Faculty
Gerri Brightwell
Director of Creative Writing; Professor
English Department
844 Gruening Building

Dr. Richard Carr
UAF Writing Center Director; Professor
English Department
816 Gruening Building

Chris Coffman
English Department Chair; Professor
English Department
824 Gruening Building

Daryl Farmer
Associate Professor
English Department
846 Gruening Building

Eileen M. Harney
Assistant Professor
English Department
814 Gruening Building


Joseph Holt
Term Assistant Professor
English Department
864 Gruening Building

Sara Eliza Johnson
Assistant Professor
English Department
820 Gruening Building

Wendy M. Whitehead Martelle
Assistant Professor
English & Linguistics Departments
Brooks 306D and Gruening 866



Sarah Stanley
Director of Composition; Associate Professor
English Department
812 Gruening Building
In Memoriam: Burns Cooper
The English Department mourns the passing of G. Burns Cooper, Professor of English,
after several weeks of hospice care at home surrounded by his family on October 17,
2020. Dr. Cooper arrived at UAF in 1990 as the English Department’s specialist in
linguistics. The author of numerous articles and a book on poetry—Mysterious Music: Rhythm and Free Verse (Stanford University Press, 1998)—Dr. Cooper eventually moved into the field of Forensic
Linguistics while continuing to teach a wide variety of courses in language and literature.
His kind, thoughtful, and collegial presence made him an effective mentor for new
faculty and a respected leader within the College of Liberal Arts, where he served
as Chair of the English Department (2009-2010), Chair of the Linguistics Program,
Interim Chair of Foreign Languages, and Interim Dean (2010-2011). The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner recently published Dr. Cooper's obituary.
Emeriti Faculty
Name | Specialty and Degree |
---|---|
Susan Blalock |
19th and 20th Century British literature, Narrative Theory Ph.D., University of Texas, 1983 |
Mark Box |
Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century British Literature, Romantic-era British Literature D. Phil., Oxford University, 1985 |
Comparative Literature, African Studies, Psychoanalytic Theory PhD., The Graduate School of The City University of New York, 1984 |
|
Nineteenth-century British Literature, Literary Criticism Ph.D., State University of New York Binghamton, 1975 |
|
Dramatic Writing; Filmmaking (Documentary and Ethnographic); former Curator of Film
at the University of Alaska Museum of the North |
|
Janis Lull |
Shakespeare and 17th century British Literature Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 1983 |
Creative Writing, Poetry MFA, University of Iowa, 1967 |
|
Native American Literature, Alaska Native Oral Narrative
M.A. (English), Purdue University, 1972
Ph.D. (English), U. of New Mexico, 1981
|
|
Early American Literature, Holocaust Literature M. Phil., Cambridge University, 2000 |
|
Creative Writing, Poetry MFA, Arizona, 1979 |
|
Creative Writing, Fiction M.F.A., University of Arkansas, 1981 |
|
Russell Stratton |
Medieval literature and Chaucer Ph.D., The University of Southern Mississippi, 1979 |
Cynthia Walker |
20th-Century British Literature Ph.D., Purdue University, 1974 |