Faculty Members
There are nearly 50 faculty members at Acadia who are involved in the Women's and Gender Studies program, either through teaching its courses, doing research in the area, or by participating in committee work. These faculty are available to assist students in their studies related to women and gender depending on the faculty member's particular area of expertise.
Faculty Teaching WGST Courses
Research and teaching interests: African Diaspora migration and settlement within the Americas and Caribbean; Black Feminist Theory; Critical Race Theory; Postcolonial Theory; narrative analysis; the intersections of race, gender, class and sexuality; diversity and equity issues in education; social justice and social change; qualitative and ethnographic inquiry.
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Randy Newman
Department of Psychology
Research and teaching interests: Randy Lynn Newman has research interests in the area of reading and speech perception mechanisms, cognitive neuroscience. Reading involves the coordination of several processes including the encoding of an orthographic representation, the assignment of phonology to written text, and the integration of these processes with semantic representations. Understanding the dynamics of these processes is a central focus of cognitive science. One of the more contentious issues in reading research has to do with how skilled readers use the phonology of words during reading. For example, there is disagreement over whether skilled readers are able to rely solely on the orthography of familiar words when reading for meaning, thus ignoring phonology, or whether phonological representations are always activated during reading. My research objective is to delineate the circumstances and mechanisms by which skilled readers use phonology when reading single words as well as meaningful text. This goal is accomplished by using traditional behavioral paradigms such as masked priming, in combination with cutting edge brain imaging techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event related brain potentials (ERPs).
Teaching: WGST 2193 Women in Science (Fall 2020)
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Anne Marie Powers
Department of Sociology
Research and teaching interests: gender and social organization; symbolism (women and religion); Newfoundland and Atlantic Canada; intercultural communication and cultural diversity education
Teaching: WGST 2906 Women & Gender in the Modern World and SOCI 2853 the Anthropology of Magic and Religion (Open Acadia - online course)
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Elisabeth Rondinelli
Lecturer, Sociology
Research and teaching interests: Cultural Sociology, Gender and Sexuality, Education, Cross-cultural Interactions, Ethnography, Digital Sociology, Qualitative Research Methods
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Comparative Religion - Department of History and Classics
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Dr. Inna Viriasova
Department of Politics
Research and teaching interests: Contemporary continental political philosophy, Non-Western and indigenous thought, Critical theory, Post-humanism and new materialism
Teaching: WGST 3023 Feminist Theory (Fall 2020)
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Anne Quéma
Coordinator, Women's and Gender Studies
Professor, Department of English and Theatre
Research and teaching interests: My research is characterized by interdisciplinarity. Since publishing The Agon of Modernism: Wyndham Lewis’s Allegories, Aesthetics, and Politics in 1999, I have published articles on legal discourse and same-sex partnership, law and literature, historiography, Gothic fiction, fiction and the visual arts, and Canadian modernism. My book, Power and Legitimacy (2015), examines the relationship between power and language in the context of interdisciplinary analyses of jurisprudence, statutory law, and literature. My current research project explores practices of experimental poetry in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with a particular focus on Oana Avasilichioaei, Nicole Brossard, Erín Moure, and Rachel Zolf.
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Cynthia Alexander
Department of Politics
902-585-1451
cynthia.alexander@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Identity politics in Canada; First Nations Peoples in Canada; Canadian politics and government; Comparative public policy; Public administration; New media technologies; Northern studies in Canada; Intersectionality of oppressions in Canada; Indigenous epistemologies and political contexts; Place-based knowledge and narrative; Discursive democracy and social justice.
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Barb Anderson
School of Nutrition and Dietetics
902-585-1346
barb.anderson@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Barb Anderson has been involved in the Nova Scotia Food Security Research projects since 2001, to gather evidence to support changing policy to work towards food security for all Canadians. Community Nutrition, Adult Learning applied to nutrition and dietetic practice, Leadership in Food, Nutrition and Dietetics, and Health Promotion.
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Mike Beazley
Librarian for Women's and Gender Studies
902-585-1523
mike.beazley@acadiau.ca
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Kathryn Bell
Department of Psychology
Research Interests: Dr. Kathryn Bell is a clinical psychologist with broad research interests in interpersonal violence, including intimate partner violence (IPV), sexual assault, and childhood abuse. She is interested in utilizing a contextually-based framework to identify risk factors that are proximally and dynamically associated with episodes of interpersonal violence perpetration and victimization.
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Rachel Brickner
Department of Politics
902-585-1349
rachel.brickner@acadiau.ca
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James J. Brittain
Department of Sociology
902-585-1292
james.brittain@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Gender and Revolutionary Social Change, International Development, Latin America, Social Theory, Women in Guerrilla Movements.
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Wanda Campbell
Department of English and Theatre
585-1111
wanda.campbell@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Creative Writing; Writing by Women, particularly Nineteenth-Century Canadian.
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School of Nutrition
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Rebecca Casey
Department of Sociology
902-585-1494
rebecca.casey@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Aging, Disability, Work and Employment, Sociology of Health and Illness, Research Methods, Social Inequality, Public Policy.
