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Muir College Writing Program

Instructor Biographies

Winter 2024

 

Andrea Carter holds a PhD in Education with a focus on feminist pedagogy and student resistance and has taught at a variety of colleges and universities. She has participated in the National Writing Project, the NCTE, and the AERA. She recently published her first in a series of young adult murder mystery novels. Her most recent work was published in the San Diego Poetry Annual, 14 Hills and The Big Windows Review.

Jennifer Carter completed an MA in Liberal Arts & Sciences, focusing her research on gender, popular culture, sociology, ethnic, and LGBTQ studies. She also holds a BA in English Literature and Women's Studies and is a German-English translator. In addition, Jennifer has taught for several college campuses and her writing has appeared in various publications, which culminated in the founding of The California Journal of Women Writers

Melinda Guillen is a writer, curator, and Ph.D. in Art History, Theory, and Criticism in the UCSD Department of Visual Arts. Her dissertation, tentatively titled, "Don't Need You: Conceptual Art, Feminism, and Estrangement" focuses on the work of curator Lucy R. Lippard and artists Lee Lozano and Adrian Piper during the 1960's and 1970's. She specializes in Postwar American Contemporary Art and Feminist Theory. She has also published essays and presented on panels in other areas including socially engaged art criticism, art & technology, urban studies, social movements, DIY culture, and humor as a critical device.

Erik Homenick is a PhD candidate in Literature. His scholarly interests include representations of monstrosity in literature and films as well as the narrative/semiotic potential of music in films. Erik's doctoral dissertation will focus on the outstanding narrative importance of music, especially by the composer Akira Ifukube, in Godzilla films. Erik also holds an M.A. in French and has taught the language at various institutions of higher learning, including UC San Diego and San Diego State University.

Jarret Krone completed an MA degree in Composition and Rhetoric at CSU Chico and since has worked as a lecturer in writing and rhetoric at both CSU Channel Islands and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. He also worked as assistant director of the Writing & Multiliteracy Center at CSU Channel Islands. His scholarly interests include digital pedagogy, digital rhetoric, multimodal composition, and writing center studies. 

Trung T. Le was a lecturer of British and American literature at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. He is completing his doctoral studies at University of California, San Diego. His current research focuses on migrating subjects of irony in the literature and history of Vietnamese refugees.

Elizabeth Miller has a Ph.D. in Art History, Theory, and Criticism from UC San Diego and an M.A. in Art and Museum Studies from Georgetown University. She has worked for a number of arts initiatives, non-profit organizations, and museums over her graduate and professional career, and she has been teaching and tutoring writing since 2005, when she first gained employment as an undergraduate writing tutor at Arizona State University's Learning Resource Center. Her dissertation, “The U.S. Imagination of Maya Ruins—Critical Reflections on American Art and Architecture 1839-1972,” unpacks historical treatments of indigenous America by addressing various examples of Anglo-American cultural production that draw upon ancient Mesoamerican architecture. Elizabeth's research focuses on the intersections between geography, art, and politics, and her interests include 19th and 20th century art of the Americas, focusing on works of fine arts and architecture that have contributed to the mythologies of the broadly American landscape.

Michael Morshed writes crime novels around bringing opportunities to the disenfranchised. He also created and writes for a website (roykeaneismydaddy.com) that tells narrative and analytical stories about soccer.

Vince Pham received his PhD in Art History, Theory, and Criticism from UCSD in 2021. A specialist in British culture, portraiture, and museology, he has since begun a research project on communities of modernist Vietnamese painters in Hanoi from the 1990's. His forthcoming publication, "Turning the Crank: The Performance of Empire through Tipu's Tiger" will appear via Johns Hopkins University Press' Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture late 2024. When he's not teaching, he can be found road cycling through San Diego county or avidly playing Magic: The Gathering.

Pamela Redela holds a PhD in Spanish Language, Literature, and Culture with an emphasis in Feminist Studies and teaches in the Muir College Writing Program at UC San Diego.  She is a retired faculty from California State University, San Marcos where she taught Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies for 18 years.  Her research focuses on the complexities of gender, feminist activism, Ecofeminism, and intersectional analysis and her teaching includes an emphasis on mindfulness as an avenue for building empathy and increased personal awareness.  Her publications explore dimensions of identity in the pursuit of a purposeful life and focus on fiction writing as a form of advocacy.   Her passion is educating and empowering her students to be agents of cultural change. 

Kelly Silva recently completed her PhD in History from the University of California San Diego. Her dissertation, "To Serve and To Heal: Native Peoples, Government Physicians, and the Rise of a Federal Indian Health Care System, 1832-1883," charts the origins, expansion, and bureaucratization of a federal Indian health care system throughout the nineteenth century. She is currently researching and writing about medical interactions between the Ho-Chunk and U.S. army surgeons during the Black Hawk War of 1832.

Haydee Smith specializes in LGBTQ+ memoirs and media, Disability Studies, and how personal narratives propel social justice communities and movements.  She has published about Pop Cultural icons like Xena: Warrior Princess and is currently negotiating a détente with her cat about to whom the couch belongs.  

Felicity Yin is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History, Theory, and Criticism in the Visual Arts Department. She has taught courses on non-Western art. She also has been researching and presenting on topics focusing on the intersections between art, media culture, and politics in 20th century China.