American Studies Faculty

Chair
Jeremy Chen
Assistant Professor
Jeremy Chen is an artist and educator with an MFA in Printmaking (Sculpture minor) from The University of Iowa (2006), Center for the Book Arts Certificate (2006) and a BA in Art including K-12 teacher certification (1994). His cultural production includes work in three areas: individual practice...
Steve Andrews
Associate Professor

Director, Center for the Humanities

I teach mostly 18th and 19th century American Literature, but I like to roam a little, especially if given the opportunity to team teach or supervise MAPs. During any four-year cycle I am likely to offer a seminar on Whitman and Dickinson; an American poetry seminar titled “Beat, Black, and...
Photograph of Susan Baley, Museum of Art director
Lecturer

Director, Museum of Art

George Barlow
Associate Professor
George Barlow is a poet who earned a B.A. in English from California State University, Hayward, an M.A. in American Studies and an M.F.A. in Poetry, both from the University of Iowa. He specializes in African-American literature, poetry, and teaches Craft of Poetry and the Poetry Seminar most...
Karla Erickson
Professor
Karla is a feminist ethnographer of labor. She studies interaction and community in market exchanges. In her first book, The Hungry Cowboy she studied Cheers-like community building in a Tex-Mex restaurant as a way of thinking about how connection was offered and sometimes found in the marketplace...
Freeman, Will
Associate Professor

Head Men's Cross Country and Track/Field Coach

After a highly successful 42 years of coaching and teaching sport psychology and sport sociology at Grinnell College, Will Freeman has retired from coaching to teach exclusively in the American studies department at Grinnell. His innovative and successful athlete-centered model of coaching is now...
Katya Gibel Mevorach
Professor Senior Faculty
Katya Gibel Mevorach holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Duke University. She received her B.A. and M.A. in African Studies from Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. Gibel Mevorach is a Professor in Anthropology and American Studies at Grinnell College. Baccalaureate 2017: Professor...
Michael Guenther
Associate Professor

Department chair of Science, Medicine, and Society

Mike Guenther began teaching at Grinnell College in 2007, having received his B.A. from the University of Virginia, and his M.A. & Ph.D from Northwestern University. A historian of science, technology and the environment, he is currently finishing a book project (tentatively entitled, Science and...
Henry Reitz
Professor

George A. Drake Professor of Religious Studies

Henry W. Morisada Rietz is a Professor of Religious Studies at Grinnell College and an alumnus of the College. He received his M.Div. and his Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Princeton Theological Seminary and is the associate editor of the Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project. His...
Sarah Purcell
Professor

L.F. Parker Professor of History

Sarah Purcell, L.F. Parker Professor of History, graduated from Grinnell with a B.A. in history in 1992. She went on to earn an A.M. (1993) and a Ph.D. (1997) from Brown University. She joined the faculty of Grinnell in 2000 after teaching at Central Michigan University. Ms. Purcell's research...
Lecturer
Comparative physiology and functional morphology; exercise physiology & psychology I was originally trained as a comparative physiologist and functional morphologist, but since coming to Iowa, I have become increasingly focused on human exercise. I am interested in how people feel when they exercise...
Sharon Quinsaat
Associate Professor
Sharon Quinsaat received her PhD in Sociology from University of Pittsburgh. Her research and teaching interests include social movements, migration, Southeast Asia, and Asian Americans from a global and transnational perspective. Sharon’s projects and courses to date reflect her intellectual and...
Assistant Professor
Jordan Reznick is a photo historian and photographer who researches Native North American, settler colonial, and transgender histories of photography. His current research examines how Indigenous ecological science shaped nineteenth-century landscape photographs in California. Reznick was 2022-2023...
Image of Fredo in London
Assistant Professor
Art and architectural historian Fredo Rivera ‘06 is Assistant Professor of Art History at Grinnell College, where they teach classes on modern and contemporary architecture and urban visual culture, as well as the art of the Americas, with a focus on the Caribbean. Professor Rivera’s research...
Kesho Scott
Senior Faculty
She is an internationally renowned Diversity Trainer/Consultant, an Associate Professor of American Studies and Sociology at Grinnell College, and an award-winning writer. Kesho was a founding member of International Capacity Building Services, a cultural competency training team that specializes in...

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