The College of the Liberal Arts at Penn State welcomes four new department heads, a new director, and interim and acting heads, starting Fall Semester 2015.
Amy Allen, formerly Parents' Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities and chair of the women's and gender studies program at Dartmouth College, is joining us as head of the Department of Philosophy. Allen, who also had served as chair of the Department of Philosophy at Dartmouth, earned her doctorate from Northwestern and is a specialist in 19th- and 20th-century continental philosophy.
Tom Beebee, professor of comparative literature and German, will serve as head of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures. Beebee, whose doctorate is from Michigan, joined Penn State in 1986 as an assistant professor and was promoted to professor in 2000. In 2008, he was named distinguished professor and in 2012 Edwin Erle Sparks Professor. He has received both the Eisenhower Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Faculty Scholar Award in the Arts and Humanities.
Barry Ickes, professor of economics and director of the Center for Research on International Financial and Energy Security, has become head of Economics. A specialist in the economics of Russia whose doctorate is from Cal-Berkeley, Ickes was promoted and tenured in 1992 and became a professor in 2000. He was a founder of the New Economic School in Moscow and is a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings.
Melissa Wright, professor of geography and women's studies, is the head of the newly renamed Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Wright is a specialist in human geography who received her doctorate in geography from Johns Hopkins. Based on her fieldwork at the U.S. Mexican border and elsewhere, she has published widely on issues of violence, particularly against women.
Bill Dewey, associate professor of art history and African studies, is the new director of African Studies. Dewey, whose doctorate is from Indiana University, specializes in the art of southern and eastern Africa and on African iron arts. He is currently working on an exhibition titled "Striking Iron! The Art of African Blacksmiths," which he will curate for the Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Bob Edwards, Sparks Professor of English and Comparative Literature, is interim head of Comparative Literature. Edwards joined Penn State in 1989 as a professor, was named a distinguished professor in 2001 and an Edwin Erle Sparks professor in 2007. He is a specialist in medieval literature.
Kathryn Gines, associate professor of philosophy, is the interim head of the Department of African American Studies. She earned her doctorate from the University of Memphis in 2003 and joined Penn State in 2008 as an Africana Research Center Fellow and became assistant professor of philosophy in 2009. Gines is a specialist in the critical philosophy of race and continental philosophy. She is the founder of the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers and the founding co-editor of the journal "Critical Philosophy of Race," published by Penn State Press.
Bill Blair, the Ferree Professor of Middle American History and Director of the Richards Center for the Civil War Era, will serve as acting head of History in 2015-16 while Michael Kulikowski is on his NEH and ACLS funded project on Landmark Ammianus Marcellinus. Bill focuses on the home front in the Civil War era.
Bénédicte Monicat, professor of French and francophone studies and women's, gender, and sexuality studies, is acting head in French and Francophone Studies for the fall semester. She earlier served as head from 2008 to 2014. She is replacing Kathryn Grossman who is taking a research sabbatical. Bénédicte is a specialist in 19th-century French women writers and especially focuses on children's literature, instructional literature, and travel narratives.