Meet our core faculty
"I’m not a teacher: only a fellow-traveller of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead—ahead of myself as well as you.”
George Bernard Shaw
Barbara Burkhardt
Associate Professor of English
Ph.D. English, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
Phone: (217) 206-8092
Office: UHB 3074
Teaching Concentration: American Literature from 1865 to 1915 with emphasis on the novel, postmodern fiction, Midwestern literature, Fiction of The New Yorker, Contemporary American fiction, and American women writers.
Read more about Dr. Burkhardt
Donna Alfano Bussell
Assistant Professor of English
Ph.D. English, Columbia University
Phone: (217) 206-8091
Office: UHB 3072
Teaching Concentration: Chaucer, Anglo-Norman literature, medieval hagiography, medieval drama and liturgy, Women in the Middle Ages, Arthurian Literature and the Crusades, Insular politics and the rhetoric of devotion in the Middle Ages.
Read more about Dr. Bussell
Meagan Cass
Assistant Professor of English
Ph.D. English: The University of Louisiana
Phone: (217) 206-8358
Office: UHB 3062
Teaching Concentration: Creative Writing (with an emphasis in fiction), Contemporary American and British literature, Composition, ghost stories, Women's Literature and Feminist Theory, sports literature.
Read more about Dr. Cass
Sara Cordell
Associate Professor of English
Ph.D. English, University of Missouri
Phone: (217) 206-7213
Office: UHB 3066
Teaching Concentration: Nineteenth-Century
British Literature, literary theory.
Read more about Dr. Cordell
Lan Dong
Assistant Professor of English
Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Phone: (217) 206-8334
Office: UHB 3071
Teaching Concentration: World Literature, Composition, Asian American literature and film, Chinese Women, Chinese Literature and Film, the Graphic Novel, Children's Literature
Read more about Dr. Dong
Tena Helton
Associate Professor of English
Chair, English Department
Director of First Year Writing Program
Ph.D. English (American Literature), Louisiana State University
Phone: (217) 206-7441
Office: UHB 3070
Teaching Concentration: American Literature and Culture, Writing, Film.
Read more about Dr. Helton
Elizabeth L. Jones
Instructor, English Department
MA English, George Mason University
Phone: (217) 206-6779
Office: UHB 3050
Teaching Concentration: Freshman Composition
Ethan Lewis
Professor of English
Ph.D. English, Boston College
Phone: (217) 206-7436
Office: UHB 3068
Teaching Concentration: Shakespeare, seventeenth-century
literature, modern and contemporary poetry.
Read more about Dr. Lewis
Roger McNamara
Instructor of English
Ph. D. English, Loyola University Chicago
Phone: 217-206-8219
Office: UHB 3071
Teaching Concentration:
His research interests include 20th century South Asian literature, Marxism, Postcolonial Theory, and Modernity.
Read more about Dr. McNamara
Patricia Oman
Visting Assistant Professor of English
Ph. D. English, University of Oregon
Phone: 217-206-8406
Office: UHB 4031
Teaching Concentration: Representations of place, space, and region in 20th century American literature and film. Dr Oman is especially interested in Midwest regionalism, children’s media, and Hollywood genres such as musicals and horror.
Read more about Dr. Oman
James Ottery
Associate Professor of English
Ph.D. English, University of Missouri
Phone: (217) 206-7443
Office: UHB 3076
Teaching Concentration: History and theories of composition and rhetoric, literary theory, American Indian Literature.
Read more about Dr. Ottery
Julie Perino
Instructor, English Department
MA English, University of Illinois Springfield
Phone: (217) 206-8332
Office: UHB 3069
Teaching Concentration: Freshman Composition
