The College of Humanities is pleased to welcome new faculty for the upcoming academic year.
“These are outstanding scholars who represent the breadth and diversity of Humanities scholarship and teaching,” said Dorrance Dean Alain-Philippe Durand. “Their expertise in languages and cultures around the world will further our mission of graduating students equipped with the skills they need to succeed on the global job market.”
Lawrence N. Berlin, Director
Center for English as a Second Language (CESL)
Lawrence N. Berlin is the incoming Director of the Center for English as a Second Language. An international educator and researcher, he holds a Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching from the University of Arizona, an M.A. in Foreign Languages from West Virginia University and a B.F.A. in Drama from New York University. Most recently, he has been working as an independent consulting professor based in Medellin, Colombia. From 2000-2017 he served as a Professor of TESOL at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, serving successively as Coordinator of the English Language Program, Interdisciplinary Coordinator of the First-Year Experience Program, Chair of the Department of Anthropology, Linguistics, Philosophy, and TESOL, and then simultaneously as the Director of International Programs and Director of the School for the Advancement of English Language Learning, which he founded. From 2018 to 2021, he served as the Academic Director of Languages at EAFIT University in Medellin, Colombia, where he spearheaded the renovation of the curriculum and teaching method across 8 languages, and in 2022 he served as Senior English Language Specialist at the National Academy for Educational Management of the Ministry of Education in Dhaka, Bangladesh where he led the faculty of English language teacher trainers in the redesign of English language teacher training for secondary education across the country. He has demonstrated expertise in teacher training, program and project development and management, curriculum design and innovation, grant writing, and strategic planning, and presented and published widely on English language teaching, pragmatics, and political discourse analysis.
Colin Law, Visiting Lecturer
Department of Religious Studies and Classics
Colin Law’s academic background in Religious Studies includes an M.A. from the University of Georgia and a Ph.D. from the University of Ottawa. Dr. Law’s research explores the intersections of religion, politics, culture, and civic space. His current project utilizes an interdisciplinary approach exploring U.S. history, American civil religion, symbolic representations of identity, and the contentious debates surrounding monuments and memorials. He is particularly interested in how civil and religious sacred sites construct cultural identities and practices. Additionally, he examines material religion, investigating how religious objects and artifacts influence religious beliefs and practices. Through Dr. Law’s research, he aims to uncover how space and place shape religious experiences and contribute to the broader understanding of cultural and religious dynamics.
Matthew M. Mars, Professor
Department of Public and Applied Humanities
Matt Mars is an interdisciplinary scholar who teaches and writes about community innovation and the influence of market narratives on everyday life and routines. Prof. Mars’ research is published in a diverse range of journals that span sociology, marketing, community development, and higher education. Some examples of the journals he has published in include Community Development, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Higher Education, Marketing Theory, and Minerva. Prof. Mars’ current work explores the influence of visual narratives on the creation and identities of local consumption spaces, whether they be coffee shops, craft breweries, or farmers’ markets. Prof. Mars is currently the Co-Editor of Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Growth series (Emerald), Associate Editor of Community Development, and a member of the editorial board of Local Development & Society.
Prof. Mars has received multiple teaching awards and recognitions including being named Dorrance Scholarship Program Professor of Excellence in Teaching (2017-present), the USDA/APLU Excellence in College and University Teaching Award – Western Region (2020), and the APLU Innovative Teaching Award (2018).
Prof. Mars earned his PhD through the Center for the Study of Higher Education at The University of Arizona. He also holds an MEd in Counseling and Human Relations from Northern Arizona University and a BA in Sociology and Anthropology from Utica College of Syracuse University.
Victoria Meyer, Associate Professor of Practice
Associate Director of Interdisciplinary Studies Program
Dr. Victoria N. Meyer is the incoming Associate Director of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program for the College of Humanities. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Arizona before earning her Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia. For the past several years she has supported University of Arizona initiatives in the Near You Network and served as the Director of Distance Initiatives for the College of Humanities generally and for the Interdisciplinary Studies specifically. Her research and teaching interests cover the history of medicine and public health, gender and sexuality, health humanities, and the histories of the early modern world, and modern Europe.
André Pettman, Assistant Professor
Department of French and Italian
Dr. André Pettman holds a Ph.D. in French from Columbia University (2024). He also holds an M.A. in French (2017) and B.A. degrees in French and Psychology (2016) from the University of Arizona. A specialist of contemporary French & Francophone literature, his research interests include critical theory, politics, film studies, and translation. His current book project examines twenty-first-century French literature as a site of radical political imagination. His book project questions the narrow political frameworks through which twenty-first-century French literature continues to be read and demonstrates how radical politics appear in unexpected ways in a period of literature sometimes reduced to the reactionary or the apolitical.
Dr. Pettman is also an active translator whose work focuses on Francophone literatures and cultures. He has co-translated, with Soraya Limare, Assia Djebar’s inaugural speech at l’Académie Française and is currently writing a critical introduction to accompany its publication. His articles and book reviews appear or are forthcoming in French Forum, Nottingham French Studies, Contemporary French and Francophone Studies: SITES, French Studies Bulletin, Modern Language Quarterly, and Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, and an entry in the Dictionnaire Assia Djebar, edited by Maya Boutaghou & Anne Donadey (Paris: Honoré Champion). His translations have appeared in Yale French Studies and in the edited volume Hip Hop en français: An Exploration of Hip-Hop Culture in the Francophone World, edited by Alain-Philippe Durand (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020).
Veronika Williams, Assistant Professor of Practice
Department of Russian and Slavic Studies
Veronika Williams is an educator, mentor, and event planner. Dr. Williams joined the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies as a Lecturer and Event and Recruitment Coordinator in 2020 after working with international students at the Center of English as a Second Language. Dr. Williams received her Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching in 2016 and her MA in Russian Studies in 2010 from the University of Arizona.
Dr. Williams’ primary research focuses on language pedagogy, in particular learner autonomy and language learning strategies. Other areas of interest include methodology in Russian language teaching, intercultural competence, and intersection of Russian language and culture. Currently, Dr. Williams is exploring the connections between Russian rap and politics.
Sarah Matthews, Visiting Lecturer
Department of Russian and Slavic Studies
Sarah Matthews is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Southern California. Her dissertation compares the poetry of Vladislav Khodasevich and T.S. Eliot in the context of European Modernism. She argues that their poetry is a unique lens to reexamine and redefine the relation of the material and the metaphysical. At the University of Southern California, she was awarded the Teresa Wilson Endowed Fellowship for her dissertation and the Teaching Excellence Award for Assistant Lecturers from the Center of Languages and Cultures for her work as an instructor of the Russian language. She is passionate about teaching Slavic language and cultural courses. Ms. Matthews earned her master’s degree in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Southern California in 2021 and two bachelor’s degrees in Russian and English from Brigham Young University in 2019. Her current research interests include Russian poetry, Polish poetry, English poetry, Modernism, ecopoetry, environmental humanities, comparative literature, formalism, structuralism, and religion.