarrative Resistance: An Africana Existentialist Framework for Black-Male Analysis.” He specializes in Africana Philosophy and the Critical Philosophy of Race and Racism, with sub-interests in Existentialism, Phenomenology, Feminism/Male Theory, 20th Century French Continental Philosophy, and Aesthetics. Reed is one of three Co-Directors for the Hub of Black Affairs and Community Engagement.
More information can be found at https://www.coreynreed.com/
Alex Roehrkasse is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology. He is faculty fellow at the Desmond Tutu Peace Lab and a faculty affiliate in the Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies programs.
Alex’s research focuses on inequality, crime and punishment, families and children, and quantitative and historical methods. He is particularly interested in the ways that families interact with the legal, criminal justice, and child welfare systems with consequences for racial, class, and gender equity and child well-being.
Alex teaches courses on introductory sociology, sociological theory, research methods, social statistics, victimization, incarceration and inequality, and prison abolition, among others.
Before joining the faculty at Butler, Alex held postdoctoral fellowships at Cornell and Duke Universities. He received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and an A.B. in economics from Brown University. More information about Alex’s research and teaching is available at alexr.info.
I am a professor of Latin American History in the department of History and Anthropology, and affiliate faculty in Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (RGSS) and International Studies (IS). I am also currently the Director of Global and Historical Studies at Butler University.
I teach courses on a variety of subjects, but all deal in some way with the interplay of power, culture, identity formations and historical shifts.
My scholarship generally lands at the intersections of gender, space, and the history of the Americas. You can find my articles in The Americas, the Journal of Urban History, and the Journal of Transnational American Studies (among others). My first book titled Deco Body/Deco City: Spectacle and Modernity in Mexico City (University of Nebraska Press, 2016) looks at how new ideas about femininity and female bodies influenced urban reform in Mexico’s capital city in the 1920s and 1930s. My new project, Warrior Power: Dreaming, Drugs, Death and the Search for Alternate Spirituality in Mexico during the Sixties and Seventies (tentative title), focuses on the interplay between the books and appeal of Carlos Castaneda, the history of anthropology, New Age sensibilities, popular imaginings of Mexico, and indigenismo.
Teigha VanHester aka Dr. V (she/they) is a fierce intellectual; pleasure activist; joyful griot; SoCal native; proud Black, Polynesian femme; proud Cancer; and assistant professor of Race, Gender and Sexuality studies at Butler University. Dr. V’s community-based scholar-activist cultivates an understanding of sovereignty as a literacy, human right, and key component of survival. This work is mainly done through theorizing ecologies of Black femme intellectual ancestry, cultural rhetoric, and antecedent knowledge creation, and grassroots activism. They work to situate joy, rest, creativity, and pleasure as imperative strategies to liberation..
Dr. V has presented at several conferences, including the Cultural Rhetoric Conference, the Conference for College Composition and Communication, Community Writing Conference, and the National Women’s Studies Association Conference. They have been a Coalition for Community Writing writer-in-residence and a recipient of the CCW’s Emerging Scholars Award, a recipient of the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s Scholars for the Dream Travel Award and a NAFSA RISE (Representation, Inclusion, Support, and Empowerment) Fellow, and an Indiana Humanities Wilma Gibbs Fellow. Dr. V was the first Forum Editorial Fellow and has served as a peer reviewer for the journal Emerging Voices in Education. Their work has been featured in Race and Yoga; Rhetoric, Politics, and Culture; Community Literacy Journal and Women’s Studies Quarterly. In addition to scholastic work, they loves cave and shipwreck diving, Beyonce, horror films, professional wrestling, the Chicago Blackhawks, Texas BBQ, spades and visiting as many of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants as possible.
Current Research Projects:
- Undercurrents of Resistance
- Wayfinding as Liberation
- Queerness in Professional Wrestling
- Megan thee Stallion
- Identifying Rituals in the Borderlands
Expertise:
- Cultural Rhetorical Theory
- Decolonization and Resistance
- Community Literacies
- Intersectionality/Assemblage
- Black Feminist Ecologies
Fall 2024 Office Hours provided