Faculty Profiles

Undergraduate and graduate students work closely with dedicated multidisciplinary core faculty and affiliated faculty to develop knowledge of WGS theories and methods through an investigation of the issues, questions, and tasks deemed central to feminist inquiry.

Core Faculty

Leslie Rebecca Bloom

Associate Professor, Educational Leadership & Women's and Gender Studies

PhD, Indiana University

Qualitative and feminist research methodologies; social inequality; women, poverty, and social policies; and community organizing and activism

WGS Related Courses:

• WGS 404: Women, Social Class, and Social Policy

Carrie Brecke

Instructor, English & Women’s and Gender Studies and Writing Center Director

MA, University of Illinois at Chicago

Contemporary feminist theories and pedagogy; ecofeminism; activism; gender, sexuality, and literature; literature and politics of LGBT communities

WGS Related Courses:

• WGS 210 Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies
• WGS 304/404 Gender, Race, and Environmental Justice
• WGS 495 Internship in Feminist & Critical Pedagogy at the Writing Center
• WGS 404 Feminist Theories of the Body
• WGS 304/404 Feminist Theories of Violence 

Ann Brigham

Associate Professor, English & Women’s and Gender Studies 

PhD, English, University of Arizona

http://sites.roosevelt.edu/abrigham

Gender, sexuality, and American culture; contemporary feminist theories; gender, space and place; 20th and 21st-century American women’s literature

WGS Related Courses:

• ENG 328/428 Gender & the Politics of Mobility in 20th-century Fiction
• WGS 402 Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies
• WGS 404 Gender, Sexuality, and Popular Culture
• WGS 404 Gender, Sexuality, and Space

Regina Buccola

Associate Professor, English & Women’s and Gender Studies  

PhD, English, concentration in Women’s Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago

http://sites.roosevelt.edu/rbuccola

Feminist performance; early modern women's writing; feminist theatre theory; British and American 20th-century feminist drama

WGS Related Courses:

• ENG 310/410 Early Modern Women Writers
• WGS 304/404 Feminist Theories of Performance                     

Jeffrey Edwards

Associate Professor, Political Science & Women’s and Gender Studies and Political Science and Public Administration Department Chair 

PhD, Political Science, University of Minnesota

http://sites.roosevelt.edu/jedwards

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer politics; relationships between sexualities and urban political economy

WGS Related Courses:

• POS 312/412 The Politics of Lesbian and Gay Communities
• POS 367/467 Social Movements
• WGS 404 Feminist Theories of Identity Politics

Marjorie Jolles

Assistant Professor, Women's and Gender Studies

PhD, Philosophy, concentration in Women's Studies, Temple University

http://sites.roosevelt.edu/mjolles

Feminist philosophy, with emphasis on theories of subjectivity, agency, the body, and ethics; media and cultural studies; sexuality studies

WGS Related Courses:

• WGS 210 Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies
• WGS 304/404 Global Feminist Ethics
• WGS 404 Feminism and Western Philosophy
• WGS 404 The Body: Agency, Pain, Desire
• WGS 495 Internship in Teaching Women's and Gender Studies

Ellen O’Brien

Associate Professor, English & Women’s and Gender Studies 

PhD, English, University of Connecticut

http://sites.roosevelt.edu/eobrien

Postcolonial feminism; global feminism; women's poetry and poetics; 19th and 20th-century British literature; cultural representations of gendered crimes and sexual violence

WGS Related Courses:

• ENG 315/415 Contemporary Irish Women's Writing and the Politics of Gender
• ENG 342/442 Imagining Terror
• WGS 210 Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies
• WGS 404 Comparative Feminisms: India, Morocco, and the United States 

Affiliated Faculty

Jill Coleman

Assistant Professor of Psychology & Women’s and Gender Studies

PhD, Social Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

 http://sites.roosevelt.edu/jcoleman/

 Gender stereotypes and self-stereotyping; attitudes about relationship violence and prevention; representations of gender and violence in the media

 WGS related courses:

            PSYC 345/445 Psychology of Women

Sandra Frink

 Associate Professor, History

Affiliated Faculty, Women’s and Gender Studies

 PhD, History, University of Texas at Austin

 http://sites.roosevelt.edu/sfrink/

 Cultural history and geography of the United States; history of women, gender and sexuality; race and ethnicity in the Atlantic World; popular culture

 WGS Related Courses:

• HIST 383/483: History & Politics of Women in the U.S. 

Pamela Robert

Associate Professor of Sociology

Affiliated Faculty, Women’s and Gender Studies

 PhD, Sociology, University at Albany, SUNY

 Organization and delivery of health care, maternal-child health, comparative health care systems, and disability and workforce issues

WGS Related Courses:

• SOC 381/481: Family and Kinship
• SOC 360/460: The Body
• SOC 381/481: Reproductive Justice