Four professors join CLASS as senior scholars

Four professors will join the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in August as tenured members of the faculty.

Tenure at the University of Houston is awarded by the Chancellor of the University of Houston
System and President of the University of Houston, upon the recommendation of the Provost, which is based on recommendations initiated by departments and reviewed carefully by the colleges, the University Promotion and Tenure Committee, and the Provost.

Joining the Department of English will be Dr. Michael D. Snediker, a poet and American literature scholar, and Peter Turchi, the former director of Creative Writing at Arizona State University.

Dr. Jason Casellas, a scholar who specializes in Latino representation in U.S. politics, will join the Department of Political Science.

Adam Noble, an acting, movement and combat expert, will join the School of Theatre & Dance.

Learn more about the new senior scholars joining CLASS below:

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

Michael D. Snediker, Associate Professor

Michael D. Snediker is a poet and literary scholar who comes to UH from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario where he was a Queen’s National Scholar Associate Professor of American Literature. His first book, Queer Optimism: Lyric Personhood and Other Felicitous Persuasions, was nominated for Phi Beta Kappa’s Christian Gauss Award, the Modern Language Association’s First Book Prize, and the Alan Bray Memorial Book Award. His second book, Contingent Figure: Aesthetic Duress from Nathanial Hawthorne to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, is under advance contract with the University of Minnesota Press. Dr. Snediker completed his Ph.D. and M.A. in American Literature from Johns Hopkins University. His academic experience also includes working as a visiting assistant professor at both Mount Holyoke College and Smith College. Dr. Snediker enjoys teaching thematic courses across media and disciplines on topics such as friendship, precariousness, and cliché. He looks forward to teaching these sorts of courses at UH.

Peter Turchi, Professor

Peter Turchi is an award-winning author whose accolades include the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and The North Carolina Literary and Historical Association’s Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction. His latest project, “A Muse and A Maze: Writing, Puzzles, Magic, and Mystery” is anticipated to be complete in 2014. This will be Mr. Turchi’s second stint at UH, having served as a visiting professor in the UH Department of English in 2006. Mr. Turchi earned his BA at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, and his MFA at the University of Arizona. He had served as Director of Creative Writing at Arizona State University since 2008.

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Jason P. Casellas, Associate Professor

Jason P. Casellas comes to UH from the University of Texas where he spent the past seven years as Assistant Professor of Government & Mexican American Studies. Dr. Casellas’ expertise is in American politics, and his specific research interests include Latino politics, legislative politics, state and local politics, and public policy. His book, Latino Representation in State Houses and Congress, was published in 2011. Dr. Casellas earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University and he worked as an Honorary Research Fellow and Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Sydney, United States Studies Centre in Australia. His dissertation won third place in a nationwide, inter-disciplinary competition for the best dissertation given by The American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) and Educational Testing Service (ETS). Currently, Dr. Casellas is a member of the Texas Advisory Committee of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

SCHOOL OF THEATRE & DANCE

Adam Noble, Associate Professor

Adam Noble joins UH from Indiana University where he had served as Assistant Professor, Acting, Movement & Combat since 2007. For over 15 years, Mr. Noble has been a professional actor and movement specialist. Over the course of his career, Mr. Noble has worked with numerous organizations in various capacities including the Actor’s Playground Theatre, Julliard/InterArts, and the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival. The core of Mr. Noble’s work involves continually exploring and refining a holistic performer training that calls upon the total abilities of an actor. His areas of interest include stage combat, Shakespearean verse, solo-show playwriting and performance, circus arts and improvisation. Mr. Noble earned his MFA from the University of Washington and is the recipient of numerous awards including the Trustee’s Teaching Award from Indiana University.