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Heather Dahringer
Department of Sociology
902-585-1210
heather.dahringer@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Feminist methodology, women and crime, social and discursive constructions of masculinity and femininity, body image and eating disorders, feminist theory, research ethics, sociology of deviance, and criminology.
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Michael Dennis
Department of History and Classics
902-585-1377
michael.dennis@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: The labour movement in the South and the United States in the late twentieth century; intellectual and cultural history of 20th century America, youth subcultures, and higher education.
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Kelly Dye
School of Business
902-585-1285
kelly.dye@acadiau.ca
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Lesley Frank
Department of Sociology
902-585-1431
lesley.frank@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: food studies, health inequity, family poverty, infant feeding, research methods.
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Chelsea Gardner
Department of History and Classics
Research and teaching interests: Dr. Gardner is a Classical Archaeologist specializing in the history and material culture of the ancient Greek and Roman world. Her teaching covers many areas of the ancient Mediterranean, including Greek & Latin language and literature, the history of the Graeco-Roman world from the prehistory to late antiquity, mythology, religion & sacred space, and women, gender & sexuality in antiquity. Her research is centred around archaeological exploration in southern Greece.
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John J. Guiney Yallop
School of Education
902-585-1191
johnj.guineyyallop@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: John Guiney Yallop is a poet and poetic inquirer who teaches about literacy, sexual orientation and gender diversity issues in education, as well as arts-based and autoethnographic/autobiographic research methodologies.
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Sonia Hewitt
Department of History and Classics
902-585-1277
sonia.hewitt@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Sonia Hewitt is a Roman archaeologist, and her area of interest is the archaeology of daily life in Italy and the provinces, especially domestic architecture and baths. She has participated in excavations in Greece and Tunisia, and has conducted fieldwork at the Roman site Volubilis in Morocco. She is currently working on the neighborhood baths in urban and rural Roman Africa.
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Anna Kiefte
Department of Physics
902-585-1274
anna.kiefte@acadiau.ca
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Jennifer MacDonald
Department of History and Classics
902-585-1243
je.macdonald@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Jennifer MacDonald researches and teaches on European history.
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David MacKinnon
School of Education
902-585-1394
david.mackinnon@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Human sexuality, sex education, leadership for social justice, rural education and community development, interpretive and critical research methodologies, and critical pedagogy.
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Anna Migliarisi
Department of English and Theatre
902-585-1385
anna.migliarisi@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Anna Migliarisi's interests have been in women working in/for theatre (as performers, playwrights, directors and producers); the history of women in the theatre; gender and performance. Other research areas are the history, theory and practice of directing; Renaissance and Baroque theatre; theories of performance.
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Can E. Mutlu
Department of Politics
902-585-1293
can.mutlu@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Borders and mobility; Critical approaches to security studies; International Political Sociology; Research methods/design; Science and technology studies.
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Lisa Narbeshuber
Department of English and Theatre
902-585-1251
lisa.narbeshuber@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: American literature, especially modern American poetry; Sylvia Plath; Ernest Hemingway.
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Randy Newman
Department of Psychology
902-585-1405
randy.newman@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Randy Lynn Newman has research interests in the area of reading and speech perception mechanisms, cognitive neuroscience. Reading involves the coordination of several processes including the encoding of an orthographic representation, the assignment of phonology to written text, and the integration of these processes with semantic representations. Understanding the dynamics of these processes is a central focus of cognitive science. One of the more contentious issues in reading research has to do with how skilled readers use the phonology of words during reading. For example, there is disagreement over whether skilled readers are able to rely solely on the orthography of familiar words when reading for meaning, thus ignoring phonology, or whether phonological representations are always activated during reading. My research objective is to delineate the circumstances and mechanisms by which skilled readers use phonology when reading single words as well as meaningful text. This goal is accomplished by using traditional behavioral paradigms such as masked priming, in combination with cutting edge brain imaging techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event related brain potentials (ERPs).
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Robert Pitter
Department of Kinesiology
robert.pitter@acadiau.ca
902-585-1553
Research and teaching interests: Sociological Aspects of Physical Activity and Sport, Political and socio-economic aspects of sport and recreation, Sport, Media and Culture, Meanings surrounding sport and recreation experiences, Physical Cultural Studies.
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Ann Marie Powers
Department of Sociology
apowers@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Ann Marie Powers teaches Women in the Modern World, Introduction to Women's Studies, Cross Cultural Belief Systems, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. Her research interests are in gender and social organization; symbolism (women and religion); Newfoundland and Atlantic Canada; intercultural communication and cultural diversity education.
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Lisa Price
Department of Psychology
902-585-1196
lisa.price@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Lisa Price's current areas of research interest include attachment styles, support and well-being in couples and parent/adolescent relationships, violence in relationships and risky sexual behaviour. Her teaching interests include Human Sexuality, Violence in Relationships, Clinical Psychology, and Psychotherapy for clinical graduate students.
