LBS Full Time Faculty & Staff

Please click on the tabs above to learn more about the individual full time Liberal Studies faculty.

Directory and Office Hours (PDF)

Please also visit the Faculty Activities page to see the recent professional activities, honors, and publications of the entire College of Arts & Letters Faculty.

 

 

 

 

 

Currently serving as Chair of the Department of Liberal Studies, I have been a Professor of English at Cal State L.A. since 1983 and served as Chair of the Department of English from 2000-2005. My Ph.D. from U.C. Davis and Berkeley in English and Folklore reflects my interdisciplinary interest in how literature, folklore, mythology, film, and various other forms of artistic expression serve to create culture and attempt to make sense of the human condition. My interests also include creative writing, which was the focus of my undergraduate degree from Haverford College and which I now pursue as a screenwriter and development consultant. The courses I have taught most often include ENGL 482, The Bible as Literature, ENGL 425, Epic and Legend, ENGL 430 Children’s Literature, and ENGL 200A The Classical and Medieval Tradition. I will be offering LBS 360, Interdisciplinary Approaches to Culture and Society, in the spring of ’06.

Steven Swann Jones, E&T 405, 323-343-4100, sjones@calstatela.ed

I come to the Liberal Studies department as an alumnus of Cal State L.A. (M.A. Communication) and am happy to call this campus my second home. I teach each of the Liberal Studies core courses, as well as courses in cultural studies, globalization, social movements, and critical pedagogy. I’m also a departmental advisor who’s eager to help students to formulate and realize their goals at Cal State L.A.

As a scholar, I explore the rhetorical and cultural politics of everyday life. I earned my Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at the Claremont Graduate University, where I studied rhetoric and public argumentation, critical social theory, human rights, social movement theory, political philosophy, and the sociology of urban community. I recently published a book entitled Global Humanitarianism: NGOs and the Crafting of Community (Lexington Books, 2005). In it, I examine ways in which contemporary humanitarian-based nongovernmental organizations attempt to shape understandings of “community” in a globalized world. I’m currently at work on a new book entitled The Ludic Imagination: The Poetics and Politics of Play in Everyday Life.

D. Robert DeChaine, E&T 416, 343-4199, ddechai@calstatela.edu

Dionne Espinoza was raised in the San Gabriel Valley cities of Alhambra and El Monte. She received her Ph.D. in English at Cornell University. At CSULA, she holds a joint appointment as Associate Professor in the Departments of Liberal Studies and Chicano Studies. She teaches the following courses in the Women’s and Gender Studies curriculum of the Department: WOMN 203, “Gender and Race in the United States,” WOMN 400, “Women’s and Gender Studies: Theories and Methods,” and WOMN/LAS/CHS 482, “Latin American Women’s Movements.”

She has published essays on Chicana/o youth culture, feminism, and the women’s participation in the Chicano movement (el movimiento) of the 1960s & 1970s. She is completing a manuscript, Revolutionary Sisters: Chicana Activism and the Organizational Politics of the Chicano Movement, 1965-1975, which draws upon print media and oral history to tell the stories of women activists in the context of the gender politics of cultural nationalist organizations of the period. Her research interests include documenting and analyzing 1) the role of women activists and gender discourses in the contemporary immigrant rights movement in Los Angeles; 2) transnational antiviolence organizing and women’s movements in Latin America, and 3) the history/theory/practice of Chicana, women of color, and U.S. Third World feminisms and solidarities.

She serves as Director of the Center for the Study of Genders and Sexualities; Chair of the Advisory Board for the Minor in Women’s and Gender Studies; and Coordinator of the General Education Upper Division Theme “C” (Gender Theme).

Dionne Espinoza, KH C4035, 343-5348, despino@calstatela.edu

Alejandra Marchevsky is an Associate Professor of Liberal Studies and Co-Director of the Rockefeller Humanities Residency Program at Cal State L.A. She received her PhD in American Culture from the University of Michigan. Her research interests include Latino/a Studies, Urban Studies, globalization, immigration, welfare policy, and labor. She is the co-author of "Not Working: Latina Immigrants, Low-Wage Jobs, and the Failure of Welfare Reform" (NYU Press, 2006).

Alejandra Marchevsky, E&T 411, 343-5810, amarch@calstatela.edu

 

I'm a native Californian who is happy to be back home teaching and conducting research in the department of Liberal Studies. My training is in English and American literatures, composition, and science studies, but my work spans a number of additional fields.

I teach courses that help students to develop their understanding of the disciplines, while helping them to build knowledge across disciplinary boundaries. I teach all of the courses in the Liberal Studies core (301, 360, 454, 489, and 490). I also teach LBS 380 (Introduction to Cultural Studies), LBS 410 (Race, Nationality, and Popular Culture), LBS 420 (Science, Culture, and Representation), and LBS 421 (Gender, Science, and Representation).

I am currently working on several projects. My book project is entitled The Nuclear Frontier: Darwinism, Race, and Nuclear Apocalypse Narrative in American Culture. My book looks at how Darwinist narratives of race and progress have influenced stories about nuclear apocalypse in American culture. I am involved with a Rockefeller Foundation Grant to CSU Los Angeles entitled "Becoming and Belonging: The Alchemy of Identity in the Multiethnic Metropolis." I also am involved with the CSU Los Angeles Center for the Study of Genders and Sexualities and the CSU Los Angeles American Communities Project. My work and research is most deeply concerned with the cultural studies of science and technology, race, and gender.

Patrick Sharp, E&T 411, 343-5811, psharp@calstatela.edu

Victor Hugo Viesca is a Los Angeles native who was trained in American Studies at New York University in New York City. His teaching and scholarship draws from the fields of ethnic studies, urban studies, and cultural studies. His work has appeared in the American Quarterly, the British journal Cultural Values, and in a newly published collection of classic and contemporary writings on popular culture titled Popular Culture: A Reader (Sage, 2005). Professor Viesca is also the co-founder of the urban art and skateboard company UN SK8's which provides after-school workshops for middle school youth in Boyle Heights. Victor was recently awarded a UC President's Post-Doctoral Fellowship which he will use to revise his dissertation, “Chicana/o Youth Culture in Post-Industrial Los Angeles: Race, Space, and Migration in the Greater Eastside,” into a book.

Victor Viesca, FA 358, 343-4185, vviesca@calstatela.edu

Michael Willard holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota. His teaching, research, and publications focus on popular/youth culture and racial formation in Los Angeles of the past and present. He co-edited Generations of Youth: Youth Cultures and History and Sports Matters: Race, Recreation, and Culture. His articles have appeared in American Quarterly and edited collections on popular culture and American cultural history.

Michael Willard, E&T 416, 343-4135, mwillar@calstatela.edu

Yvonne Lee is the Administrative Support Coordinator for the Department of Liberal Studies.

Yvonne Lee, Administrative Coordinator, E&T 405, 323-343-4100, ylee@cslanet.calstatela.edu