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Vernon Provençal
Department of History and Classics
902-585-1374
vernon.provencal@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: latest publications include Sophist Kings: Persians as Other in Herodotus, Bloomsbury Classical Monographs, 2015.
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J. Coplen Rose
Department of English and Theatre
902-585-1111
jcoplen.rose@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Postcolonial Literature; South African film, literature, and drama, and humour studies
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Dean of Arts & Professor
Department of English and Theatre and Women's and Gender Studies
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Elisabeth Rondinelli
Lecturer, Sociology
Research and teaching interests: Cultural Sociology, Gender and Sexuality, Education, Cross-cultural Interactions, Ethnography, Digital Sociology, Qualitative Research Methods
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Sarah Rudrum
Department of Sociology
902-585-1107
sarah.rudrum@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Sociology of Health and Illness, Gender and Health, Sociology of Family, Gender and Sexuality, Global Issues, and Qualitative Research Methodology.
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Christianne Rushton
School of Music
902-585-1330
Christianne.rushton@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Christianne Rushton created a course in Opera History that explores the representation of gender and sexuality in Opera. The course, “Sex, Gender and Stereotypes in Opera”, begins by examining the role of the Castrato (a male singer with the voice of a female) and will continue through the development of the trouser-role (a mezzo-soprano portraying men and boys).
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Donna Seamone
Comparative Religion - Department of History and Classics
902-585-1267
donna.seamone@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Ritual studies and performance studies; Cultural anthropology especially issues of representation, race ethnicity and gender: ethnography/fieldwork in the study of lived experience; relation of media and representation to lived religion; Health, illness, and religion & medical anthropology; New religious movement and emergent religion; Religion on the internet; Study of "liberation" movements; Life writing & gender: spiritual biography (western and contemporary), life history, and illness narratives; Nature-Body-Spirit relationships in religion and culture (ritual and ecology, ecofeminism)
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Karolyn Smardz Frost
Harrison McCain Visiting Professor
Department of History and Classics
ksmardz@acadiau.ca
902-585-1695
http://www.homeingloryland.com
Teaching interests: African Canadian history; primary research; urban history
Research interests: Both an archaeologist and an historian, Karolyn Smardz Frost conducts new research in African Canadian/American history of the 18th & 19th centuries. Her current research at Acadia's Planter Studies Centre celebrates the many contributions made by enslaved African Americans to the early development of Maritime Canada.
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Mary Sweatman
Department of Community Development
902-385-6279
mary.sweatman@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Mary Sweatman’s interests revolve around community service-learning and partnerships, and community issues concerning inequity. Her current projects include collaborative work on local food systems and experiential education in community, recreation provisions for rural low-income families, and rural homelessness. Mary is also the faculty coordinator of Axcess Acadia, an inclusive post-secondary education option at Acadia.
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Xiaoting Wang
Department of Economics
902-585-1461
xiaoting.wang@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Industrial organization, antitrust economics
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Leigh Whaley
Department of History and Classics
leigh.whaley@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Leigh Whaley teaches courses in the History Western Civilization I and II on campus and with Open Acadia, as well as courses on European Women, European Men and Masculinity, Comparative Revolutions, and France. She has published Women's History as Science: A guide to the debates; Radicals: Politics and Republicanism in the French Revolution; and The Impact of Napoleon Bonaparte, 1800-1815: An Annotated Bibliography. Her current research project is "The Family Fouquet: Philanthropy, Medicine and Charity: The Counter-Reformation at Work in France and the New World".
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Jamie Whidden
Department of History and Classics
902-585-1814
jamie.whidden@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Jamie Whidden completed his doctorate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, where he studied Egypt and North Africa. He has an interest in patriarchy, particularly as an aspect of Middle Eastern cultures. In all his courses, including Global, African, and Middle Eastern, an important component is the study of patriarchy and its impact upon gender relations.
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Geoffrey Whitehall
Department of Politics
902-585-1288
geoffrey.whitehall@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: Geoffrey Whitehall's research interests are in Sovereignty and Preemption; and Aesthetics of International Politics. He teaches courses in Law, Politics and Government; Theoretical Approaches to International Politics; Pop Culture and World Politics; Politics of International Law; the Politics of New Global Technologies; and Human Rights.
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Anna Wilks
Department of Philosophy
902-585-1376
anna.wilks@acadiau.ca
Research and teaching interests: metaphysics and epistemology in Kant and Early Modern Philosophy. Her current research topics include the notions of substance, causality, consciousness, and the self in theories of cognition and ethics. She is also interested in the practical application of Kant’s theory of experience to problems in biology, artificial intelligence and gender studies - specifically with respect to the natural, artificial and gendered dimensions of “the self.”
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Ying Zhang
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
902- 585-1481
ying.zhang@acadiau.ca
Research activities: Time Series Analysis and Applied Statistics; Statistical Computing and Symbolic Algebra Computing; Statistical Consulting on Biostatistics, Survey and Research Design, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada.